Kitap 17
3.20
The circuit of the Great Syrtis is about 3930 stadia,See b. ii. c. v. § 20. its depth to the recess is 1500 stadia, and its breadth at the mouth is also nearly the same. The difficulty of navigating both these and the Lesser Syrtis [arises from the circumstances of] the soundings in many parts being soft mud. It sometimes happens, on the ebbing and flowing of the tide, that vessels are carried upon the shallows, settle down, and are seldom recovered. Sailors therefore, in coasting, keep at a distance (from the shore), and are on their guard, lest they should be caught by a wind unprepared, and driven into these gulfs. Yet the daring disposition of man induces him to attempt everything, and particularly the coasting along a shore. On entering the Great Syrtis on the right, after passing the promontory Cephalae, is a lake of about 300 stadia in length, and 70 stadia in breadth, which communicates with the gulf, and has at its entrance small islands and an anchorage. After the lake follows a place called Aspis, and a harbour, the best of all in the Syrtis. Near this place is the tower Euphrantas, the boundary between the former territory of Carthage and Cyrenaïca under Ptolemy (Soter). Then another place, called Charax,Its position, like that of so many places on the Great Syrtis, can hardly be determined with certainty. A full discussion of these localities will be found in Barth’s Wanderungen. which the Carthaginians frequented as a place of commerce, with cargoes of wine, and loaded in return with silphium and its juice, which they received from merchants who brought it away clandestinely from Cyrene; then the Altars of the Philaeni;About the middle of the fourth century, B. c., according to a story in Sallust, these monuments commemorated the patriotic sacrifice of two Philaeni, Carthaginian envoys. after these Automola, a fortress defended by a garrison, and situated in the recess of the whole gulf. The parallel passing through this recess is more to the south than that passing through Alexandreia by 1000 stadia, and than that passing through Carthage by less than 2000 stadia; but it would coincide with the parallel passing, on one side, through Heroopolis, which is situated in the recessGulf of Suez. of the Arabian Gulf, and passing, on the other, through the interior of the territory of the Masaesylii and the Mauretanians. The rest of the sea-coast, to the city Berenice,Ben Ghazi. Berenice previously bore the name Hesperides, which name seems to have been derived from the fancy which found the fabled Gardens of the Hesperides in the fertile terraces of Cyrenaïca. is 1500 stadia in length. Above this length of coast, and extending to the Altars of the Philaeni, are situated an African nation called Nasamones. The intervening distance (between the recess of the Syrtis and Berenice) contains but few harbours, and watering-places are rare.
