17. Res postulare videtur Africae siturn paucis exponere et eas gentes, quibuscum nobis bellum aut amicitia fuit, attingere. Sed quae loca et nationes ob calorem aut asperitatem, item solitudines minus frequentata[119] sunt, de iis haud facile compertum narraverim; cetera quam paucissimis absolvam. In divisione orbis terrae plerique in parte tertia[120] Africam posuere, pauci tantummodo Asiam et Europam esse, sed Africam in Europa.[121]Ea fines habet ab occidente fretum nostri maris et Oceani,[122] ab ortu solis declivem latitudinem,[123] quem locum Katabathmon incolae appellant. Mare saevum, importuosum, ager frugum fertilis, bonus pecori, arbore infecundus, coelo terraque penuria aquarum. Genus hominum salubri corpore, velox, patiens laborum; plerosque senectus dissolvit, nisi qui ferro aut bestiis interiere; nam morbus haud saepe quemquam superat; ad hoc malefici generis plurima animalia. Sed qui mortales initio Africam habuerint, quique postea accesserint, aut quomodo inter se permixti sint, quamquam ab ea fama, quae plerosque obtinet, diversum est, tamen uti ex libris Punicis, qui regis Hiempsalis dicebantur, interpretatum nobis est, utique rem sese habere cultores ejus terrae putant, quam paucissimis dicam.[124] Ceterum fides ejus rei penes auctores erit. [119] _Frequentata sunt_, 'they have been frequented.' The participle is in the neuter, the subjects being both animate and inanimate. _Asperitas_ refers to the inaccessible nature of mountainous districts. [120] Other editions have _in partem tertiam_, and this deviation from the common mode of speaking (which is to use _pono_ with _in_ and the ablative) commentators explain by the remark, that the division was not yet made, but only supposed. But the Latin language knows of no such distinction. [121] In the earliest times, before the earth was divided into three parts, it was rather customary to consider Africa, especially Egypt and the countries about the Nile, as belonging to Asia. To connect Africa with Europe could only have been an idea of those who divided the earth into an eastern and a western half, and did not know the vast extent of Africa to the south. [122] _Fretum_, &c.; that is, the Fretum Herculeum, or the Straits of Gibraltar. It is clear that Sallust wants to state only the northern frontier of Africa on the Mediterranean, and the frontiers in the east and west. The extent of Africa southward was too little known to him to speak about it. [123] 'The inclined plain,' or, as the geographer Mela says, 'the valley which inclines towards Egypt.' The length of this valley extends from south to north as far as the Mediterranean, and in the upper part it separates the immense desert in the west from the oasis in the east, which is considered as a part of Egypt. The easternmost country in Africa on the Mediterranean was Cyrenaica. It is therefore quite