[441] Theocritus, _Idylls_, XVII. lines 90-102.--Athenæus (V. 36, p. 284) and Appian, _Preface_, § 10, give the details of this fleet.--Ptolemy IV. Philopator went so far as to construct a ship of forty ranges of rowers, which was 280 cubits long and 30 broad. (Athenæus, V. 37, p. 285.) [442] Herodotus, IV. 199. The plateau of Barca, now desert, was then cultivated and well watered. [443] The most important object of commerce of the Cyrenaica was the _silphium_, a plant the root of which sold for its weight in silver. A kind of milky gum was extracted from it, which served as a panacea with the apothecaries and as a seasoning in the kitchen. When, in 658, Cyrenaica was incorporated with the Roman Republic, the province paid an annual tribute in silphium. Thirty pounds of this juice, brought to Rome in 667, were regarded as a miracle; and when Cæsar, at the beginning of the civil war, seized upon the public treasury, he found in the treasury chest 1,500 pounds of silphium locked up with the gold and silver. (Pliny, XIX. 3.) [444] Diodorus Siculus, III. 49.--Herodotus, IV. 169.--Athenæus, XV. 22, p. 487; 38, p. 514.--Strabo, XVII. iii. 712.--Pliny, _Natural History_, XVI. 33; XIX. 3. [445] Pindar, _Pythian Odes_, IV. 2.--Athenæus, III. 58, p. 392. [446] Diodorus Siculus, XVII. 49. [447] Aristotle, _Politics_, VII. 2, § 10. [448] Josephus, _Jewish Antiquities_, XIII. 12, § 2, 3. [449] Ælian, _History of Animals_, V. lvi.--Eustathius, _Comment. on Dionysius Periegetes_, 508, 198, edit. Bernhardy. [450] Strabo, XIV. 6.--Pliny, _Natural History_, XXXIV. 2. [451] Virgil, _Æneid_, I. 415.--Statius, _Thebais_, V. 61. [452] Strabo, X. 4. [453] Polybius, XIII. 8. [454] Cretan mercenaries are found in the service of Flamininus in 557 (Titus Livius, XXXIII. 3), in that of Antiochus in 564 (Titus Livius, XXXVII. 40), in that of Perseus in 583 (Titus Livius, XLII. 51), and in the service of Rome in 633. [455] _Iliad_, II. 656. [456] Polybius, XXX. 7, year of Rome 590. [457] Strabo, XIV. 2. The town of _Rhoda_ in Spain, establishments in the Baleares, _Gela_ in Sicily, _Sybaris_ and _Palæopolis_ in Italy, were Rhodian colonies. [458] This happened especially at the epoch when the famous Colossus of Rhodes fell, and when the town was violently shaken by an earthquake. Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, Ptolemy, king of Egypt, Antigonus Doson, king of Macedonia, and Seleucus, king of Syria, sent succours to the Rhodians. (Polybius, V. 88, 89.) [459] We see, in fact, with what care the Rhodians spared their allies on the coast of the Pontus Euxinus. (Polybius, XXVII. 6.) [460] Polybius, IV. 38. [461] Strabo, VII. 4. [462] Titus Livius, XXXIII. 18.