It must, however, be confessed, that the introduction of Neapolis, in the situation which Pliny has assigned to it, is by no means very easily accounted for. At the same time it is certain, that the position in question is directly in opposition to the authority of Strabo, as well as to that of Scylax and of Ptolemy; who, all of them, identify Neapolis with Leptis Magna, as will be seen by a reference to Cellarius. This author, who insists very properly upon the authority of Strabo, &c., that Neapolis is Leptis Magna, supposes, with Hardouin, that Pliny has adopted the passage above quoted from Mela, whom he censures for having brought together places so distant from each other. But Mela is evidently speaking of the country to the westward of the _Lesser_ Syrtis; of Leptis Parva, and the Neapolis Colonia of Ptolemy, situated near the extremity of the Mercurii Promontorium, in the vicinity of Clypea; so that, although the towns and cities which he enumerates do not come in the proper succession, they all of them belong to the part of the country which he is describing; and not, as Cellarius imagines, to both sides of the river Triton, which would have made a much more serious confusion. It is therefore less easy to imagine whence Pliny has derived his Neapolis, or what is his authority for the order in which he places the other cities of the district; if indeed he intended them to be in order at all, which from his mention of Oea (the civitas Oeensis) conjointly with the river Cinyphus[a], we might probably be authorized in denying. We find _Abrotonum_ also introduced by Cellarius, instead of _Acholla_, in the passage which he has quoted from Mela: the proper reading is—Hadrumetum, Leptis, Clypea, _Acholla_, Taphrure[b], Neapolis, hinc ad Syrtim adjacent, ut inter ignobilia celeberrimæ.] [Footnote a: The Taphrure of Mela must not be confounded with Pliny’s Taphra, which is the same with Graphara or Garapha.] [Footnote b: Mela has however done the same (ultra est Oea oppidum, et Cinypus fluvius, per uberrima arva decidens . . .) and the difficulty is increased by what follows—_tum_ Leptis altera, &c.; both accounts are very confused, and open to much discussion, but this is not the place for it, and we have already perhaps said too much upon the subject.] [Footnote 15: Or rather of a female relation of Consul Tully, to whom the work in question is attributed. It is observed in the same work, “When this arch was built, there were few habitations nearer this place than Lebida, the Leptis Magna of the ancients;” and farther on, “the Romans strayed to the spot where Tripoly now stands, to hunt wild beasts; and under this arch they found a welcome retreat from the burning rays of the sun.” But the arch was erected after the middle of the _second_ century; and both Sabrata and Oea were extant in the time of Pliny, who flourished in the middle of the _first_,—the conclusion is obvious.] CHAPTER III.