(2.) At the present day the length of Bætica, from the town of Castulo[941], on its frontier, to Gades is 250 miles, and from Murci, which lies on the sea-coast, twenty-five miles more. The breadth, measured from the coast of Carteia, is 234 miles. Who is there that can entertain the belief that Agrippa, a man of such extraordinary diligence, and one who bestowed so much care on his subject, when he proposed to place before the eyes of the world a survey of that world, could be guilty of such a mistake as this, and that too when seconded by the late emperor the divine Augustus? For it was that emperor who completed the Portico[942] which had been begun by his sister, and in which the survey was to be kept, in conformity with the plan and descriptions of M. Agrippa. CHAP. 4. (3.)—OF NEARER SPAIN. The ancient form of the Nearer Spain, like that of many other provinces, is somewhat changed, since the time when Pompey the Great, upon the trophies which he erected in the Pyrenees, testified that 877 towns, from the Alps to the borders of the Farther Spain, had been reduced to subjection by him. The whole province is now divided into seven jurisdictions, those of Carthage[943], of Tarraco, of Cæsar Augusta[944], of Clunia[945], of Asturica[946], of Lucus[947], and of the Bracari[948]. To these are to be added the islands, which will be described on another occasion, as also 293 states which are dependent on others; besides which the province contains 179 towns. Of these, twelve are colonies, thirteen, towns with the rights of Roman citizens, eighteen with the old Latian rights, one confederate, and 135 tributary. The first people that we come to on the coast are the Bastuli; after whom, proceeding according to the order which I shall follow, as we go inland, there are the Mentesani, the Oretani, and the Carpetani on the Tagus, and next to them the Vaccæi, the Vectones, and the Celtiberian Arevaci. The towns nearest to the coast are Urci, and Barea[949] included in Bætica, the district of Mavitania, next to it Deitania, and then Contestania, and the colony of Carthago Nova; from the Promontory of which, known as the Promontorium Saturni[950], to the city of Cæsarea[951] in Mauritania, the passage is a distance of 187 miles. The remaining objects worthy of mention on the coast are the river Tader[952], and the free colony of Ilici[953], whence the Ilicitanian Gulf[954] derives its name; to this colony the Icositani are subordinate.