(1.) On our entrance into Africa, we find the two Mauritanias, which, until the time of Caius Cæsar[3234], the son of Germanicus, were kingdoms; but, suffering under his cruelty, they were divided into two provinces. The extreme promontory of Africa, which projects into the ocean, is called Ampelusia[3235] by the Greeks. There were formerly two towns, Lissa and Cotte[3236], beyond the Pillars of Hercules; but, at the present day, we only find that of Tingi[3237], which was formerly founded by Antæus, and afterwards received the name of Traducta Julia[3238], from Claudius Cæsar, when he established a colony there. It is thirty miles distant from Belon[3239], a town of Bætica, where the passage across is the shortest. At a distance of twenty-five miles from Tingi, upon the shores of the ocean[3240], we come to Julia Constantia Zilis[3241], a colony of Augustus. This place is exempt from all subjection to the kings of Mauritania, and is included in the legal jurisdiction of Bætica. Thirty-two miles distant from Julia Constantia is Lixos[3242], which was made a Roman colony by Claudius Cæsar, and which has been the subject of such wondrous fables, related by the writers of antiquity. At this place, according to the story, was the palace of Antæus; this was the scene of his combat with Hercules, and here were the gardens of the Hesperides[3243]. An arm of the sea flows into the land here, with a serpentine channel, and, from the nature of the locality, this is interpreted at the present day as having been what was really represented by the story of the dragon keeping guard there. This tract of water surrounds an island, the only spot which is never overflowed by the tides of the sea, although not quite so elevated as the rest of the land in its vicinity. Upon this island, also, there is still in existence the altar of Hercules; but of the grove that bore the golden fruit, there are no traces left, beyond some wild olive-trees. People will certainly be the less surprised at the marvellous falsehoods of the Greeks, which have been related about this place and the river Lixos[3244], when they reflect that some of our own[3245] countrymen as well, and that too very recently, have related stories in reference to them hardly less monstrous; how that this city is remarkable for its power and extensive influence, and how that it is even greater than Great Carthage ever was; how, too, that it is situate just opposite to Carthage, and at an almost immeasurable distance from Tingi, together with other details of a similar nature, all of which Cornelius Nepos has believed with the most insatiate credulity[3246].