dation; and when the latter proposed that the deputies from Carthage
should either be buried on the spot which they claimed as the
boundary, or allow them to advance as far as they chose on the same
conditions, the Philaeni immediately accepted the terms,- and giving
themselves up to the service of their country, were buried alive on
the spot where the dispute had occurred. On the same spot two
altars were consecrated to their memory by the people of Carthage,
and other honours were also decreed to them-at home -
In the old map of Peutinger (as we have stated above) we find the
Philienean altars placed much farther to the westward in the neighbourhood
of the little Syrtis; but the authorities of Ptolemy}, Strabo,
Pliny, and Mela, are sufficient to fix them in the Greater Syrtis;
and as they are expressly stated by Strabo (lib. 17) to have occurred
before Automata}:, in passing from west to east, we must'supposé
them to have existed somewhere in the tract of country just
* Major Rennell has observed on this subject—■“ At the date of Hannibal’s expedition
to Italy, B. C. 217, the Carthaginian empire extended eastward to the Philse-
nean altars, which stood at the south-east extremity of the Greater Syrtis. The story
of the Philaeni, as it is told, is in some points very improbable. It is^ said th^t the
parties set out from their respective capitals, Carthage and Cyrene, and met at the place
where the altars afterwards stood. Now the altars were situated at about seven-ninths-of
the wav from Carthage towards Cyrene .; and the deception would have been too gross
had it been pretended that the Carthaginian party had travelled seven parts in the nine,
w h i l e the Cyrenean party had travelled no more than two such parts of the way.
Would either party have trusted the other with the adjustment • of the time of setting
out? Perhaps they mutually set out at the opposite extremes of the .territory in dispute,
and not from their respective capitals.”
-J* That is, if we may read the passage in the third book of Strabo, quoted above,
in the sense which we imagine he intended; if not,-he contradicts himself.
J Ej0’ oí (pxXaivwv jScyftoi xai /xe7a. rovrovs AvropjcfXa (pqovqiov, tyvkawijv £%ov, iJgu/xsvov xara
TOV [AV%0V t o v xokvov ntcctros.—- L i b . xvii.
described, since the fortress of Automala is laid down by that geographer
in the bottom of the gulf*. There is a difficulty in reconciling
the accounts of Pliny and Mela on this point; for the Philae-
nean altars are mentioned by the former of these writers as placed
on the eastern boundary of the country of the Lotophagi, which he
lays down in the bottom of the gulff. Mela may be understood to
assign the same position to the altars (although something appears
wanting in the text in this part to connect the two sentences together)
}; but then he makes the Country of the Lotophagi commence
at the Borion (Borehm) Promontorium, and finish at the promontory
of Phycus (answering to Ras Sem), and this will place the Lotophagi
far in the Cyrenaica, and out of the Gulf of Syrtis altogether, which
finishes at the Boreum Promontorium.
I t seems to be with the intention of reconciling these accounts
in some degree, that Cellarius has placed a Boreum Promontorium
and Oppidum in the bottom of the gulf. And he is indeed somewhat
justified in doing so, by the position assigned to a city called
BorCum by Procopius, which is mentioned by that writer as
the most western city of the Pentapolis, and distant about four days
* We have adopted the positions assigned by Strabo to these places, as being more
exactly defined ; and because "it may be presumed that he saw the objects which he
describes, with the exception of the altars of the Philaeni, which he has stated to have
been no longer extant in his time.
•f* Nat. Hist. lib. v. cap. 5.
t Ejus promontorium est. Borion, ab eoque incipiens ora quam Lotophagi tenuisse
dicuntur, usque ad Phycunta (et id promontorium est) importuoso litore pertinet. Arse
ipsfe nomen ex Philaenis fratribus traxere, qui contra Cyrenaicos missi, &c.—-De Situ
Orbis, lib. i. cap. vii.