name which either town assumed after the loss of those which formerly
distinguished them. Trkblis would have been known to the
nations of Europe as the same name with that of Tripolis; and they
would naturally have written the term like that of the district, whenever
there might have been occasion to mention it, Supposing this
to be the case, we may fairly assume, that" the name of Tripolis
was never given by the ancients at all to either of the cities in
question; and that it is only, in fact, since the Mahometan conquest
that the name of the district has been applied to them.
This appears to be more probable when we consider that the title
of—The district of the three cities—as Tripolis must be translated,
would be a very unappropriate term for a single town, although it
might be well applied to a department. Such an objection, however,
would by no means appear to the Mahometan invaders of the country,
who may certainly be imagined to have been ignorant of the
language from which the word in question is compounded; and they
would discover no reason why the former name of the district might
not be a proper one for their new town.
We have not been at the pains to search minutely into this question,
which would probably receive light from the writers of the Lower
Empire; and we offer the conjectures which we have hazarded above,
in the absence of more decided information. At the same time,
however, it may here be remarked, that the propriety of adopting
the word Tripolis, which appears in the printed copies of Ptolemy,
is questioned on very good authority. In support of this assertion
we need only refer our readers to the Fourth Book of Cellarius,
(chap. 3,) where' the question is amply discussed ; and as thé adoption
of this reading, instead of that of Leptis Magria, which appears
to be decidedly the proper one, would create an endless and unnecessary
confusion in the geography of that part of the country which
Hes between Tripoli Vecchia and Lebida, we have thought it not
irrelevant to allude to it *.
I t is perhaps the more necessary that we should do so, as Signor Della
Celia has availed himself of the reading above mentioned, and of a passage
which he has quoted from Pliny, to identify the modem town of
Tripoly with Neapolis ; which is too evidently the same town with
Leptis Magna (or Lebida), to admit of any similar arrangement f.
* In hoc tractu autem, post Cinyphum fluvium, prima Ptoleraæo est NeagroXti (Nea-,
polis) de qua, in editis, exstat, fi xai T qwoXis (quæ étiam Tripolis vocatur) : in Palatino
autem codice nihil de Tripoli legitur, sed rt xai .As%ns ¡juiyakrt (quæ, Neapolis, etiam
Leptis Magna dicitur.)—Geog. Antiq. lib. iv. cap. 3. .
I t naay be added, in support of the reading in the Palatine manuscript, that Neapolis
is mentioned by Ptolemy immediately after the Cinyphus, which lies to the eastward of
Leptis Magna ; so that the geographer, in passing, as he does, from east to west, must
be supposed to have omitted Leptis Magna altogether, if Neapolis be not intended to
denote.it.
+ This reading of Ptolemy, as will appear from the passage which we have quoted
above fcom Cellarius, is contradicted by the Palatine manuscript ; and must be rejected
on the authority of Scylax and Strabo, and even of Ptolemy himself.—(See the Fourth
Book of Cellarius). The passage of Pliny is not so easily disposed of. After mentioning
the city of S abrata, this author observes, in speaking of the country which lies between
the Great and Lesser Syrtis, “ Ibi civitas Oensis, Cynips fluvius ac regip, oppida,
Neapolis, Taphra, Abrotonum, Leptis altera, quæ cognominatur magna.”—(Hist. Nat.
Hb. v. cap. 5.) Here we find Neapolis mentioned immediately after Oea, and distinguished
from Leptis Magna. “ Io crederei,” says Signor della Celia, “ che sia pm
conforme al vero, l’ammettere che Tripoli degli antichi geografi debba riconoscersi ne lie
rovine ehè troyansi a ponente de Tripoli tuttora chiamato Tripoli Veçchio. Pare che
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