Note 14 — Chapter II

This reading of Ptolemy, as will appear from the passage which we have quoted above from 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 Sabrata, this author observes, in speaking of the country which lies between the Great and Lesser Syrtis, “Ibi civitas Oensis, Cynips fluvius ac regio, oppida, Neapolis, Taphra, Abrotonum, Leptis altera, quæ cognominatur magna.”—(Hist. Nat. lib. v. cap. 5.) Here we find Neapolis mentioned immediately after Oea, and distinguished from Leptis Magna. “Io crederei,” says Signor della Cella, “che sia piu conforme al vero, l’ammettere che Tripoli degli antichi geografi debba riconoscersi nelle rovine che trovansi a ponente de Tripoli tuttora chiamato Tripoli Vecchio. Pare che l’abbandono, qualunque ne fosse la cagione, di questa città, desse luogo alla formazione di quella che attualmente ne porta il nome, e che in quell’ epoca fu chiamata Tripoli il nuovo, o la nuova città, e da’ Greci Νεαπολις. In questa opinione consente la vera lezione di Tolommeo, ove leggesi Νεαπολις ἡ καὶ Τριπολις. (Neapoli che dicesi anche Tripoli.) Ho detto la vera lezione di Tolommeo, perchè io ho per apocrifa quella adottata dal Cellario, dove in vece di Τριπολις, avendo sostituito Λεπτις, tutto rimane alterato e confuso. Con Tolommeo concorda Plinio che ha per due città diverse Neapoli e Leptis Magna, e tra queste due tramette Gaffara e Abrotano; e Plinio, per le cognizione che poteva attinger nella città, e ne’ tempi ne’ quali scriveva, merita sopra ogni altro credenza intorna alla geografia di questa parte dell’ Africa.”—(Viaggio da Tripoli, &c. p. 41.)

It will not here be very evident how the modern town of Tripoly can, on the authority of Pliny, be supposed to be the same with Neapolis. For Tripoly is identified by the best authorities with Oea; and Neapolis is mentioned, in the passage alluded to, as situated between Oea and Taphra, (the Graphara and Garapha of Scylax and Ptolemy.) But supposing it to be, as Signor della Cella has stated, that the decay of the “Tripoli degli antichi geografi” had really given occasion to the building of the present one, under the title he has conferred upon it of Neapolis; it follows that the former city must have borne the name of Tripolis in the time of Pliny, who, so far from knowing any town of that name, does not even recognise the district under the title.

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.