146 History of Nature. [BOOK VI. 



was ruined), and leaving there behind him those Soldiers 

 which were not fit for service, ordained that this Town should 

 be called Alexandria ; and the District about it, Pellseum, 

 from his native Country : and he peopled it only with Mace- 

 donians. This Town was destroyed by the Rivers. After- 

 wards, Antiochus, the fifth of the Kings, rebuilt it, and 

 named it from himself. But when it was injured again, 

 Spasines, Son of Sogdonacus, King of the adjoining Arabians, 

 and not (as Juba reporteth) a Lord (Satrap) under Antiochus, 

 restored it by Moles opposite each other, and called it after 

 his own Name. He thus fortified the Site of it three Miles in 

 Length and little less in Breadth. At the beginning it stood 

 upon the Sea-coast, being from the Water-side ten Stadia ; 

 and even from thence it hath false Galleries : but by the 

 Report of Juba, in his Time, 50 Miles. At this Day the 

 Arabian Ambassadors, and also our Merchants that come from 

 thence, affirm it is from the Sea-shore 125 Miles : so that it 

 cannot be found in any Place that the Earth hath gained 

 more, or in so short a Time by means of the Mud brought 

 down by Rivers. And it is the more wonderful, that the 

 Tide which riseth far beyond this Town doth not carry it 

 away again. In this very Town I am not ignorant that 

 Dionysius, the latest of our modern Geographers, was born : 

 whom Divus Augustus sent before into the East to write a 

 Description of whatever he found, for the Information of his 

 elder Son, who was about to proceed into Armenia, in an 

 Expedition against the Parthians and Arabians. It has not 

 escaped me, nor is it forgotten, that in my first Entrance into 

 this Work, I professed to follow those who had written of 

 their own Countries, as being the most diligent in that be- 

 half. Nevertheless, in this Place I choose rather to follow 

 the Roman Officers that have warred there, and King Juba, 

 in Books written to C. Ccesar (Caligula) concerning the 

 aame Arabian Expedition. 



