402 pltbt's natural histobt, [Book V. 



miles. In this district is Apis^ a place rendered famous by 

 tlie religious belief of Egypt. From this toAvn Paraetonium 

 is distant sixty -two miles, and from thence to Alexandria 

 the distance is 200 miles, the breadth of the district being 

 169. Eratosthenes says that it is 525 miles by laud from 

 Cyrene to Alexandria; while Agrippa gives the length of 

 the whole of Africa from the Atlantic Sea, and including 

 Lower Egypt, as 3040 miles. Polybius and Eratosthenes, 

 who are generally considered as remarkable for their extreme 

 correctness, state the length to be, from the ocean to Great 

 Carthage 1100 miles, and from Carthage to Canopus, the 

 nearest mouth of the Nile, 1628 miles ; while Isidorus speaks 

 of the distance from Tingi to Canopus as being 3599 miles. 

 Artemidorus makes this last distance forty miles less than 

 Isidorus. 



CHAP. 7. (7.) — THE ISLAITDS IN THE VICINITY OF AFEICA. 



These seas contain not so very many islands. The most 

 famous among them is Meninx', twenty-five miles in length 

 and twenty-two in breadth: by Eratosthenes it is called 

 Lotophagitis. This island has two towns, Meninx on the 

 side whicn faces Africa, and Troas on the other ; it is situate 

 off the promontory which lies on the right-hand side of the 

 Lesser Syrtis, at a distance of a mile and a half. One hun- 

 dred miles from this island, and opposite the promontory 

 that lies on the left, is the free island of Cercma*, with a 



* This was a seaport town on the northern coast of Africa, probably 

 about eleven or twelve miles west of Paraetonium, sometimes spoken of 

 as belonging to Egypt, sometimes to Marmorica. Scylax places it at the 

 western boundary of Egypt, on the frontier of the Marmaridse. Ptolemy, 

 like Pliny, speaks of it as being in the Libyan Nomos. The distances 

 given m the MSS. of Pliny of this place from Paraetonium are seventy- 

 two, sixty-two, and twelve miles; the latter is probably the correct 

 reading, as Strabo, B. xvii., makes the distance 100 stadia. It is extremely 

 doubtful whether the Apis mentioned by Herodotus, B. ii. c. 18, can be 

 the same place : but there is Httle doubt, from the words of Pliny here, 

 that it was dedicated to the worship of the Egyptian god Apis, who was 

 repi'esented under the form of a buU. 



* Now called Zerbi and Jerba, derived from the name of G-irba, which 

 even in the time of Aurelius Victor, had supplanted that of Meninx. It 

 is situate in the Gulf of Cabes. According to Solinus, C. Marius lay in 

 concealment here for some time. It was famous for its purple. See 

 B. ix. c. 60. ' Now called Kerkeni, Karkenah, or Kamlah. 



