TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 
27 
(chap. 3,) where the question is amply discussed ; and as the adop- 
tion of this reading, instead of that of Leptis Magna, which appears 
to be decidedly the proper one, would create an endless and unne- 
cessary confusion in the geography of that part of the country which 
lies between Tripoli Vecchia and Lebida, we have thought it not 
irrelevant to allude to it 
It 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 pas- 
sage which he has quoted from Pliny, to identify the modern 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 Ptoleraseo est (Nea- 
polis) de qua, in editis, exstat, rt kou TgiTroXiy (quae etiam Tripolis vocatui-) : in Palatine 
autem codice nihil de Tripoli legitur, sed v xa! Asitrts ixiyaXri (quae, Neapolis, etiam 
Leptis Magna dicitur.) — Geog. Antiq. lib. iv. cap. 3. 
It may be added, in support of the reading in the Palatine manuscript, that Neapolis 
is mentioned by Ptolemy iimnediately 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 
depote it. 
+ 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 altei'a, qupe cognominatur magna.” — (Hist. Nat. 
lib. V. cap. .j.) Here we find Neapolis mentioned immediately after Oea, and distin- 
guished from Leptis Magna. “ lo ci'ederei,” says Signor della Celia, “ che sia piu 
conforme al vero, 1 ammettere che Tripoli degli antichi geografi debba riconoscersi nelle 
rovine che trovansi a ponente de Tripoli tuttora chiamato Tripoli Vecchio. Pare che 
