TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 
31 
poli fu edificata da gli Africani, dopo la rovina della Vecchia Tri- 
poli” — without any allusion whatever to the circumstance of its 
having been originally a Eoman city. 
Whatever may be the earhest authority for this supposition, it 
appears to be evidently founded on an imperfect knowledge of the 
place ; for if there were even no reason for supposing Tripoly to be 
Oea, we must still have allowed it Roman origin ; or at least we 
must have admitted it to have been in existence at the time when 
the Romans held the country. The Roman arch, which has been 
given in the work of Captain Lyon, is sufficient to establish this cir- 
cumstance; and the inscription which it bears, also given in the same 
publication, and mentioned in the Memoirs of Consul Tully * 
refers this edifice to the time of Marcus Aurelius. In stating that 
Tripoly was built by the Africans, after the ruin of Tripoli Vecchia, 
we might have imagined that Leo only meant to allude to its re-con- 
struction under the Mahometans ; but from the circumstance of his 
having just before mentioned Tripoli Vecchia, as a city which was 
built by the Romans, it seems to be probable that, had he been 
* Or rather of a female relation of Consul Tully, to whom the woi-k in question is 
attributed. 
It is observed in the same work, “ When this arch was built, there were few habita- 
tations nearer this place than Lebida, the Leptis Magna of the ancients and farther on, 
“ the Romans strayed to the spot where Tripoly now stands, to hunt wild beasts ; and 
under this arch they found a welcome retreat from the burning rays of the sun.” But 
the arch was erected after the middle of the second century ; and both Sabrata and Oea 
were extant in the time of Pliny, who flourished in the middle of the first , — the conclu- 
sion is obvious. 
