TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 
171 
So little is mentioned by any writer (with whose works we ourselves 
are acquainted) of the buildings contained in the Syrtis, that it will 
for the most part be difficult to assign any other name to the remains 
of forts and towns at present existing there, than those by which the 
Arabs of the country now distinguish them. Charax is pointed 
out by Strabo as occurring after the tower of Euphrantas ; but 
before the position of this town can be ascertained, it will be neces- 
sary to decide upon that of the tower itself, which, in a country 
presenting a continued chain of forts from one extremity to 
the other, is by no means very easily established. The Philseni * 
villa is also offered to our notice; but its position must depend 
upon that of the Philacnean altars, which we are told by Pliny 
were merely of sand, and which we know were not remaining in the 
time of Strabo f. 
W ere it not that a more eligible position for the tower of Euphran- 
tas occurs further eastward, at a place called Bengerwad, in the 
neighbourhood of Houdea, we should have been inchned to adopt 
Med met Sultan as a port where the tower might very well be looked 
for ; and the circumstance of its being nearer to Zaffran (which we 
have already given our reasons for identifying with Aspis) would 
* The ^tXaivov Tteu/j.yi (of Ptolemy) v(p’ nv oi ogiov A<pgix»ir — between 
which and Charax, his nuixn, Ptolemy has however laid down some inconsiderable 
places. 
■f Ov yaq vi/v 01 (piXaivwy /xevovcti ^aifxoi aXX’ o ronos iJ,sreiK'/)(ps rm ‘Tc^oanycoqtav' — (Lib. iii. 
P- 171-) 
In intimo sinu fuit ora Lotophagon, quos quidam Alachroas dixere, ad Philseiiorum 
Aras: ex harena sunt eae. — (Nat. Hist., lib. v. c. 5.) 
Z 2 
