MERGE TO GYRENE. 
41] 
including the whole of the mountainous district of the Cyrenaica ; 
and Scylax, after mentioning the islands Aedonia and Plataea, informs 
us that, heyond these (in passing from east to west) are the regions 
which produce the silphium. We may also infer from a passage in 
Arrian*, that the silphium extended itself over the whole of the fertile 
part of the Cyrenaica to the confines of the desert which hounds it ; 
since he tells us that the fertility of this country continued as far as 
the limits of the silphium itself, and that heyond these boundaries 
all was desert and sandy. Theophrastus also observes that the 
silphium was found in the Cyrenaica, and that the greater portion of 
it was produced from the country of the Hesperides in the parts 
about the Greater Syrtisf. It appears to have sprung up in the 
grass, or pasture lands, as the plant we have mentioned above also 
does, and the sheep are reported to have been so fond of it that 
by Herodotus comprehends the whole of the Cyrenaica, and there is no mention on other 
occasions of this term as substituted either for Pentapolis or Cyrenaica, with which it 
would, however, be synonymous if the reading proposed were adopted. We will not ven- 
ture to dispute a point of this nature with a writer of Mr. Beloe’s talents and judgment ; 
but there does not (on the whole) appear to be, in our estimation, any reason why to 
2i>.ipiov, in the first passage quoted, should not be translated Silphium, (the plant;) or 
why the words toj aiX(piio in the one last mentioned should not be supposed to mean 
exclusively the place, or region, in which silphium is produced 
* Axx’ V T»!S- AiSuvis £V rots s^uxorsoois WEWoXiff/iASvii, mtio^ns re tan xsci fj.aXBax.'n, 
K0C.I tuiA^os, x.txi aXatx Ktx.i Xstf/,ct)vis, Jtai Ttavraiajv xat xrmseov wa[/.<po^os, ts rt tm rov atXtptov 
rats tKlpvasis' to oiX^iov, ra, avu avrns t^riiatc/c xoli ^l/atfA/jia/Ssa. — (Hist. Ind. cap. xliii.) 
■f T^ottov St TToXvv STirt^ti rvts AiQv'fts. TlXtico yag ^naiv ri rsrpotay^tXtat arotSiat. ra. nXtma St 
yevau&ai oragi rr)ti Xupnv aaco rm Evtaart^tSm (Theophrast. irtqi ^vrm. L. iv. c. iii.) 
® For a great many curious and valuable remarks on the silphium, in which the origin of the term is 
also alluded to, see the comments on Theophrastus by Johan. Bodaeus at the end of the account of the 
plant. — (Theopb. Fol, Anist. 1644.) 
3 G 2 
