564 
MERGE TO GYRENE. 
been spared for their adherence to the family of Battus. The 
cruelties of Pheretime were visited upon her as those of Herod were 
afterwards punished ; for we are told that she was eaten alive by 
worms, and died in the greatest torments. 
The account which has descended to us of Cyrene and Barca, (with 
that of the various tribes of Northern Africa,) from the pen of the 
father of history, concludes with the death of Pheretime ; which is 
believed by Herodotus to have been a judgment of the gods for the 
cruelties of which she had been guilty. 
From this time the Cyreneans as well as the Libyans, with whom 
they appear to have been intermixed, are little alluded to in history 
till the conquest of the Persian empire. W e are informed by Aristotle 
that, in his time, Cyrene was a republic ; and we may perhaps suppose 
that, on the extinction of the family of Battus, that form of govern- 
ment took place which had been recommended by Hemonax; 
although the Cyreneans may possibly have been tributary to, or 
under the protection of, Persia, xlt the period when the dispute 
concerning the limits of the countries took place between the people 
of Cyrene and Carthage, we may presume, from the account trans- 
mitted of it by Sallust, that democracy was the established form of 
government at Cyrene ; and Strabo has informed us, that the 
Cyreneans continued to be governed by their own laws, till the 
reduction of Egypt by the Macedonians. After the death of 
Alexander, Cyrene became the prey of contending adventurers, and 
was at length delivered into the hands of Ptolemy by Ophelias ; 
although that general is supposed to have obtained for himself the 
