TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 
255 
“is about nine hundred and thirty stadia*; and its diameter, 
at the bottom of the Gulf, is one thousand five hundred stadia : 
the breadth of the entrance (or mouth) is about the same | 
that is, about fifteen hundred stadia. Here we have a circum- 
ference considerably less than its diameter, and no way of 
getting rid of a difficulty so formidable to mathematicians, with- 
out making such decided alterations in the text as no sober- 
minded editor would hazard:]:. Various readings have been 
given, by different commentators, of this passage ; but it will be 
useless to compare their several merits; since both the measure- 
ments in question will be found to be no less inconsistent with the 
truth than they have been seen to be with each other. For the 
* The stade of Strabo has been estimated by Major Reiinell, in his admirable treatise 
on the itinerary stade of the Greeks, at 700 to a geographical degree ; and 930 stades 
will, on this computation, be equal to 100|® Roman miles, or 80-^^^ geographic miles. 
While the dimensions of the diameter, 1500 stades, will be equal to 162| Roman 
miles, or geographic. 
■f" H Ss /AEya^r, ^uqris tov /aev ituuXov ara^ico-u EvvctKoaiwv rqiaxovra itov' rm sm rc/v 
fj,v^ov Sja/AET§ov HciflscKomajv' roaovrov ttov xai to tov irToptaror tiXoctos . — Lib. xvii. 
p. 385. 
f In the second book, however, the measurements given by Strabo are more consist- 
ent ; for he tells us that the circumference of the Greater Syrtis is (according to Erato- 
sthenes) five thousand stadia, or 428^„^u geographic miles'’; and its depth, from the 
Hesperides to Automala, and the limits of the Cyrenaica, one thousand eight hundred, 
or 154i-„®iy geographic miles. Others, he adds, make the circumference four thousand 
stadia, ■342./’J’g^ geographic miles ; and the depth one thousand five hundred stadia, or 
128-j'’gg geographic miles; the same, he says, as the breadth of the gulf at its moutli. — 
Lib. xi. p. 123. 
® 4’he jjeogTa{)liif:al and Homan miles differ (says Shaw, on the authority of D'Anville) as GO is to 75|, 
that is, 60 geographical miles and 75J Roman miles are equal to one degree of a great circle. 'I'he Ron)an 
mile is consequently one-fifth less than a geographic mile. — Vol. i. p. .30. 
*> At the rate of 700 stades to a degree. 
