402 
PTOLEMETA TO MERGE. 
part of the country alluded to by Arab writers as the territory of 
Barca. Barca, under the Arabs, was a considerable province, but it 
suffered materially from the tyranny of Yazouri and a great part 
of its inhabitants abandoned their country and established them- 
selves in Egypt and other places. Many of the emigrants settled in 
Alexandria ; but when that city was afterwards laid waste by the 
plague, in the dreadful manner described by Abd’ Allatif, more than 
twenty thousand persons quitted it for Barca, and the province again 
assumed a flourishing appearance f. # 
The city known by the Arabs under the name of Barca never 
appears to have been (in their time) of any importance ; but the 
ancient city so called was (after Cyrene) the most considerable town 
of the Cyrenaica ; and continued to flourish down to the time of the 
Ptolemies when it appears to have been eclipsed by Ptolemais. Its 
inhabitants were celebrated, like those of Cyrene, for their skill in 
the management of horses and chariots ; the former of which arts 
they are said to have received from Neptune, the latter from 
Minerva; which is stating in other words that at a very early period 
nothing was known of the origin of this custom in Africa. In the 
age of Pindar the Cyrenaica was still celebrated for its excellent 
^ Yazouri was Grand Khadi and governor of Egypt and Barca, in the i-eign of the 
Caliph Mostanser-Billah. He was stripped of these posts, and of that of Vizier, which 
he also held, in the year 450. 
+ This author relates, that he himself was credibly informed, that on 07ie single day 
(a Friday) the Imam at Ale.\andria had read the funeral service over seve7i hundred people ! 
— and that, in the space of a month, the same property had passed to fourteen persons 
who inherited it in succession. 
