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 necessary 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 Euphrantas 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 ‘Tcoanycoqtav' — (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.)

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