218 JOURNEY FROM Doctor maintains a contrary opinion, on the authority of his friend Captain Lautier*.

It is somewhere at the bottom of the Syrtisf that we must have looked for the monuments erected to the Philseni, had they still been in existence ; it appears however, as we have before mentioned, on the authority of Strabo, that they were no longer extant in the time of that geographer. But if the pillars have disappeared which marked the spot where the brothers were interred, the record of their patriotism still exists in the pages of history ; and the account which has been given of this disinterested sacrifice by Sallust may not perhaps be unacceptable to the reader if. “ At the time (says that * Ed io incline tanto piii a credere quest’ ampia depressione di suolo giungere fine al gran deserto, poiche per quanto posso congetturare dal caramino fatto non sarebbe improbabile che 1’ estremita del golfo si prolungasse assai piu a mezzodi di quel che trovasi nelle raigliori carte, nelle quali non saprei sopra qual fondamento e stata stabilita. E' per me di qualche peso la relazione del Cap. Lautier, il quale non navigb certamente oltre il 30° 27' 1 1" di latitudine, ma da questo punto non iscopri il fondo del golfo, ne v’ era apparenza di prossimita al continente. Ho ferma credenza che migliori osservazioni confermeranno questa mia congettura. — (p. 94.)

+ For Strabo tells us (lib. iii. p. 171), in alluding to the custom practised by the ancients, of erecting columns on particular occasions, that the monuments i-aised to the memory of the Philseni were situated nearly midway in the Syrtis — at least, such is the sense in which we must take this passage, to make it at all consistent with the position allotted to the Philsenean altars in the seventeenth book. Although we may certainly read in the passage we are about to quote, above mentioned, “ midway in the country between the Syrtes" — for the Syrtes are here mentioned in the plural — and this circumstance would otherwise rather tend to confirm the position of the altars in the table of Peutinger (as mentioned by Cellarius, lib. iv. cap. 3, sec. 3.) which is between the two Gulfs of Syrtis. “ At, in Peutingeriana tabula vetusta, (says Cellarius) redacta; hae arse sunt fere ad minorem Syrtim, ut dubitare possis de situ et positione ex tot auctoribus jam descripta.” Strabo’s words are — kou oi (piXaivwv Xsyo/Asvoi /Scu/zoi, Hara zsou, TTiv rojv yzv.

J Bell. Jugurth. (79.)