336 BENGAZI.

dens of the Hesperides, we have pointed out all that now' occurs to us of any interest in the neighbourhood of the town of Bengazi ; and we submit these suggestions to the judgment of others better qualified than ourselves to decide the points in question.

It appears to have been from Berenice, the daughter of Magas, who was married to Ptolemy Philadelphus, that the city of Hesperis changed its ancient name into that which afterwards distinguished it But the name of Berenicidm, which seems to have been conferred upon the inhabitants of this part of the Cyrenaica, was not by any means generally adopted ; for we find that these people continued notwithstanding to be called by their former appellation of Hesperides. It is, however, somewhat singular that Pomponius Mela, wBo flourished towards the middle of the first century, and nearly a hundred years after the extinction of the dynasty of the Lagides, should have mentioned this city under its ancient name of Hesperis only ; while he gives its Ptolemaic name, Arsinoe, to Teuchira, and distinguishes the port of Barca by its appellation of Ptolemaisf. Yet the name of Berenice continued to be used by other writers long after the age of Mela ; and Pliny, who flourished nearly at the same time with this geographer, mentions the city of the Hesperides by that title. It is probable that a name of such poetical celebrity as that which gave place to Berenice was not easily laid aside by the lovers of literature ; and we find that Ptolemy thought * B£|sv()ciSai alia Bsevmss rm Mayas' huyotnos, yuvMx.os 5s kou TlroXEf/.MQv, <uvo/xa6r)>jav BsgsvDtiSai 01 S'«pi.oTai. (Steph. Byzant. ■v.)

t Urbes Hesperia, Apollonia, Ptolemais, Arsinoe, atque (unde terris nomen est) ipsa Gyrene. (De Situ Orbis, Lib. i. c. 8.)