MERGE TO GYRENE. 41] including the whole of the mountainous district of the Cyrenaica ; and Scylax, after mentioning the islands Aedonia and Plataea, informs us that, heyond these (in passing from east to west) are the regions which produce the silphium. We may also infer from a passage in Arrian*, that the silphium extended itself over the whole of the fertile part of the Cyrenaica to the confines of the desert which hounds it ; since he tells us that the fertility of this country continued as far as the limits of the silphium itself, and that heyond these boundaries all was desert and sandy. Theophrastus also observes that the silphium was found in the Cyrenaica, and that the greater portion of it was produced from the country of the Hesperides in the parts about the Greater Syrtisf. It appears to have sprung up in the grass, or pasture lands, as the plant we have mentioned above also does, and the sheep are reported to have been so fond of it that by Herodotus comprehends the whole of the Cyrenaica, and there is no mention on other occasions of this term as substituted either for Pentapolis or Cyrenaica, with which it would, however, be synonymous if the reading proposed were adopted. We will not venture to dispute a point of this nature with a writer of Mr. Beloe’s talents and judgment ; but there does not (on the whole) appear to be, in our estimation, any reason why to 2i>.ipiov, in the first passage quoted, should not be translated Silphium, (the plant;) or why the words toj aiX(piio in the one last mentioned should not be supposed to mean exclusively the place, or region, in which silphium is produced * Axx’ V T»!S- AiSuvis £V rots suxorsoois WEWoXiff/iASvii, mtions re tan xsci fj.aXBax.'n, K0C.I tuiAos, x.txi aXatx Ktx.i Xstf/,ct)vis, Jtai Ttavraiajv xat xrmseov wa[/.<poos, ts rt tm rov atXtptov rats tKlpvasis' to oiXiov, ra, avu avrns triiatc/c xoli l/atfA/jia/Ssa. — (Hist. Ind. cap. xliii.)

■f Tottov St TToXvv STirtti rvts AiQv'fts. TlXtico yag naiv ri rsrpotaytXtat arotSiat. ra. nXtma St yevau&ai oragi rr)ti Xupnv aaco rm EvtaarttSm (Theophrast. irtqi vrm. L. iv. c. iii.)

® For a great many curious and valuable remarks on the silphium, in which the origin of the term is also alluded to, see the comments on Theophrastus by Johan. Bodaeus at the end of the account of the plant. — (Theopb. Fol, Anist. 1644.)

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