TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 27 (chap. 3,) where the question is amply discussed ; and as the adoption of this reading, instead of that of Leptis Magna, which appears to be decidedly the proper one, would create an endless and unnecessary confusion in the geography of that part of the country which lies between Tripoli Vecchia and Lebida, we have thought it not irrelevant to allude to it It is perhaps the more necessary that we should do so, as Signor Della Celia has availed himself of the reading above mentioned, and of a passage which he has quoted from Pliny, to identify the modern town of Tripoly with Neapolis ; which is too evidently the same town with Leptis Magna (or Lebida), to admit of any similar arrangement f.

* In hoc tractu autem, post Cinyphum fluvium, prima Ptoleraseo est (Neapolis) de qua, in editis, exstat, rt kou TgiTroXiy (quae etiam Tripolis vocatui-) : in Palatine autem codice nihil de Tripoli legitur, sed v xa! Asitrts ixiyaXri (quae, Neapolis, etiam Leptis Magna dicitur.) — Geog. Antiq. lib. iv. cap. 3.

It may be added, in support of the reading in the Palatine manuscript, that Neapolis is mentioned by Ptolemy iimnediately after the Cinyphus, which lies to the eastward of Leptis Magna ; so that the geographer, in passing, as he does, from east to west, must be supposed to have omitted Leptis Magna altogether, if Neapolis be not intended to depote it.

+ This reading of Ptolemy, as will appear from the passage which we have quoted above from Cellarius, is contradicted by the Palatine manuscript ; and must be rejected on the authority of Scylax and Strabo, and even of Ptolemy himself. — (See the Fourth Book of Cellarius). The passage of Pliny is not so easily disposed of. After mentioning the city of Sabrata, this author observes, in speaking of the country which lies between the Great and Lesser Syrtis, “ Ibi civitas Oensis, Cynips fluvius ac regio, oppida, Neapolis, Taphra, Abrotonum, Leptis altei'a, qupe cognominatur magna.” — (Hist. Nat.

lib. V. cap. .j.) Here we find Neapolis mentioned immediately after Oea, and distinguished from Leptis Magna. “ lo ci'ederei,” says Signor della Celia, “ che sia piu conforme al vero, 1 ammettere che Tripoli degli antichi geografi debba riconoscersi nelle rovine che trovansi a ponente de Tripoli tuttora chiamato Tripoli Vecchio. Pare che