TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 31 poli fu edificata da gli Africani, dopo la rovina della Vecchia Tripoli”— without any allusion whatever to the circumstance of its having been originally a Eoman city.

Whatever may be the earhest authority for this supposition, it appears to be evidently founded on an imperfect knowledge of the place ; for if there were even no reason for supposing Tripoly to be Oea, we must still have allowed it Roman origin ; or at least we must have admitted it to have been in existence at the time when the Romans held the country. The Roman arch, which has been given in the work of Captain Lyon, is sufficient to establish this circumstance; and the inscription which it bears, also given in the same publication, and mentioned in the Memoirs of Consul Tully * refers this edifice to the time of Marcus Aurelius. In stating that Tripoly was built by the Africans, after the ruin of Tripoli Vecchia, we might have imagined that Leo only meant to allude to its re-construction under the Mahometans ; but from the circumstance of his having just before mentioned Tripoli Vecchia, as a city which was built by the Romans, it seems to be probable that, had he been * Or rather of a female relation of Consul Tully, to whom the woi-k in question is attributed.

It is observed in the same work, “ When this arch was built, there were few habitatations nearer this place than Lebida, the Leptis Magna of the ancients and farther on, “ the Romans strayed to the spot where Tripoly now stands, to hunt wild beasts ; and under this arch they found a welcome retreat from the burning rays of the sun.” But the arch was erected after the middle of the second century ; and both Sabrata and Oea were extant in the time of Pliny, who flourished in the middle of the first, — the conclusion is obvious.