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This city was built by a party of Sidonians, who, as I have understood, being driven from their country through civil dissensions, came by sea into those parts of Africa. It is situated between the two Syrtes, which take their name from their nature.1 These are two gulfs almost at the extremity of Africa,2 of unequal size, but of similar character. Those parts of them next to the land are very deep; the other parts some-times deep and sometimes shallow, as chance may direct; for when the sea swells, and is agitated by the winds, the waves roll along with them mud, sand, and huge stones; and thus the appearance of the gulfs changes with the direction of the wind.
Of this people, the language alone3 has been altered by their intermarriages with the Numidians; their laws and customs continue for the most part Sidonian; which they have preserved with the greater case, through living at so great a distance from the king's dominions.4 Between them and the populous parts of Numidia lie vast and uncultivated deserts.
1 LXXVIII. Which take their name from their nature] “Quibus nomen ex re inditum.” From σύρειν, to draw, because the stones and sand were drawn to and fro by the force of the wind and tide. But it has been suggested that this etymology is probably false; it is less likely that their name should be from the Greek than from the Arabic, in which sert signifies a desert tract or region, a term still applied to the desert country bordering on the Syrtes. See Ritter, Allgem. vergleich, Geog. vol. i. p. 929. The words which, in Havercamp, close this description of the Syrtes, " Syrtes ab tractu nominate," and which Gruter and Putschius suspected not to be Sallust's, Cortius omitted; and his example has been followed by Müller and Burnouf; Gerlach, Kritzius, and Dietsch, have retained them. Gerlach, however, thinks them a gloss, though they are found in every manuscript but one.
2 Almost at the extremity of Africa] “Prope in extremâ Africâ.” “"By extremâ Africa Gerlach rightly understands the eastern part of Africa, bordering on Egypt, and at a great distance from Numidia."” Kritzius.
3 The language alone] “Lingua modò.”
4 From the king's dominions] “Ab imperio regis,” “"Understand Masinissa's, Micipsa's, or Jugurtha's."” Bernouf.
Sallust. The Jugurthine War. Rev. John Selby Watson, M.A. New York and London. Harper & Brothers. 1899.
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