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All the geographers agree in placing the Nasamones on the shores of the Greater Syrtis. Augila (c. 182; hod. ‘Audschila’) is an important oasis in the latitude of Cyrene, on the caravan route to Fezzan; it is still a great centre of date production. Pacho (p. 280) says H.'s descriptions are ‘tellement fidèles qu'elles pourraient encore servir à décrire l'Augile moderne’, and works out in detail the correspondences. Rohlfs (Tripolis nach Alex. ii. 49) estimated the palms as over 200,000 in 1869, but in 1879 found them much less numerous (K. p. 220).

αὐήναντες. For the eating of locusts (ἀττελέβους) cf. Matt. iii. 4 of John the Baptist. Diod. iii. 29 gives a description of the ‘locusteaters’ in Africa, a ‘marvellously black’ race, who live only on this food, and die before they are forty by a disgusting death brought on by it. The chapter is a significant contrast to H.'s veracity. Duveyrier (p. 240) says the Tuaregs eat locusts ‘dried and reduced to powder’.


ἐπίκοινον: cf. i. 216. 1 n. for polyandry among the Massagetae. H. here describes, not very clearly, a curious form of groupmarriage. Strabo (783) describes an Arabian tribe where the whole family enjoys wives in common; there also the ῥάβδος is used as the sign of possession (cf. W. Robertson Smith, K. A.2 p. 157 seq., for this ‘Ba'al polyandry’).


τύμβων. For this divination in the tombs cf. Duveyrier, p. 435; the women of the Tuaregs inquire among the tombs as to their absent husbands. For dream oracles in general cf. viii. 134 n.


Shaw (i. 431, 3rd ed.) says that the drinking out of each other's hands is the only ceremony used by the Algerines in their marriage; cf. the story of Eleazar and Rebecca for an approach to this idea (Gen. xxiv. 14, 43).

σποδοῦ. So the Mahometan law permits ablutions to be done with sand if water is lacking; cf. Tylor, P. C. ii. p. 440.

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    • Diodorus, Historical Library, 3.29
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