Geography

​Let us next speak of Libya, which is the remaining part of the whole of geography. Much, indeed, has been said about it before, but even now we must recall what is essential, adding also those things that were not mentioned before. Now, those who divided the inhabited world by continents divided it unequally; for the term “into three” implies three equal parts. But Libya falls so far short of being a third part of the inhabited world that even when put together with Europe it would not seem to equal Asia; and perhaps it is even smaller than Europe, and in power by a great deal indeed. For most of the interior and the part along the ocean is desert, and is dotted with small, scattered, and mostly nomadic settlements. In addition to being a desert, the breeding of wild beasts also drives people out even from the habitable part; and it also occupies a large portion of the torrid zone. Nevertheless, the whole of our coastline between the Nile and the Pillars is prosperously inhabited, especially the part that was under the Carthaginians; though some waterless regions also occur there, such as those around the Syrtes, the Marmaridae, and the Catabathmus. Its shape is that of a right-angled triangle, as one would conceive it on a flat surface, having as its base our coastline from Egypt and the Nile to Maurusia and the Pillars, and as the side at right angles to this the side which the Nile makes as far as Ethiopia, as we extend it as far as the Ocean, and as the hypotenuse subtending the right angle the whole of the coast along the ocean between the Ethiopians and the Maurusians. Now, as for the part near the very apex of the said figure, which already falls somewhat under the torrid zone, we speak of it from conjecture because of its inaccessibility, so that we cannot even state the greatest width of the country. However, we have stated this much in our previous accounts, that to one going south from Alexandria to Meroe, the royal city of the Ethiopians, it is about ten thousand stadia, and from there in a straight line to the boundaries of the torrid zone and the inhabited world another three thousand. Therefore, we must set the same as the greatest width of Libya, namely, thirteen or fourteen thousand stadia, and its length slightly less than double its width. These are the general matters concerning Libya; but we must speak of the particulars, beginning from the western and more famous parts.

​There dwell here the Maurusians, as they are called by the Greeks, but Mauri by the Romans and the natives, a large and prosperous Libyan nation, situated opposite Iberia. Here also is the strait at the Pillars of Hercules, concerning which much has been said. As one goes out of the strait at the Pillars, having Libya on the left, there is a mountain which the Greeks call Atlas and the barbarians Dyris. From this point there projects a certain spur, the westernmost point of Maurusia, called the Koteis. Nearby is also a small town above the sea, which the barbarians call Tringa, but Artemidorus has named Lynga, and Eratosthenes Lixus; it lies opposite Gadeira at a sailing distance of eight hundred stadia, which is the distance that each is distant from the strait at the Pillars. To the south of Lixus and the Koteis lies an adjacent gulf called the Gulf of Emporicus, which has Phoenician commercial settlements. Now, the whole coastline continuous with this gulf is full of gulfs, but if we exclude the gulfs and the projections in accordance with the triangular shape which I have sketched, let the continent be conceived as gaining its increase rather towards both the south and the east. The mountain extending through the middle of Maurusia from the Koteis as far as the Syrtes is inhabited, both itself and other mountains parallel to it, at first by the Maurusians, but deep in the interior of the country by the largest of the Libyan nations, who are called the Gaetulians.