Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/53

INDIGENOUS LIBYAN TRIBES. 35 iency similar to that which Carthage possessed over the more westerly Libyans near the Lesser Syrtis. Within these Kyre- nsean limits, and further westward along the shores of the Great Syrtis, the Libyan tribes were of pastoral habits ; westward, beyond the Lake Tritonis and the Lesser Syrtis, 1 they began to be agricultural. Immediately westward of Egypt were the Adyrmachidae, bordering upon Apis and Marea, the Egyptian frontier towns ; 2 they were subject to the Egyptians, and had adopted some of the minute ritual and religious observances which characterized the region of the Kile. Proceeding west- ward from the Adyrmachidae were found the Giligammse, the Asbystae, the Auschisae, the Kabales, and the Nasamones, the latter of whom occupied the south-eastern corner of the Great Syrtis ; next, the Makae, Gindanes, Lotophagi, Machlyes, as far as a certain river and lake called Triton and Tritonis, which seems to have been near the Lesser Syrtis. These last-men- tioned tribes were not dependent either on Kyrene or on Car- thage, at the time of Herodotus, nor probably during the proper period of free Grecian history, (GOO-300 B.C.) In the third century B.C., the Ptolemaic governors of Kyrene extended their dominion westward, while Carthage pushed her colonies and castles eastward, so that the two powers embraced between them the whole line of coast between the Greater and Lesser Syrtis, meeting at the spot called the Altars of the Brothers Philaeni, so celebrated for its commemorative legend. 3 But even in the sixth century B.C., Carthage was jealous of the extension of Grecian colonies along this coast, and aided the Libyan Maka3 1 The accounts respecting the lake called in ancient times Tritonis are, however, very uncertain : see Dr. Shaw's Travels in Barbary, p. 127. Strabo mentions a lake so called near Hesperidcs (xvii, p. 836) ; Pherekydes talks of it as near Irasa (Pherekyd. Fragm. 33 d. ed. Djdot). s Eratosthenes, born at Kyrene and resident at Alexandria, estimated the land-journey between the two at five hundred and twenty-five Roman miles (Pliny, H. N. v, 6). 3 Sallust, Bell. Jugurth. c. 75 ; Valerius Maximus, v, 6. Thrige (Histor. Cyr. c. 49) places this division of the Syrtis between Kyrene and Carthage at some period between 400-330 B.C., anterior to the loss of the independ- ence of Kyrfing ; but I cannot think that it was earlier than the Ptolerries: compare Strabo, xvii, p. 836