Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/56

38 HISTORY OF GREECE. operated in ancisnt times to hold the nomadic Libyans in a sort of dependence on Kyrene and Barka. Kyrene appropriated the maritime portion of the territory of the Libyan Asbystae ; l the Auschisae occupied the region south of Barka, touching the sea near Hesperides, the Kabales near Teucheira in the territory of Barka. Over the interior spaces these Libyan Nomads, with their cattle and twisted tents, wandered unrestrained, amply fed upon meat and milk, 2 clothed in goatskins, and enjoying better health than any people known to Herodotus. Their breed of horses was excellent, and their chariots or wagons with four horses could perform feats admired even by Greeks : it was to these horses that the princes 3 and magnates of Kyrene and Barka often owed the success of their chariots in the games of Greece. The Libyan Nasamones, leaving their cattle near the sea, were in the habit of making an annual journey up the country to the Oasis of Augila, for the purpose of gathering the eastward of Gyrene on the sea-coast, is amply provided with water (ch. xvi, p. 471). About Kyrene itself, Captain Beechey states : " During the time, about a fortnight, of our absence from Kyrene, the changes which had taken place in the appearance of the country about it were remarkable. We found the hills on our return covered with Arabs, their camels, flocks, and herds ; the scarcity of water in the interior at this time having driven the Bedouins to the mountains, and particularly to Kyrene, where the springs afford at all times an abundant supply. The corn was all cut, and the high grass and luxuriant vegetation, which we had found it so difficult to wade through on former occasions, had been eaten down to the roots by the cattle." (ch. xviii, pp. 517 520.) The winter rains are also abundant, between January and March, at Bengazi (the ancient Hesperides) : sweet springs of water near the town (ch. xi, pp. 282, 315, 327). About Ptolemeta, or Ptolemais, the port of the ancient Barka, ib. ch. xii, p. 363. 1 Herodot. iv, 170-171. irapa'Xia ofybSpa evdaifiuv. Strabo, ii, p. 131. rrohvuT/hov KOI noAvKapTtoruTaf xdovbs, Pindar. Pyth. ix, 7. 1 Herodot. iv, 186, 187, 189, 190. No/wdef Kpso<f>ir/oi Knl ya^.anTO-KOTai Pindar, Pyth. ix, 127, 'nrxevTai No/zuJef. Pompon. Mela, i, 8. 3 See the fourth, fifth, and ninth Pythian Odes of Pindar. In the description given by Sophokles (Electra, 695) of the Pythian contests, in which pretence is made that Orestes has perished, ten contending chariots are supposed, of which two are Libyan, from Barka : of the remaining eight, one only comes from each place named.