Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/191

Chap. 3.] ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, &C. 157 Julium ; Selambina^ ; Abdera- ; and Murci^, which is at the boundary of BcTtica. M. Agrippa supposed that all this coast was peopled by colonists of Punic origin. Beyond the Anas, and facing the Atlantic, is the country of the Bastuli'* and the Turditani. M. Varro informs us, that the Iberians, the Persians, the Phoenicians, the Celts, and the Carthagi- nians spread themselves over the whole of Spain ; that the name " Lusitania" is derived from the games (lusus) of Father Bacchus, or the fury (lyssa^) of his frantic attendants, and that Pan® was the governor of the whole of it. But the traditions respecting Hercules^ and Pyrene, as well as Satimi, I conceive to be fabulous in the highest degree. The Bsetis does not rise, as some writers have asserted, near the toTi of Mentisa^, in the province of Tarraco, but in the Tugiensian Eorest^ ; and near it rises the river Tader^", which waters the territory of Carthage". At Ilorcum^- it ville says the present Torre de Banas ; others have suggested the town of Motril. ^ Now Salobrena. 2 Either the present Adra or Abdera : it is uncertain which. 3 Probably the present Mujacar. D'Anville suggests Ahneria. ^ Also called Bastitani, a mixed race, partly Iberian and partly Phoe- nician. 5 The Greek Ay (To-a, "frantic rage" or "madness." The etymologies here suggested are puerUe in the extreme. 6 Plutarch, quoting from the Twelfth Book of the Tberica of Sosthenes, tells us that, " After Bacchus had conquered Iberia [the present Spain], he left Pan to act as his deputy, and he changed its name and called the country Pania^ after himself, which afterwards became corrupted into Spania." ^ He aUudes to the expedition of Hercules into Spain, of which Dio- dorus Siculus makes mention ; also his com'tship of the nymph Pyrene, the daughter of Bebryx, who was buried by him on the Pyrenajan mountains, which thence derived their name. '^ It is unknowTi where this town was situate ; Hardouin and D'An- viUe think it was on the site of the present village of San Thome, once an episcopal see, now removed to Jaen. The people of Mentisa, men- tioned in c. 4, were probably inhabitants of a ditferont place. D Anville in his map has two Mcntisas, one ' Oretana,' the other ' Bastitana. 9 According to D'Anville, the place now called Toia. W Now the Segura. ^^ 'Nova' or 'New' Carthage, so called fi*om liaving b(x>n originally foimded by a colony of Carthaginians B.C. 242. It was situate a Httlo to the west of the Satumi Promontorium, or Promontory of Palos. It was taken by Scipio Africanus the elder B.C. 210. ^ The present Lorca.