tinued to weaken the country till Ptolemy Apion, on his death, B.C. 96, bequeathed it to the Roman Senate. About twenty years later, after a vain attempt had been made to leave it in the enjoyment of self-government, it was merged into a Roman province in conjunction with Crete. It was, perhaps, in his administration of this quæstorship, that Vespasian first came in contact with the Jews. In the division of the empire, it fell to the share of Constantinople, and was exempt from none of the miseries which afflicted the distant provinces of the empire in its decay. The subsequent desolation of the country is described in the inflated eloquence of his time by the rhetorician Synesius, the Platonist bishop of Ptolemaïs, who, in espousing his church, refused to part with his wife. The nomad tribes gradually regained the ascendancy, driving out the more civilised inhabitants; and from the date of the Arab occupation, which immediately followed the conquest of Egypt, we hear no more of the Cyrenaica, excepting what is given of it in the short notice, which Abulfida has inserted in his Geography, under the head of Barka. It now forms the eastern part of the Turkish pachalik of Tripoli, divided into two prefectures, Benghazi and Derna, which are the only inhabited towns remaining in its whole extent.

The sources of wealth which the Cyrenaica presented

Its trade with the interior

were many and valuable. of Africa, by way of Angila, furnished for exportation ivory, gold, precious stones, ostrich feathers, and slaves -the same products which the triennial caravan from Waday, at the present day, brings to Benghazi. Judging, however, from the accounts of the ancients, from the remains of the splendid caravanserais which we meet with on this route, the trade must have been conducted on a far greater scale than at the present time. Pindar refers to the commercial navy of Cyrene, by means of which an active commerce was carried on with the main land, the islands of Greece, and the coasts of Asia Minor. Of the indigenous produce of this country, the first in rank, both for value and utility, was derived from the silphium, which yielded a gummy juice, the laserpitium, esteemed by the ancients as a remedy for almost every disease. So universal was its fame that it gave a common epithet to the country; and the "Silphium of Battus" is used by Aristophanes as a synonym for exceeding wealth. It was a government monopoly, and in Rome was sold. for an equal weight of silver. It is mentioned, if I mistake not, among the treasures which Cæsar laid hold of at the commencement of the civil wars. Theophrastus and Pliny describe the method of its cultivation, though, from the expressions used by other

authors, it seems to have grown wild in the desert places; but, however obtained, it undoubtedly yielded a large revenue to the country.

The olive flourished with remarkable fruitfulness in its soil; and the immense tracts which are at the present day still covered with it, proves how extensive its cultivation must once have been, and how congenial to it is the soil in which, after ages of neglect, it still flourishes. Its crops of grain were as abundant as those of Mauritius and Sicily, and furnished large exports. During four months of my stay in the country I ate ripe grapes, and in one place I left the halfformed fruit hanging in rich clusters from the vines; so true is the ancient description which, speaking of the various climates of the Cyrenaica, says, that the harvest lasted nine months, beginning in the low grounds, then ascending to the table-lands, and ending in the hills. The flowers of the Cyrenaica were also celebrated, and the ground is still enamelled with a rich flora; the crocus officinalis furnished a considerable article of export, and its roses yielded the finest attar distilled for its Egyptian Queen. The honey almost vied with that of Hymettus, and in some places it is still gathered by the Arabs, who send it in presents to their distant friends. The herds and flocks which Pindar celebrates are still the wealth of

its nomad inhabitants. The breed of horses was remarkable for fleetness and endurance; and the warchariots in which they were harnessed were as celebrated as the skill of the drivers who conducted them.

But the ancients do not confine their praises to the natural productions of the soil. Cyrene was fruitful, also, in men distinguished in the arts and sciences. Architecture and the engraving of precious stones were both carried to great perfection by the Cyrenæans. Of their skill in painting and sculpture few evidences have reached us. It was in the liberal arts that they especially shone; and a long list might be produced of men of letters and science who adorned their birthplace or spread its fame in other lands. The poems of Callimachus, a Cyrenean of noble birth, prove that the noblest exercise of genius was not neglected. But the brightest lustre is shed upon the African Doria by its mathematicians, physicians, and philosophers. Eratosthenes, the poet, philosopher, and geometer, may also be called the Father of Geography. But all are eclipsed by the fame of Aristippus, his daughter Arete, and her son Aristippus (the mothertaught), who founded, and to the third generation sustained, the glory of the Cyrenæan School of Philosophy-a rare, perhaps a singular instance of such mental gifts descending, as it were, by inheritance.

We know the doctrines of this school only by the writings of its adversaries; we are not, therefore, qualified to pronounce judgment upon them. In the original teaching it seems rather to have been a contradiction to the stoic and cynical doctrines, establishing enjoyment as the chief end of man, allied to moral freedom-a philosophical enjoyment, which consists in using all the good things which Providence has showered upon us. This was a doctrine not discordant with the habits and genius of the people with whom it originated. If later disciples of this school contended that the true philosophy of life consists in the pursuits of voluptuousness, or, exaggerating even this doctrine, taught that virtue for itself is despicable, that no Deity exists, and that, since pain cannot be entirely avoided, life itself is detestable-we may regard such aberrations as the declamatory sophistries of ill-regulated genius, not as the real opinions of a school whose first teacher sat at the feet of Socrates.

I shall conclude by mentioning the authors who in modern times have called attention to this country. Our guide in all that relates to its ancient condition is the learned Dane Thrige, who, in his work "Res Cyrenensium," has exhausted all the information that the most ingenious acuteness could extract from the writers of antiquity. Of modern observers, the first in