Book 9
Of Garamantians. Here holds his seat
1
(So saith the story) a prophetic Jove,
Wielding no thunderbolts, nor like to ours;
The Libyan Hammon of the curved horn.
No wealth adorns his fane by Afric tribes
Bestowed, nor glittering hoard of Eastern gems.
Though rich Arabians, Ind and Ethiop
Know him alone as Jove, still he is poor
Holding his shrine by riches undefiled
Through time; and pure as gods of olden days
He spurns the wealth of Rome. That here sone god
Dwells, witnesses the only grove
That buds in Libya-for that which grows
Upon the arid dust which Leptis parts
From Berenice, knows no leaves; alone
Hammon uprears a wood; a fount the cause
Which with its waters binds the crumbling soil.
Yet shall the Sun when poised upon the height
Strike through the foliage: hardly can the tree
Protect its trunk, and to a little space
His rays draw in the circle of the shade.
Here have men found the spot where that high band
Solstitial divides in middle skyI.e., where the equinoctial circle cuts the zodiac in its centre. - Haskins.
The zodiac stars: not here oblique their course,
Nor Scorpion rises straighter than the Bull,
Nor to the Scales does Ram give back his hours,
Nor does Astraea bid the Fishes sink
More slowly down: but watery Capricorn
Is equal with the Crab, and with the Twins
The Archer; neither does the Lion rise
Above Aquarius. But the race that dwells
Beyond the fervour of the Libyan fires
Sees to the South that shadow which with us
Falls to the North : slow Cynosura sinks Compare Book III., 294.
For them below the deep; and, dry with us,
The Wagon plunges; far from either pole,
No star they know that does not seek the nain,
But all the constellations in their course
Whirl to their vision through the middle sky.
Before the doors the Eastern peoples stood
