Strabo Geography 17.3.3

1. Tyrwhitt reads Apellas, for Ophellas of the text. Apellas was a Cyrenaean navigator, whose Periplus is mentioned by Marcianus of Heracleia. There was an Ophellas of Cyrene, who advanced at the head of an army along the coast, to unite himself to Agathocles, who was then besieging Carthage, B. C. 310. He was put to death by Agathocles soon after his arrival, and no Periplus of his said to have existed; his course also to Carthage was by land.

2. A people on the west coast of N. Africa, about the situation of whom Strabo, Pliny, and Ptolemy are in perfect agreement with one another, if the thirty days’ journey of Strabo between them and Lixus on the west coast of Morocco, to the south of Cape Spartel, be set aside, as an error either of his information or of the text; which latter is not improbable, as numbers in MSS. are so often corrupt. Nor is this mere conjecture, because Strabo contradicts himself, by asserting in another place (b. xvii. c. 3. § 7) that the Pharusii had a great desert between them and Mauretania. When Ezekiel prophesies the fall of Tyre, it is said, (xxvii. 10,) The men of Pheres (the common version reads Persia) and Lud and Phut were in thine armies. These Pheres thus joined with Phut, or Mauretanians, and the Ludim, who were nomads of Africa (the Septuagint and the Vulgate understand the Lydians), may be reasonably supposed to belong to the same region. Without the vowel points, the name will represent the powerful and warlike tribe whom the Greeks call Pharusii. Smith, art, Pharusii.