Note 150 Regio ignobilis, ct vix quicquam illustre sortita, parvis oppidis habitatur, parva flumina emittit, solo quam viris melior, et segnitie gentis obscura. Pomponius Mela, i. 5, iii. 10. Mela deserves the more credit, since his own Phoeniclan ancestors had migrated from Tingitana to Spain (see, in ii. 6, a passage of that geographer so cruelly tortured by Salmasius, Isaac Vossius, and the most virulent of critics, James Gronovius). He lived at the time of the final reduction of that country by the emperor Claudius; yet, almost thirty years afterwards, Pliny (Hist. Nat v. i.) complains of his authors, too lazy to inquire, too proud to confess their ignorance of that wild and remote province.]

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The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire —Fall In The East —Chapter 51