BEATORUM INSULA (anc. geog.), seven days journey to the west of Thebæ, a district of the Nomos Oasites; called an island, because surrounded with sand, like an island in the sea, (Ulpian); yet abounding in all the necessaries of life, though encompassed with vast sandy deserts, (Strabo); which some suppose to be a third Oasis, in the Regio Ammonica; and the scite of the temple of Ammon answers to the above
description, as appears from the writers on Alexander's expedition thither. It was a place of relegation or banishment for real or pretended criminals from which there was no escape, (Ulpian).