Ater
Ater or NIGER MONS, a mountain range of Inner Libya, on the N. side of the Great Desert (Sahara), dividing the part of Roman Africa on the Great Syrtis from Phazania (Fezzan). It seems to correspond either to the Jebel-Soudan or Black Mount(ins, between 28° and 29° N. lat., and from about 10° E. long. eastward, or to the SE. prolongation of the same chain, called the Black Harusch, or both. The entire range is of a black basaltic rock, whence the ancient and modern names (Plin. Nat. 5.5, 6.30. s. 35; Hornemann, Reisen von Kairo nach Fezzan, p. 60).
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.