180 ARABIA.
and ladanum (see above, §III.): and respecting
the methods of obtiuning these treasures, he tells ns
some marvellous stories; concluding with the state-
ment that, through the abundance of its spices,
gums, and incense, the country sends fwth a won-
derfully sweet odour (iii. 107 — 113). As to the
situation of Arabia, in relation to the surrounding
countries, he says that, on the W. of Asia, two pen-
insulas (&irral) run out into the sea: the one on the
N. is Ada Minor: the other, on the S., beginning at
Persia, extends into the Red Sea (*E^p^ ddtuT<ra,
i.e. Indian Ocean), — comprising, first, Persia, then
Assyria, and lastly Arabia; and ending at the Ara-
bian gulf, into which Darius dug a canal from the
Nile; not, however, ending, except in a customary
sense (oh K-fiyowra c2 fi^i y6fjuf); a qualification
which means that, though the peninsula is broken
by the Arabian Gulf, it really continues on its
western side and includes the continent of Libya.
On the land side, he makes this peninsula extend
from the Persians to Phoenicia, after which it touches
the Mediterranean at the part adjacent to Palestine
and Egypt: he adds that it includes only three
peoples, that is, the three he named at first, Persians,
Assyrians, and Arabians (iv. 38, 39). It must be
observed that Assyria is here used in the wide
sense, not uncommon in the early writers, to include
the £. part of Syria. Of the people of Arabia, he
takes occasion to speak, in connection with the expe-
dition of Cambyscs into Egypt through the part
already mentioned (iii. 5) as subject to an Arabian
king, namely, the later Idumaea; but his description
is applicable to the Arabs of the desert {Becbtins)
in general. They keep faith above all other men,
and they have a remarkable ceremony of making a
covenant, in ratification of which they invoke Diony-
sus and Urania, whom they call Orotal and Alilat
(i. e. the Sun and Moon); and these are the only
deities they have (iii. 8, comp. i. 131). He mentions
their mode of carrying water across the desert in
camel's skins (iii. 9); and elsewhere he describes all
the Arabs in the army of Xerxes as mounted on
camels, which are, he says, as swift as horses, but to
which the horse has such an antipathy that the
Arabs were placed in the rear of the whole army
(vii. 86, 87). These Arabs were Independent allies
of Persia: he expressly says that the Arabians were
never subjected to the Persian empire (iii. 88), but
they showed their friendship for the Great King by
an annual present (Btipov, expressly opposed to
<p6pos) of 1000 talents of frankincense (iii. 97), the
regularity of which may have depended on how far
the king took care to humour tliem. With reference
to the army of Xerxes, Herodotus distinguishes the
Arabs who dwelt above Egypt from the rest: they
were joined with the Aetliiopians (vii. 69). As they
were indeppjident of the Persians, so had they been
of the earlier empires. The alleged conquests of
some of the Assyrian kings could only have affected
small portions of the country on the N. and NW.
(Died. i. 53. § 3.) Xenophon gives us some of the
information which he had gatliered from his Persian
friends respecting the Arabs. (Cyr. i. 1. § 4, 5. §
2, vi. 2. § 10.)
The independence of Arabia was supposed to be
threatened by the schemes entertained by Alexander
after his return from India. From anger, as some
thought, because the Arabs had neglected to court
him by an embassy, or, as others supposed, impelled
only by insatiable ambition, he prepared a fleet on
the Euphrates, whose destination was undoubtedly
ABABIA.
Arabia, but whether with the rash design of sab*
jugating the peninsula, or with the more modest
intention of opening a highway of oommercial enter-
prise between Alexandria and the East, modern cri-
ticism has taken leave to doubt (Anian. Anab. rii.
19, foil.; Thirlwall, EisL of Greece, vol. viL c.55.)
He sent out expeditions to explore tiie coast; but
they efiected next to nothing; and the project, whaU
ever it may have been, expired with its author.
The successors of Alexander in Syria experienced
the difficulties which even their leader would have
fiuled to surmount. Diodorus relates the nnsucocss-
ful campaigns made against the Nabathaean Arabs,
by order of Antigonus, in which his lieutenant,
Athenaeus, was signally defeated, and his son De-
metrius was compelled to make a treaty with the
enemy (xix. 94 — 100). Under the Selenddae, the
Arabs of Arabia Pebraea cultivated friendly rela-
tions with Syria, and made constant aggressions m
the S. frontier of Palestine, which were repelled bj
the more vigorous of the Maocabaean princes, till at
last an Idumean dynasty was ..established on the
throne of Jerusalem. [Idumaea: Diet. ofBiog,
art Herodes.']
Meanwhile, the commercial enterprise of the
Ptolemies, to which Alexander had given the great
impulse by the foundation of Alexandria, cau:>ed a
vast accession to the knowledge already possessed of
Arabia, some important results of which are pre-
served in the work of Agatharcides on the Eiythxaean
Sea (Phot. Cod. 2.50, pp.441— 460, ed.Bekker). A
great step in advance was gained by the expedition sent
into Arabia Felix by Augustus in b.c 24, under
Aehus Gallus, who was assisted by Obodas, kii^ of
Petra, with a force of 1 ,000 Nabathaean Arabs. Start-
ing from Egypt, across the Arabian G ulf, and landing
at Leuoe Come, the Romans penetrated as far as the
SW. comer of the peninsula to Marsyabae, the capi-
tal of the Sabaeans; but were compelled to retreat,
after dreadful sufferings from heat and thirst, scarcely
escaping from the country with the loss of all tlra
booty The allusions of the poets prove the cag:er-
ness with which Augustus engaged in this unfortu-
nate expedition (Ilor. Carm. i. 29. ], 35. 38, iL 12.
24, iii. 24. 1, EpisL i. 7. 35; Propcrt. iL 8. 19);
and, though it failed as a scheme of conquest, it ac-
complished more than he had aet his heart <m.
Aelius Gallus had the good fortune to number among
his friends the geographer Strabo, who accompanied
him to Eg}'pt, and became the historian both of the
expediti >n and of the important additions made by
it to what was already known of the Arabian penin-
sula (Strab. xvi. pp. 767, foil.). A very full ac-
count of the people and products of the country is
also given by his contemporary Diodorus (ii. 48 — 54,
xix. 94 — 100). Of subsequent writers, those who
have collected the most important notices respecting
Arabia are, Mela (i. 2, 10, iii 8); Pliny (vi. 28.
s. 32. et alib.); Arrian (Anab. iL 20, iiL 1, 5, v. 25,
viL 1, 19, 20, 21,/nd32, 41,43); Ptolemy (v.l7,
19, vL 7, et alib.); Agalhemerus (ii. 11, e< al&.);
and the author of the Periplus If oris Erythraei,
ascribed to Arrian. It is needless to enter into the
details of these several descriptions, which all cor«
respond, more or less accurately, to the accounts
which modern writers give of the still unchanged and
unconqnered people. The following summary com-
pletes the histoiy of Arabia, so far as it belongs to
this work.
In A.D. 105, the part of Arabia extending E. of
Damascus down to the Red Sea was taken posses-
>
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