The Provinces of the Roman Empire 66

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 66

but not better is the attempt to devolve the want of success on the Nabataean vizier

Syllaeos by means of a “treachery,” such as is familiar with defeated

generals. Certainly the latter was so far fitted for a scapegoat, as

he some years afterwards was on the instigation of Herod brought to

trial before Augustus, condemned and executed (Josephus, _Arch._ xvi.

10); but although we possess the report of the agent who managed this

matter for Herod in Rome, there is not a word to be found in it of this

betrayal. That Syllaeos should have had the design of first destroying

the Arabians by means of the Romans, and then of destroying the latter

themselves, as Strabo “thinks,” is, looking to the position of the

client-states of Rome, quite irrational. It might rather be thought

that Syllaeos was averse to the expedition, because the commercial

traffic through the Nabataean land might be injured by it. But to

accuse the Arabian minister of treachery because the Roman transports

were not fitted for navigating the Arabian coast, or because the Roman

army was compelled to carry water with it on camels, to eat durra and

dates instead of bread and flesh, and butter instead of oil; to bring

forward the deceitfulness of the guidance as an excuse for the fact

that 180 days were employed for the forward march over a distance

overtaken on the return march in 60 days; and lastly, to criticise the

quite correct remark of Syllaeos that a march by land from Arsinoe

to Leuce Come was impracticable, by saying that a caravan route went

thence to Petra, only shows what a Roman of rank was able to make a

Greek man of letters believe.

 

[264] The sharpest criticism of the campaign is furnished by the

detailed account of the Egyptian merchant as to the state of the

Arabian coast from Leuce Come (el-Haura to the north of Janbô, the

port of Medina) to the Catacecaumene island (Jebel Taik near Lôhaia).

“Different peoples inhabit it, who speak languages partly somewhat

different, partly wholly so. The inhabitants of the coast live in pens

like the ‘fish-eaters’ on the opposite coast” (these pens he describes,

c. 2, as isolated and built into the clefts of the rocks), “those of

the interior in villages and pastoral companies; they are ill-disposed

men speaking two languages, who plunder the seafarers that drift out

of their course and drag the shipwrecked into slavery. For that reason

they are constantly hunted by the viceroys and chief kings of Arabia;

they are called Kanraites (or Kassanites). In general navigation

on all this coast is dangerous, the shore is without harbours and

inaccessible, with a troublesome surf, rocky and in general very bad.

Therefore, when we sail into these waters, we keep to the middle and

hasten to get to the Arabian territory at the island Catacecaumene;

from thence onward the inhabitants are hospitable, and we meet with

numerous flocks of sheep and camels.” The same region between the Roman

and the Homeritic frontiers, and the same state of things are in the

view of the Axomite king, when he writes: πέραν δὲ τῆς ἐρυθρᾶς θαλάσσης

οἰκοῦντας Ἀρραβίτας καὶ Κιναιδοκολπίτας (comp. Ptolemaeus vi. 7, 20),

στράτευμα ναυτικὸν καὶ πεζικὸν διαπεμψάμενος καὶ ὑποτάξας αὐτῶν τοὺς

βασιλέας, φόρους τῆς γῆς τελεῖν ἐκέλευσα καὶ ὁδεύεσθαι μετ’ εἰρήνης καὶ

πλέεσθαι, ἀπό τε Λευκῆς κώμης ἕως τῶν Σαβαίων χώρας ἐπολέμησα.

 

[265] These walls, built of rubble, form a circle of a mile in

diameter. They are described by Arnaud (_l.c._, comp. p. 287, note 1).

 

[266] That the Oriental expedition of Gaius had Arabia as its goal, is

stated expressly by Pliny (particularly _H. N._ xii. 14, 55, 56; comp.

ii. 67, 168; vi. 27, 141, c. 28, 160; xxxii. 1, 10). That it was to set

out from the mouth of the Euphrates, follows from the fact that the

expedition to Armenia and the negotiations with the Parthians preceded

it. For that reason the Collectanea of Juba as to the impending

expedition were based upon the reports of the generals of Alexander as

to their exploring of Arabia.

 

[267] Our only information as to this remarkable expedition has been

preserved to us by the Egyptian captain, who about the year 75 has

described his voyage on the coasts of the Red Sea. He knows (c. 26)

the Adane of later writers, the modern Aden, as a village on the

coast (κώμη παραθαλάσσιος), which belongs to the realm of Charibael,

king of the Homerites, but was earlier a flourishing town, and was

so termed (εὐδαίμων δ’ ἐπεκλήθη πρότερον οὖσα πόλις) because before

the institution of the direct Indo-Egyptian traffic this place served

as a mart: νῦν δὲ οὐ πρὸ πολλοῦ τῶν ἡμετέρων χρόνων Καῖσαρ αὐτὴν

κατεστρέψατο. The last word can here only mean “destroy,” not, as

more frequently, “subdue,” because the conversion of the town into a

village is to be accounted for. For Καῖσαρ Schwanbeck (_Rhein. Mus.

neue Folge_, vii. 353) has proposed Χαριβαήλ, C. Müller Ἰλασάρ (on

account of Strabo, xvi. 4, 21, p. 782): neither is possible--not the

latter, because this Arabian dynast ruled in a far remote district and

could not possibly be presumed as well known; not the former, because

Charibael was a contemporary of the writer, and there is here reported

an incident which occurred before his time. We shall not take offence

at the tradition, if we reflect what interest the Romans must have

had in setting aside the Arabian mart between India and Egypt, and in

bringing about direct intercourse. That the Roman accounts are silent

as to this occurrence is in keeping with their habit; the expedition,

which beyond doubt was executed by an Egyptian fleet and simply

consisted in the destruction of a presumably defenceless place on the

coast, would not be from a military point of view of any importance;

about great commercial dealings the annalists gave themselves no

concern, and generally the incidents in Egypt came still less than

those in the other imperial provinces to the knowledge of the senate

and therewith of the annalists. The naked designation Καῖσαρ, in which

from the nature of the case the ruler then reigning is excluded, is

probably to be explained from the circumstance that the reporting

captain, while knowing doubtless the fact of the destruction by the

Romans, knew not its date or author.--It is possible that to this the

notice in Pliny (_H. N._ ii. 67, 168) is to be referred: _maiorem

(oceani) partem et orientis victoriae magni Alexandri lustravere usque

in Arabicum sinum, in quo res gerente C. Caesare Aug. f. signa navium

ex Hispaniensibus naufragiis feruntur agnita_. Gaius did not reach

Arabia (Plin. _H. N._ vi. 28, 160); but during the Armenian expedition

a Roman squadron may very well have been conducted by one of his

sub-commanders to this coast, in order to pave the way for the main

expedition. That silence reigns elsewhere respecting it cannot surprise

us. The Arabian expedition of Gaius had been so solemnly announced and

then abandoned in so wretched a way, that loyal reporters had every

reason to obliterate a fact which could not well be mentioned without

also reporting the failure of the greater plan.

 

[268] The Egyptian merchant distinguishes the ἔνθεσμος βασιλεύς of

the Homerites (c. 23) sharply from the τύραννοι, the tribal chiefs

sometimes subordinate to him, sometimes independent (c. 14), and as

sharply distinguishes these organised conditions from the lawlessness

of the inhabitants of the desert (c. 2). If Strabo and Tacitus had had

eyes as open for these things as that practical man had, we should have

known somewhat more of antiquity.

 

[269] The war of Macrinus against the _Arabes eudaemones_ (_vita_, 12)

and their envoys sent to Aurelian (_vita_, 33), who are named along

with those of the Axomites, would prove their continued independence at

that time, if these statements could be depended on.

 

[270] The king names himself, about the year 356 (p. 284, note 2), in

a document (_C. I. Gr._ 5128) βασιλεὺς Ἀξωμιτῶν καὶ Ὁμηριτῶν καὶ τοῦ

Ῥαειδὰν (castle in Sapphar, the capital of the Homerites; Dillmann,

_Abh. der Berl. Akad._ 1878, p. 207) ... καὶ Σαβαειτῶν καὶ τοῦ Σιλεῆ

(castle in Mariaba, the capital of the Sabaeans; Dillmann, _l.c._).

With this agrees the contemporary mission of envoys _ad gentem

Axumitarum et Homerita[rum]_ (_C. Th._ xii. 12, 2). As to the later

state of things comp. especially Nonnosus (_fr. hist. Gr._ iv. p. 179,

Müll.) and Procopius, _Hist. Pers._ i. 20.

 

[271] Aristides (_Or._ xlviii. p. 485, Dind.) names Coptos the Indian

and Arabian entrepôt. In the romance of Xenophon the Ephesian (iv. 1),

the Syrian robbers resort to Coptos, “for there a number of merchants

pass through, who are travelling to Aethiopia and India.”

 

[272] Hadrian later constructed “the new Hadrian’s road” which led from

his town Antinoopolis near Hermopolis, probably through the desert

to Myos Hormos, and from Myos Hormos along the sea to Berenice, and

provided it with cisterns, stations (σταθμοί), and forts (inscription

in _Revue Archéol._ N. S. xxi. year 1870, p. 314). However there is

no mention of this road subsequently, and it is a question whether it

continued to subsist.

 

[273] This is nowhere expressly said, but it is clearly evident

from the Periplus of the Egyptian. He speaks at numerous places of

the intercourse of the non-Roman Africa with Arabia (c. 7, 8), and

conversely of the Arabians with the non-Roman Africa (c. 17, 21, 31;

and after him Ptolemaeus, i. 17, 6), and with Persia (c. 27, 33), and

India (c. 21, 27, 49); as also of that of the Persians with India (c.

36), as well as of the Indian merchantmen with the non-Roman Africa (c.

14, 31, 32), and with Persia (c. 36) and Arabia (c. 32). But there is

not a word indicating that these foreign merchants came to Berenice,

Myos Hormos, or Leuce Come; indeed, when he remarks with reference to

the most important mart of all this circle of traffic, Muza, that these

merchants sail with their own ships to the African coast outside of the

Straits of Bab El Mandeb (for that is for him τὸ πέραν), and to India,

Egypt cannot possibly be absent by accident.

 

[274] In Bâmanghati (district Singhbhum) westward from Calcutta, a

great treasure of gold coins of Roman emperors (Gordian and Constantine

are named) is said to have come to light (Beglar, in Cunningham’s

_Archaeological Survey of India_, vol. xiii. p. 72); but such an

isolated find does not prove that regular intercourse extended so far.

In Further India and China Roman coins have very seldom been found.

 

[275] The designation _Afer_ does not belong to this series. So far as

we can follow it back in linguistic usage, it is never given to the

Berber in contrast to other African stocks, but to every inhabitant of

the Continent lying over against Sicily, and particularly also to the

Phoenician; if it has designated a definite people at all, this can

only have been that, with which the Romans here first and chiefly came

into contact (comp. Suetonius, _vita Terent._). Reasons philological

and real oppose themselves to our attempt in i. 162 {i. 154} to trace

back the word to the name of the Hebrews; a satisfactory etymology has

not yet been found for it.

 

[276] A good observer, Charles Tissot, (_Géogr. de la province romaine

de l’Afrique_, i. p. 403) testifies that upwards of a third of the

inhabitants of Morocco have fair or brown hair, and in the colony of

the inhabitants of the Riff in Tangier two-thirds. The women made the

impression on him of those of Berry and of Auvergne. _Sur les hauts

sommets de la chaîne atlantique, d’après les renseignements qui m’ont

été fournis, la population tout entière serait remarquablement blonde.

Elle aurait les yeux bleus, gris ou “verts, comme ceux des chats,”

pour reproduire l’__EXPRESSION__ même dont s’est servi le cheikh qui me

renseignait._ The same phenomenon meets us in the mountain masses of

Grand Kabylia and of the Aures, as well as on the Tunisian island Jerba

and the Canary Islands. The Egyptian representations also show to us

the Libu not red, like the Egyptians, but white, and with fair or brown hair.