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In the reign of Ptolemy Philometor, when Agatharcides lived, the commercial enterprizes of the Egyptians had begun rather to languish; on the Arabian side of the Red Sea, they did indeed extend to Sabaea, as in the time of Euergetes; but there is evidence that on the opposite coast they did not go so low, as in the reign of the latter sovereign.
To rival the address and agility displayed by this character, another personage advanced in the more formidable character of a huge dragon, with gilded wings, open jaws, and a scarlet tongue, cloven at the end, which made various efforts to overtake and devour a lad, dressed as the lovely Sabaea, daughter of the King of Egypt, who fled before him; while a martial Saint George, grotesquely armed with a goblet for a helmet, and a spit for a lance, ever and anon interfered, and compelled the monster to relinquish his prey.
In the extract we have already given from Agatharcides respecting Arabia, he expressly mentions that the Gerrheans and Sabeans are the centre of all the commerce that passes between Asia and Europe, and that these are the nations which have enriched the Ptolemais: this statement, taken in conjunction with the fact that his description of the coast of the Red Sea reaches no farther than Sabaea on the one side, and Ptolemais Theron on the other, seems decisive of the truth of the opinion, that in the time of Philometor the Egyptians did not trade directly to India.
India alone boasts black ebony; the best incense is produced in Sabaea; the sphragitid earth at Lemnos; so this island is the only place where such fine pears grow. You may, if you please, make seminaries with their pippins in your country. I like their taste extremely, said Pantagruel.
The exact site of the country of the Mineans cannot be certainly fixed; but it is probable that it was to the south of Hedjaz, to the north of Hadraumaut, and to the eastward of Sabaea. According to Strabo, their caravans passed in seventy days from Hadraumaut to Aisla, which was within ten miles of Petra. They were laden with aloes, gold, myrrh, frankincense, and other aromatics.
The evidence of the land trade between Arabia and India, from a very early period, is equally clear and decisive: Petra, the capital of Arabia Petrea, was the centre of this trade. To it the caravans, in all ages, came from Minea, in the interior of Arabia, and from Gherra, in the Gulf of Persia, from Hadraumaut, on the Ocean, and some even from Sabaea.
The particulars of this trade between India and Egypt, by means of the Arabians, will be afterwards detailed, and its great antiquity traced and proved; at present we have alluded to it merely to bear us out in our position, that Indian ships, laden with Indian commodities, frequenting the ports of Sabaea, and those ports being described by Agatharcides as the limits of his knowledge of this coast of the Red Sea, we are fully justified in concluding, that, in the reign of Philometor, there was not only no direct trade to India, but no inducement to such trade; and that 146 years after the death of Alexander, the Greek sovereigns of Egypt had done little to complete what that monarch had projected, and in part accomplished by the navigation of Nearchus the communication by sea between Alexandria and India.
It may be proper to add, that in the extracts from Agatharcides, given by Photius, it is expressly mentioned that ships from India were met with by the Egyptian ships in the ports of Sabaea.
Here he dispensed justice to his people; but if he offended them, they punished him by stopping his rations for a whole day, or even starving him to death. The kings of Sabaea or Sheba, the spice country of Arabia, were not allowed to go out of their palaces; if they did so, the mob stoned them to death. But at the top of the palace there was a window with a chain attached to it.
Within this country there are twenty-eight nations, the northern boundary being Mount Caucasus, and the Red Sea to the south. Along the Red Sea, and at its northern angle, are Arabia, Sabaea, and Eudomane, or Idumea.
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