Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/299

 MARSYABAE. took them fifty days to traverse, tlirough the fault of their guide ; when they came to tlie city of the Agrani (^Aypavoi), lying in a peaceful and fruitful country. This they took; and after a march of six days, came to the river. Here, after a pitched battle, in which the Romans killed 10,000 Arabs, with the loss of only two men, they took the city called Asca ("AffKa), then Athrulla (^AOpovWa), and proceeded to Marsyabae of the Rhamanitae, then governed by Ilasarus, from which, as already mentioned, they commenced their retreat by a much shorter route. Nine days brought them to Anagrana (^Afdypava), where the battle had been fought; eleven more to the Seven Wells ('ETrra (ppeaTo), so called from the fact ; then to a village named Chaalla (XdaWa), and another named Malotha (Maa), — the latter situated on a river, — and through a desert with few watering-places to Nera or Negra Come (Nepa (ctijUTj), on the sea-shore, subject to Obodas. This retreat was accomplished in sixty days ; the advance had occupied six months. From Nera they sailed to Myos Hormus (Muoj '6pfj.os) in eleven days. Thus far Strabo (xvi. p. 782). Pliny is much more brief. He merely states that Gallus destroyed towns not mentioned by previous writers, Negra, Amnestrum, Nesca, Magusa, Tam- macum, Labecia, the above-n.amed Mariaba (i. e. the Mariaba of the Calingii, 3), and Caripeta, the remotest point which he reached. (^Hist. Nat. vi. 28.) The only geographical point mentioned by Dion Cassius, who dwells chiefly on the sutferings of the army, is that the important city of Athlula ('A^AouAa) was the limit of this disastrous expe- dition. (Dion Cass. liii. 29.) n. The variations of commentators on this nar- rative may be estimated by these facts: Dean Vincent maintains that, " as Pliny says, that places which occur in the expedition of Gallus are not found in authors previous to his time, the same may be said of subsequent writers; for there is not one of them, ancient or modern, who will do more than afford matter for conjecture." (^Peripl. pp. 300, 301.) Mr. Forster asserts, " Of the eight cities named by Pliny, the names of two most clearly prove them to be the same with two of those mentioned by Strabo; and that seven out of the eight stand, with moral certainty, and the eighth with good proba- bility, identified with as many Arab towns, still actually in being." (^Geography of Arabia, vol. ii. p. 310.) D'Anville and M. Fresnel {inf. cit.) con- duct the expedition to Hadramaut, in the southern extremity of the peninsula ; Gosselin does not extend it beyond the Hedjaz. {Recherckes sur la Geogra- phie des Aiiciens, torn. i'l. p. 114.) But these va- rious theories require more distinct notice. 1. D'An- viJle, following Bochart {Chanaan, i. 44), identifies Leuce Come with the modern Hawr or El-Haura, on the Red Sea, a little north of the latitude of Medina, justifying the identification by the coinci- dence of meaning between the native and the Greek names. Anagratia he fixes at Nageran or Negran {Nedjran), a town in the NE. of Yemen ; con- sistently with which theory he makes the Marsyabae of Strabo identical with the Mariaba of the same geographer; though Strabo makes the latter the capital of the Sabaei, and assigns the former to the Rhamanitae. Finally, D'Anville places Chaalla at Khaulan {El-Chaulan), in the NVV. extremity of Yemen, and, therefore, as he presumes, on the Roman line of retreat between Anagrana and the sea. (D'Anville Geographic ancienne abregee, MARSYABAE. 2S3 tom. ii. pp. 216, 217, 223, 224). 2. Gosselin, as before noticed, maintains that the expedition did not pass beyond Arabia Deserta and the Uedjaz ; that the Negra of Pliny = the Negran of Ptolemy = the modern Nokra or Maaden en-Nokra (in the NW. of Nedjd) ; that Pliny's Magusa = Megarish- uszir (which he marks in his map NW. of Negra, and due East of Moilah, his Leuce (pp. 254, 255), perhaps identical with Dahr el-Maghair in Ritter's map ; that Tammacum in Pliny = Thaema in Pto- lemy = the modern Tima (which he places nearly due north of Negra, between it and Magusa) = Teimd in Ritter, between Maaden en-Nokru and Dahr el-Maghair ; that Labecia = Laba of Ptolemy, which he does not place ; that Athrulla = lathrippa [Latiikippa] in Ptolemy = Medineh ; that Ma- riaba in Pliny = JIarsyabae in Strabo,=Macoraba in Ptolemy = Mecca ; and lastly, that Caripeta, the extreme point according to Pliny, = Ararene in Strabo^modern Carialain, in the heart of El-Nedjd. (Gosselin, I. c. pp. 11.3 — 116.) 3. Dean Vincent's opinion on the difficulty of recovering any clue to the line of march has already been stated ; but he ventm-es the following conjectures, partly in agree- ment, and partly in correction, of the preceding. He adopts the Leuce Come of Gosselin, i. e. Moilah ; the Anagrana or Negra of D'Anville, i. e. Nedjran of Yemen,; and thinks that the country of the no- mades, called Ararene, has a resemblance to the territory of Medina and Mecca ; and that the space of fifry days employed in passing it, is some con- firmation of the conjecture. Mar.syabae, he thinks, could not be ILiriaba of the Tank ; but takes it as the general name for a capital, — in this case of the Jlineans, — which he suggests may correspond with the Caripeta of Pliny, the Carna or Carana of Strabo, the capital of the Mineans, and the Carni-peta, or Carni-petra of modern geographers. The fact that Strabo speaks of Carna as the capital of the Minaei, and places Marsyabae in the territory of the RJia- manitae, is disposed of by the double hypothesis, that if llasar is the king of this tribe, whether Calingii, Rhamanitae, or Elaesari, all three were comprehended under the title of Mineans. Of Nera, the termina- tion of the expedition, he remarks, that it being in the country of Obodas, it must be within the limits of Petraea; but, as no modern representative offers, it should be placed as far below (south of) Leuce Come as the province will admit. (Vincent, PerijAu.-} of the Ei-ythrean Sea, vol. ii. pp. 290 — 311.) 4. M. Fresnel, long a resident in the country, think/i that the Marsyabae of Strabo must be identical with the Mariaba in Pliny's list of captured cities, the same writer's Baramalacum, and Ptolemy's JIariama; and that the Rhamanitae of Strabo are the Rhamnoi of Pliny, the Manitae of Ptolemy, one of the divi- sions of the Minaei, to which rather than to the other division, the Charmaei, Mariaba Baramalacum should have been assigned. In agreement with Vincent, ho finds the Marsyabae of Strabo in the ca[)ital of the Minaei, i. e. the Carana of Strabo and the Caman Regia of Ptolemy, which he however finds in the modern Al-Ckarn in the Wady Doan or Dawan {Kurein and Grein in Kieperts and Zimmerman's maps), six or seven days' journey north of Monk- allah, and in the heart of Hadramaut. (Fresnel, in Journal Asiatique, Juillet, 1840, 3mc sdrie, tom. x. pp. 83—96, 177, &c.) He fancied that he reco- vercd the Caripeta of Pliny in the site of Khour- ayhah, also in the vicinity of Moukallah {lb. p. 196). 5. Desvcrgers prefers the idcntificatioiA