Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/301

 MARSYABAE. towns. Now as Strabo describes tlie latter part of the retreat through a desert track containing only a few wells, it is obvious that the coast-road was that followed bv the Eomans as far as Yembo, already identified with Nera Come; " the road-distance between Sabbia and Yembo (about 800 English miles) allowing, for the entire retreat, the reason- able average of little more than thirteen miles a-daj." (Forster, Geogr. of Arabia, vol. ii. pp. 277 — 332.) III. Amid these various and conflicting theories there is not perhaps one single point that can be regarded as positively established, beyond all question ; but there are a few which may be safely regarded as untenable. 1. And first, with regard to Leuce Come, plausible as its identification with El-Uaura is rendered by the coincidence of name, there seem to be two inseparable objections to it; first, that the author of the Periplus places the harbour and castle of Leuce two or three days' sail from Myos Hormus (for Mr. Forster's gloss is quite inadmissible), while El-IIaura is considerably more than double that distance, under the most favourable circumstances; and secondly, that the same author, in perfect agreement with Strabo, places it in the country of the Nabathaei, which never could have extended so far south as Haura. Mr. Forster at- tempts to obviate this objection by supposing that both Leuce Come and Nera were sea-ports of the Nabathaei beyond their own proper limits, and in the hostile territory of the Thamudites (J. c. p. 284, note *). But this hypothesis is clearly inconsistent with the author of the Periplus, who implies, and ■with Strabo, who asserts, that Leuce Come lay in the territory of the Nabathaei 0}Kiv ds AevKTjv Kw/xrjv rris J<!a§araiciii' y-^y, e/j.nopeiov fJ-iya), a state- ment which is further confirmed by the fact that Nera Come, which all agree to have been south of Leuce, is also placed by Strabo in the territory of Obo- das, the king of the Nabathaei (ecTi 5€ t^s'OSoSo). Leuce cannot therefore be placed further south than Moilah, as Gosselin, Vincent, and Jotnard all agree; and Nera must be sought a little to the south of this, for Jomard has justly remarked that Strabo, in con- trasting the time occupied in the advance and in the retreat, evidently draws his comparison from a calculation of the same space (l. c. p. 385). 2. With regard to the site of Marsyabae, it may be re- marked that its identification with Mariaba, the metropolis of the Sabaei, the modern Mdreb, main- tained by D'Anville, Fresnel, and Jomard, is inad- missible for the following reasons: first, that dis- tinct mention having been made of the latter by Strabo, it is not to be supposed that he would im- mediately mention it with a modification of its name, and assign it to another tribe, the Rhamanitae: and it is an uncritical method of removing the difficulty suggested by M. Jomard without the authority of MSS., — " il faut lire partout Mariaba; le mot Mar- siaba est corrompu ^videmment." Secondly, whether the Mariaba Baramalacum of Pliny be identified with Strabo's Marsyabae or no, and whatever becomes of the plausible etymology of this epithet, suggested by Dean Vincent (quasi Bahr em-Malac=the royal reservoir), the fact remains the same, that the Mariaba of the Sabaeans was abundantly supplied with water from numerous rivulets collected in its renowned Tank; and that therefore, as Gosselin remarks, drought was the last calamity to which the Komans would have been exposed in such a locality. 3. With regard to Anagrana and Negra, on the identity of which with the modern Kedjruii MARSYAS. 285 there is a singular agreement among all commenta- tors, there seems to be an insuperable objection to that also, if Strabo, who it must be remembered had his information direct from Gallus himself, is a trustworthy guide ; for the Anagrana of the re- treat (which is obviously also the Negra of Pliny), nine days distant from Marsyabae, was the place where the battle had been fought on their advance. But he had said before that this battle was fought at the river ; and there is no mention of a river nearer to Necljran than the Sancan, which is, ac- cording to Jlr. Forster, 170 miles, or twelve days' journey, distant. It is certainly strange that, of the writers who have commented on this expedition, all, with one exception, have overlooked the only indi- cation furnished by the classical geographers of the direction of the line of march, — clearly pointing to the west, and not to the south. The Mariaba taken by the Romans was, according to Pliny, that of the Calingii, whom he places in the vicinity of the Per- sian Gulf; for he names two other towns of the same tribe, Pallon and Urannimal or JIuranimal, which he places near the river by which the Euphrates is thought to debouche into the Persian Gulf {y. 28), opposite to the Bahrein islands. (Forster, vol. ii. p. 312.) This important fact is remarkably con- firmed by the expedition having landed near the mouth of the Elanitic gulf of the Red Sea, and com- mencing their march through the territory ofObodas and his kinsman Aretas, two powerful sheikhs of the Nabathaei, who inhabited the northern part of the Arabian peninsula from the Euphrates to the pe- ninsula of Mount Sinai [Nabathaei], and there can be little doubt that the Mariaba of Pliny is cor- rectly identified with the J/eraJ, still existing at the eastern base of the Nedjd mountains. []Iaeiaba, No. 3.] Whether this be the Marsyabae of Strabo, or whether future investigations in the eastern part of the peninsula, hitherto so imperfectly known, may not restore to us both this and other towns men- tioned in the lists of Strabo and Pliny, it is impos- sible to determine. At any rate, the very circuitous route through Nedjd to Yemen, marked out by Sir. Forster, and again his line of the retreat, seem to in- volve difficulties and contradictions insurmountable, which this is not the place to discuss; and with regard to the supposed analogy of the modern names, it may be safely assumed that an equal amount of ingenuity might discover like analogies in any other parts of Arabia, even with the very scanty materials that we at present have at command. In conclusion, it may be remarked that the observation of Strabo that the expedition bad reached within two days' journey of the country of the Frankincense, is of no value what- ever in determining the line of march, as there were two districts so designated, and there is abundant reason to doubt whether either in fact existed; and that the reports brought home by Galliis and pre- served by Pliny, so far as they prove anything, clearly indicate profound ignorance of the nature and produce of Yemen, which some authors suppo.se him to have traversed, for we are in a position to assert that so much of his statement concerning the Sabaei as relates to their wealth — " silvarum fertili- tate odorifera, auri metallis" — is pure fiction. The question of the confusion of the various Mariabas, and their cognate names, is discussed by Ritter with his usual abilitv. (^Erdkunde von Arabien, vol. i. pp. 276—284.) [G. W.] MA'RSYAS (Mapo-t'as). 1. A tributary of "tiie Maeander, having its'somxes in the district called