Page:The Northern Ḥeǧâz (1926).djvu/315



Strabo, Geography, XVI, 4: 24, relates that Aelius Gallus on his march from southern Arabia came through a desert in which there were only a few wells to the settlement of Egra, situated in the territory of the Nabataean king, Obodas, near the sea. Thence he sailed across with his army to Myos Hormos in eleven days and near the town of Koptos reached the Nile, down which he sailed to Alexandria.

Aelius Gallus certainly returned from southern Arabia upon the great transport route leading to Syria. Upon this highroad was situated the important Nabataean trading center of al-Ḥeǧr. Accordingly we infer that the Egra mentioned by Strabo is identical with al-Ḥeǧr. It is true that al-Ḥeǧr lies not by the sea, but inland; but near this town Aelius Gallus left the trade route and branched off to the coast, upon which the port of al-Ḥeǧr was situated. It is possible and indeed probable that this harbor was also called al-Ḥeǧr, just as the port of Madjan was likewise known as Madjan, and it is perhaps identical with the modern harbor of al-Weǧh. Strabo nowhere mentions that the Roman army returned along the coast. The journey from al-Ḥeǧr to its port and thence across the Red Sea to the African harbor of Myos Hormos (lat. 27° N.) could have taken eleven days. In southern Arabia the Romans were two days’ march distant from a region whence various spices were exported, and from there sixty days’ march brought them to the town of Egra. According to Strabo, op. cit., XVI, 4: 4, the trade caravans performed the journey with spices and incense from the region in question to the town of Aelana (or Aila), about 350 kilometers distant from al-Ḥeǧr, in seventy days. As the figures sixty and seventy are only approximate and Aila is about ten days’ march from al-Ḥeǧr (Egra), these particulars confirm our surmise that Egra is identical with al-Ḥeǧr.

Pliny, Nat. hist., VI, 156, calls Hagra (variants are Agra, Hagrat) the royal city of the Laeanites, from whom the gulf also received its name. The Laeanites are the Arabian Leḥjân, whose name has been preserved in various places of the northern Ḥeǧâz. They were the rulers of the land before, and perhaps for some time together with, the Nabataeans. Their original center was the oasis of Dajdân, or Dedan, about twenty kilometers to the south of al-Ḥeǧr. At the beginning of the second century before Christ the power of the Nabataeans increased, and they spread from north to south, settling in al-Ḥeǧr, which gradually supplanted the ancient Dajdân. The Nabataeans in al-Ḥeǧr were originally subject to the Leḥjân, who certainly also resided in al-Ḥeǧr as well as in Dedan. From this it may be inferred that Hagra, the royal city of the Laeanites, is identical with al-Ḥeǧr. We cannot locate the capital of the Laeanites on the coast, because they were engaged in trading by land rather than by sea. Moreover, the great transport route did not lead along the coast, and none of the ancient authors, although they