The History of the Ancient Civilizations. Duncker Max
of the Sabæans were called the Chatramites, and their chief city, Sabbatha, had sixty temples within its walls; further to the east were the Cattabani, whose city, Thamna, could enumerate sixty-five temples. The Minæans lay in the interior beyond the Chatramites. The frankincense was collected and brought to Sabbatha, and could not be purchased and taken away by strangers till the priests had set apart a tenth for the god of Sabbatha. The only passage for exportation was through the land of the Cattabani, to the king of which imposts had to be paid. The priests also and the scribes of the king received presents, and the doorkeepers, bodyguard, and escort. Thamna, the chief city of the Cattabani, was distant seventy-five days' journey from Gaza. And as payments had to be made, at one place for pasturage, at another for water, at a third for the stage, and again for the convoy, the cost for each camel as far as the Syrian desert amounted to 688 denarii.[440]
According to the Hebrew Scriptures the Sheba, i.e. the Sabæans, "a distant people, rich in frankincense, spices, gold, and precious stones," were to be sought in the south of Arabia.[441] The tribe or locality of Uzal, which Genesis and Ezekiel mention beside the Sabæans, is the older name of the later Sanaa. The chief city of the Sabæans, which Western writers call Mariaba, is the Maryab of the inscriptions. To the east of the Sabæans, on the south coast, were situated the Hazarmaweth of the Hebrews, the Chatramites of the Western nations, in the district of Hadramaut, which still preserves the name. The Rhegmæans of the Western nations, the sons of Rama among the Hebrews, are to be sought in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf, in Oman, the south-east of Arabia. Further to the north-east, on the shore of this Gulf, were the Dedanites; and yet further to the north-east the Havila appear to have dwelt, who are perhaps the Chaulotæans, whom Eratosthenes places towards the Lower Euphrates. The Hebrew Scriptures repeatedly mention the Hagarites, the Nebajoth (the Agræans and Nabatæans of Eratosthenes), and further towards the interior of Arabia the Kedarites and Temanites; and lastly, on the peninsula of Sinai, and on the borders of Canaan, the Amalekites, Edomites, and Midianites. The Hebrews mention two chiefs of the Midianites, whose names were "Wolf" and "Raven," the leather tents of this people, the number of their dromedaries, and the moons which their camels carried as ornaments. Next are mentioned the flocks of the Nebajoth, the black tents of the Kedarites, their wealth in cattle (large and small), and their brave bowmen.[442]
The inscriptions of Egypt from the time of the Tuthmosis and the first Ramses celebrate achievements performed, as it is said, by these Pharaohs against the Punt, i.e. against the Arabs; but with one exception, they do not supply any information of the land and the tribes of this people. A daughter of Tuthmosis I., queen Misphra (Hatasu, Ramake), who was regent first for her brother Tuthmosis II., and during a considerable time for Tuthmosis III. (1625–1591 B.C.), wished to become acquainted with "the land of Punt, as far as the uttermost end of To-Neter." She equipped a fleet on the Red Sea, and led it in person to the coast of Arabia. The inhabitants of the coast on which she landed submitted, and she returned to Egypt with rich spoil, in which were thirty-two spice-trees.[443] The inscriptions of the kings of Asshur supply further information: among the tribes of the Arabians they mention in the first place the Pekod, the Hagarites, whom they place in the neighbourhood of the lands of Hauran, Moab and Zoba, the Kedarites, Thamudenes, Nabatæans, and finally the Sabæans. The Hebrew Scriptures bring the queen of Sheba to Solomon at Jerusalem, and represent her as offering rich presents in gold and frankincense, and similarly Tiglath-Pilesar II., king of Assyria, tells us that in the year 738 B.C. he had received tribute from Zabibieh, the queen of Arabia (Aribi), and in the year 734 B.C. he had taken from Samsieh, queen of the Arabs, 30,000 camels and 20,000 oxen, and further, that he had subjugated the people of Saba, the city of the Sabæans. Sargon boasts that he had subdued the people of Thammud (the Thamudenes), Tasid, Ibadid, Marsiman, Chayapa, the distant Arbæans, and the inhabitants of the land of Bari, "which was unknown to the learned and to the scribes," and that he received the tribute of Samsieh, queen of the Arabs, and of Yathamir, the Sabæan (Sabahi) in gold, spices, and camels (in the year 715 B.C.). He mentions the land of Agag, "on the borders of the Arabs toward the rising sun," i.e. the Eastern Arabs.[444] King Sennacherib took from the Pekod, the Hagarites, Nabatæans, and some other tribes, 5,330 camels and 800,600 head of small cattle (703 B.C.), and in the time of Assurbanipal (about 645 B.C.) Adiya, the queen of the Arabs, and Ammuladin, the king of the Kedarites, were brought in chains to Nineveh; the "innumerable troops" of another prince, Uaiti, were defeated and his tents burnt. Abiyateh also, who was leagued against Assyria, first with Uaiti, and then with Nadnu (Nathan), the king of the Nabatæans, was conquered, together with these allies, and the worshippers of Atar Samain (Istar). Assurbanipal tells us that out of the booty of this campaign he distributed camels like sheep, and that at the gate of Nineveh camels had been sold for half a silver shekel (from 1s. 6d. to 2s.).[445]
The position of Arabia, between the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates and Tigris, where agriculture and civilisation came into bloom at an early period, and which were the oldest seats of trade and industry, brought the Arab tribes who wandered along the borders of these river valleys into connection with Egypt and Babylon. Barter had to supply all that could not be obtained by freebooting. The nomads required corn, implements, and weapons; Egypt and Babylon were in need of horses, sheep, goats, and camels. The Arabians, therefore, could exchange their animals for corn, weapons, and implements, and supply the industry of Babylon and Egypt with a part of the necessary raw products, more especially skins and wool. The tradition of the Hebrews represents Abraham as going to Egypt, and the sons of Jacob buy corn in Egypt when "there was a famine in the land." On the other hand, Egypt, as has been already remarked, had already, under Snefru, the predecessor of Chufu, i.e. about the year 3000 B.C., fixed herself in the peninsula of Sinai, and when, a thousand years later, nomad tribes of the north-west of Arabia obtained the supremacy in the valley of the Nile, and maintained it for centuries (p. 123), their supremacy could only develop further the trade between Egypt and the Arabs, between the ruling tribe in Egypt and their kinsmen at home, and thus the contact with the civilisation of Egypt and Babylonia was not without effect on the Arabs. This contact increased their wants, and therefore increased their trading intercourse. The Arabs could offer not merely the products of their herds, they could exchange the costly spices and perfumes from the southern coast of their land with each other, and so convey them to the Egyptians and Babylonians. The Hebrew Scriptures make Keturah, i.e. "Incense," the wife of Abraham, and from this connection spring the Midianites and the Dedanites; to Esau, the son of Isaac, the progenitor of the Edomites, they give a wife of the name of Basmath, i.e. "Perfume,"[446] and in the twentieth century B.C., according to their reckoning, we find a caravan of Ishmaelites, with camels, carrying spices, balsam, and ladanum, and Midianites going for purposes of trade to Egypt.
The trade of Egypt and Babylonia with the south of Arabia, through the medium of the Arab tribes, certainly goes back to the year 2000 B.C., if the attempt was made in Egypt about the year 1600 B.C. to reduce Southern Arabia. Not long after his campaigns in Syria and Mesopotamia, Tuthmosis III. imposed on the Syrians a tribute of 828 minæ, and on the Naharina a tribute of 81 minæ of spices;[447] hence such spices must not only have found their way into these districts at this time, but must have been already known as ordinary articles of trade. How strongly Egypt felt her need of the products of South Arabia is most strikingly shown by the fact that the Egyptians were very anxious to obtain these products by the direct route over the Arabian Gulf; the canal which Ramses II. began to make towards the gulf (p. 146) could have no other object in view than to facilitate the communication between the Nile and the coast of South Arabia and East Africa, by the Red Sea. Under Ramses III. (1269–1244 B.C.) a great fleet