The Commerce and Navigation of the Erythræan Sea: Being a Translation of the Periplus Maris Erythræi, by an Anonymous Writer, and of Arrian's Account of the Voyage of Nearkhos, from the Mouth of the Indus to the Head of the Persian Gulf
History
The Commerce and Navigation of the Erythræan Sea: Being a Translation of the Periplus Maris Erythræi, by an Anonymous Writer, and of Arrian's Account of the Voyage of Nearkhos, from the Mouth of the Indus to the Head of the Persian Gulf
Classical geography; Geography, Ancient; India -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Indian Ocean Region -- Commerce -- History
(26) At a distance beyond +Okêlis+ of 1,200 stadia is the
port of +Eudaimôn Arabia+, which beyond doubt corresponds to
+'Âden+, [lat. 12° 45´ N., long. 45° 21´ E.] now so well-known
as the great packet station between Suez and India. The opinion
held by some that Aden is the Eden mentioned by the Prophet Ezekiel
(xxvii. 23) is opposed by Ritter and Winer. It is not mentioned by
Pliny, though it has been erroneously held that the +Attanae+,
which he mentions in the following passage, was Aden. “Homnae et
Attanae (v. 1. Athanae) quæ nunc oppida maxima celebrari a Persico
mari negotiatores dicunt.” (vi. 32.) Ptolemy, who calls it simply
+Arabia+, speaks of it as an emporium, and places after it at the
distance of a degree and a half +Melan Horos+, or Black Hill,
17 miles from the coast, which is in long. 46° 59´ E. The place,
as the _Periplûs_ informs us, received the name of +Eudaimôn+
from the great prosperity and wealth which it derived from being
the great entrepôt of the trade between India and Egypt. It was in
decay when that work was written, but even in the time of Ptolemy
had begun to show symptoms of returning prosperity, and in the time
of Constantine it was known as the ‘Roman Emporium,’ and had almost
regained its former consequence, as is gathered from a passage in
the works of the ecclesiastical historian Philostorgios. It is thus
spoken of by Edrisi (I. p. 51): “+'Âden+ is a small town, but
renowned for its seaport whence ships depart that are destined for
Sind, India, and China.” In the middle ages it became again the centre
of the trade between India and the Red Sea, and thus regained that
wonderful prosperity which in the outset had given it its name. In
this flourishing condition it was found by Marco Polo, whose account
of its wealth, power and influence is, as Vincent remarks, almost as
magnificent as that which Agatharkhidês attributed to the Sabæans in
the time of the Ptolemies, when the trade was carried on in the same
manner. Agatharkhidês does not however mention the place by name, but
it was probably the city which he describes without naming it as lying
on the White Sea without the straits, whence, he says, the Sabæans
sent out colonies or factories into India, and where the fleets from
Persis, Karmania and the Indus arrived. The name of +Aden+ is
supposed to be a corruption from +Eudaimôn+.
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