Far more important for Egypt and the Roman empire generally than the traffic with the African south was that which subsisted with Arabia and the coasts situated farther to the east. The Arabian peninsula remained aloof from the sphere of Hellenic culture. It would possibly have been otherwise had king Alexander lived a year longer; death swept him away amidst the preparations for sailing round and occupying the already-explored south coast of Arabia, setting out from the Persian Gulf. But the voyage which the great king had not been able to enter on was never undertaken by any Greek after him. From the most remote times, on the other hand, a lively intercourse had taken place between the two coasts of the Arabian Gulf over its moderately broad waters. In the Egyptian accounts from the time of the Pharaohs the voyages to the land of Punt, and the spoils thence brought home in frankincense, ebony, emeralds, leopards’ skins, play an important part. It has been already (p. 148) mentioned that subsequently the northern portion of the Arabian west coast belonged to the territory of the Nabataeans, and with this came into the power of the Romans. This was a desolate beach;[256] only the emporium Leuce Come, the last town of the Nabataeans and so far also of the Roman empire, was not merely in maritime intercourse with Berenice lying opposite, but was also the starting-point of the caravan-route leading to Petra and thence to the ports of southern Syria, and in so far, one of the centres of the traffic between the East and the West (p. 151). The adjoining regions on the south, northward and southward of the modern Mecca, corresponded in their natural character to the opposite Trogodyte country, and were, like this, neither politically nor commercially of importance, nor yet apparently united under one sceptre, but occupied by roving tribes. But at the south end of this gulf was the home of the only Arabic stock, which attained to greater importance in the pre-Islamic period. The Greeks and the Romans name these Arabs in the earlier period after the people most prominent at that time Sabaeans, in later times after another tribe usually Homerites, as, according to the new Arabic form of the latter name, now for the most part Himjarites. [Sidenote: The state of the Homerites.]