That Sheba Is Sabaea, Or Arabia Felix, We Learn From
Ezekiel:
- "The merchants of Sheba and Ramah, they were thy merchants:
They
occupied in thy fairs with chief of all spices, and with all precious
stones and gold." Six hundred and fifty years after Isaiah bore his
testimony to the commerce of Sabaea, we have the authority of Agatharcides,
that the merchants of this country traded to India; that the great wealth
and luxury of Sabaea were principally derived from this trade; and that, at
the time when Egypt possessed the monopoly of the Indian trade, with
respect to Europe, the Sabeans enjoyed a similar advantage with regard to
Egypt.
Having thus established the fact, that, from the earliest period of which
we have any record, the Arabians were the merchants who brought the
cinnamon, &c. of India into the west, we must, in the next place, endeavour
to ascertain by what means and route this commerce was carried on; and we
think we can prove that the communication between Arabia and India, at a
very early period, was both by sea and land.
There were many circumstances connected with Arabia and the Arabians, which
would necessarily turn their thoughts to maritime affairs, and when they
had once embarked in maritime commerce, would particularly direct it to
India. The sea washed three sides of the peninsula of Arabia: the Arabians
were not, like the Egyptians, prejudiced, either by their habits or their
religion, against the sea. The monsoons must have been perceived by them,
from part of the sea-coast lying within their influence; and it can hardly
be supposed that a sea-faring people would not take advantage of them, to
embark in such a lucrative trade as that of India. "There is no history
which treats of them which does not notice them as pirates, or merchants,
by sea, as robbers, or traders, by land. We scarcely touch upon them,
accidentally, in any author, without finding that they were the carriers of
the Indian Ocean." From the earliest period that history begins to notice
them, Sabaea, Hadraumaut, and Oman, are described as the residences of
navigators; and as these places are, in the earliest historians, celebrated
for their maritime commerce, it is reasonable to suppose that they were
equally so before the ancient historians acquired any knowledge of them.
We cannot go farther back, with respect to the fact of the Arabians being
in India, than the voyage of Nearchus; but in the journal of this
navigator, we find manifest traces of Arabian navigators on the coast of
Mekran, previous to his expedition: he also found proofs of their commerce
on the coast of Gadrosia, and Arabic names of places - a pilot to direct
him, and vessels of the country in the Gulf of Persia. Large ships from the
Indus, Patala, Persis, and Karmania came to Arabia, as early as the time of
Agatharcides; and it is probable that these ships were navigated by
Arabians, as the inhabitants of India were not, at this time, and, indeed,
never have been celebrated for their maritime enterprize and skill. The
same author mentions a town, a little without the Red Sea, from whence, he
says, the Sabeans sent out colonies or factories into India, and to which
the large ships he describes came with their cargoes from India. This is
the first historical evidence to prove the establishment of Arabian
factories and merchants in the ports of India. In the time of Pliny, the
Arabians were in such numbers on the coast of Malabar, and at Ceylon, that,
according to that author, the inhabitants of the former had embraced their
religion, and the ports of the latter were entirely in their power. Their
settlements and commerce in India are repeatedly mentioned in the Periplus
of the Erythrean Sea, and likewise their settlements down the coast of
Africa to Rhaptum, before it was visited by the Greeks from Egypt. For,
besides their voyages from India to their own country, they frequently
brought Indian commodities direct to the coast of Africa. At Sabaea, the
great mart of the Arabian commerce with India, the Greeks, as late as the
reign of Philometor, purchased the spices and other productions of the
east. As there was a complete monopoly of them at this place, in the hands
of the Arabians, the Greek navigators and merchants were induced, in the
hopes of obtaining them cheaper, to pass the Straits of Babelmandeb, and on
the coast of Africa they found cinnamon and other produce of India, which
had been brought hither by the Arabian traders.
The evidence of the land trade between Arabia and India, from a very early
period, is equally clear and decisive: Petra, the capital of Arabia Petrea,
was the centre of this trade. To it the caravans, in all ages, came from
Minea, in the interior of Arabia, and from Gherra, in the Gulf of
Persia, - from Hadraumaut, on the Ocean, and some even from Sabaea. From
Petra, the trade again spread in every direction - to Egypt, Palestine, and
Syria, through Arsinoe, Gaza, Tyre, Jerusalem, Damascus, and other places
of less consequence, all lying on routes terminating in the Mediterranean.
The Gherrheans, who were a Babylonian colony settled in that part of
Arabia, which extends along the south coast of the Persian Gulf, are the
earliest conductors of caravans upon record. They are first mentioned by
Agatharcides, who compares their wealth with that of the Sabeans, and
describes them as the agents for all the precious commodities of Asia and
Europe: he adds that they brought much wealth into Syria, and furnished a
variety of articles, which were afterwards manufactured or resold by the
Phoenicians. But the only route by which Syria and Phoenicia could have
been supplied by them, was through Petra. The particular articles with
which their caravans were loaded, according to Strabo, were the produce of
Arabia, and the spices of India. Besides the route of their caravans,
across the whole peninsula to Petra, it appears that they sometimes carried
their merchandize in boats up the Euphrates to Babylon, or even 240 miles
higher up, to Thapsacus, and thence dispersed it in all directions by land.
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