the Keturaïte tribes being called by the names already given by the former inhabitants to the districts they occupied. The most important tribe of the Keturaïtes was the great people of MIDIAN. Again, the twelve sons of Ishmaël are the heads of twelve tribes of Arabs. (Gen. x. 12—16.) There would seem to have been other descendants of Hagar in Arabia, for elsewhere the Hagarenes are distinguished from the Ishmaelites (Psalm lxxxiii. 6; comp. 1 Chron. v. 10, 19, 22); and we have other indications of a distinct tribe bearing the name of Hagarenes, both in the NW. and NE. of the peninsula. Another branch of the Abrahamide Arabs was furnished by the descendants of Esau, whose earliest abode was M. Seir in Arabia Petraea, and who soon coalesced with the Ishmaelites, as is intimated by the marriage of Esau with Ishmael's daughter, the sister of Nebajoth (Gen. xxix. 9), and confirmed by the close connection between the Nabathaeans and Idumeans throughout all their history. [EDOM; IDUMAEA; NABATHAEI.]

These statements present considerable difficulties, the full discussion of which belongs to biblical science. They seem, on the whole, to indicate three stages in the population of Arabia; first, on the west coast, by the descendants of Cush, that is, tribes akin to those whose chief seats were found in Aethiopia; secondly, by the descendants of Eber, that is, belonging to one of the most ancient branches of the great Semitic race, who migrated from the primitive seats of that race ad spread over the Arabian peninsula in general; and, lastly, a later immigration of younger tribes of the same race, all belonging to the Abrahamic family, who came from Palestine, and settled in the NW. part of the peninsula. The position of these last is determined by that of the known historical tribes which bear the same names, as Nebajoth, Ishmael's eldest son [NABATHAEI], and also by the prediction (or rather appointment, that Ishmaël should "dwell to the East of all his brethren." (Gen. xvi. 12, where in face of means to the east of.)

To these main elements of the Arab population must be added several of the minor peoples on the S. and E. of Palestine, who belong to Arabia both by kindred and position: such as the descendants of Uz and Buz, the sons of Abraham's brother Nahor, who appear as Arabs in the history of Job, the dweller in Uz, and his friend Elihu the Buzite (Gen. xxii. 21; Job. i. 1, xxxii. 2); the Moabites and Ammonites, descendants of Lot [AMMONITAE MOAB]; and some others, whose localities and affinities are more difficult to make out

The traditions of the Arabians themselves respecting their origin, though obscured by poetic fiction, and probably corrupted from motives of pride, family, national, and (since Mohammed) religious, have yielded valuable results already; but they need further investigation. They furnish a strong general confirmation to the Scripture ethnography. According to these traditions the inhabitants of Arabia from the earliest times are first divided into two races which belong to distinct periods; the ancient and the modern Arabs. The ancient Arabs included, among others, the powerful tribes of Ad, Thamud, Tasm, Jadis, Jorham (not to be confounded with the later tribe of the same name), and Amalek. They are long since extinct, but are remembered in favourite popular traditions, which tell of their power, luxury, and arrogance of these one of the most striking is the story of Irem Zat-el-Emad, the terrestrial paradise

of Sheddad the son of Ad, in which he was struck to death with all his race, and which is still believed to exist in the deserts of Yemen, in the district of Seba (Lane's Arabian Nights, note to chap. xi. vol. ii. p. 342). That this race, now become mythical, corresponds to the first Cushite inhabitants, seems most probable.

The modern Arabs, that is, all the inhabitants subsequent to the former race, are divided into two classes, the pure Arabs (Arab el-Araba, i. e. Arabs of the Arabs, an idiom like a Hebrew of the Hebrews) and the mixt or naturalized Arabs (Mostarabi, i. e. Arabes facti). The former are the descendants of Kahtan (the Joktan of Scripture); whose two sons, Yarab and Jorham, founded the kingdoms of Yemen in the S. of the peninsula and Hejaz in the NW. The subsequent intrusion of the Ishmaelites is represented by the marriage of Ishmael, a daughter of Modad, king of Hejaz, which district became the seat of the descendants of this marriage, the Mostarabi, so called because their father was a foreigner, and their mother only a pure Arab: their ancestral head is Adnan, son of Ishmael. Thus we have that broad distinction established between the Arabs of the N. and S. divisions of the peninsula, which prevails through all their history, and is better known by the later names of the two races, the Koreish in the N. and the Himyari in the S.

The latest researches, however, go far to disprove the connection of the Korcish with Ishmael, and to show that it was the invention of the age of Mohammed or his successors, for the purpose of making out the prophet, who was of the Koreish, to be a descendant of Abraham. These researches give the following ethnical genealogy. Yarab, already mentioned as the son of Kahtan, and the eponymus of the whole Arab race, became, through three generations, the ancestor of Saba, the name under which the southern Arabs were most generally known to the ancients. Of Saba's numerous progeny, two have become the traditional heads of the whole Arab race, namely, Himyar of those in the South (Yemen), and Kahlan of those in the North (Hejaz). According to this view the Ishmaelites are put back into their ancient seats, on the isthmus of the peninsula. The Himyarites, who inhabited El-Yemen and El-Hadramaut (both included in Yemenin its wider sense), were known to the Greeks and Romans by the name of HOMERITAE.

Within the last forty years, some very interesting. inscriptions have been found in S. Arabia, in what is believed with great probability to be the ancient Himyaritic dialect; and it has been discovered that the same language is still spoken by some obscure mountain tribes in the SE. parts of the peninsula, who call themselves Ehhkili, i. e. freemen. This language is said to be distinct from each of the three branches of the Syro-Arabian language recognized by Gesenius, namely, the Aramaean, Canaanitish, and Arabian; but it belongs to the same family, and comes nearer to Hebrew and Syriac than to Arabic; and it has close affinities with both the Ethiopic dialects, the Ghyz and the Amharic, especially with the former. It is needless to point out how strikingly these discoveries confirm the views, that the successive waves of population have passed over the peninsula from N. to S.; that the di placed tribes have been driven chiefly westward over the Red Sea, leaving behind them, however, remnants enough to guide the researches of the ethnographer; and that the present population is a mixed race, formed by suc

and ladanum (see above, § III.): and respecting | the methods of obtaining these treasures, he tells us some marvellous stories; concluding with the statement that, through the abundance of its spices, gums, and incense, the country sends forth a wonderfully sweet odour (iii. 107-113). As to the situation of Arabia, in relation to the surrounding countries, he says that, on the W. of Asia, two peninsulas (aktai) run out into the sea: the one on the N. is Asia Minor: the other, on the S., beginning at Persia, extends into the Red Sea ('Epv@pǹ Dáλaσoa, i. e. Indian Ocean),—comprising, first, Persia, then Assyria, and lastly Arabia; and ending at the Arabian gulf, into which Darius dug a canal from the Nile; not, however, ending, except in a customary sense (ou Anyovσa ei μǹ vóμw); a qualification which means that, though the peninsula is broken by the Arabian Gulf, it really continues on its western side and includes the continent of Libya. On the land side, he makes this peninsula extend from the Persians to Phoenicia, after which it touches the Mediterranean at the part adjacent to Palestine and Egypt: he adds that it includes only three peoples, that is, the three he named at first, Persians, Assyrians, and Arabians (iv. 38, 39). It must be observed that Assyria is here used in the wide sense, not uncommon in the early writers, to include the E. part of Syria. Of the people of Arabia, he takes occasion to speak, in connection with the expedition of Cambyses into Egypt through the part already mentioned (iii. 5) as subject to an Arabian king, namely, the later Idumaea; but his description is applicable to the Arabs of the desert (Beduins) in general. They keep faith above all other men, and they have a remarkable ceremony of making a covenant, in ratification of which they invoke Dionysus and Urania, whom they call Orotal and Alilat (i. e. the Sun and Moon); and these are the only deities they have (iii. 8, comp. i. 131). He mentions their mode of carrying water across the desert in camel's skins (iii. 9); and elsewhere he describes all the Arabs in the army of Xerxes as mounted on camels, which are, he says, as swift as horses, but to which the horse has such an antipathy that the Arabs were placed in the rear of the whole army (vii. 86, 87). These Arabs were independent allies of Persia: he expressly says that the Arabians were never subjected to the Persian empire (iii. 88), but they showed their friendship for the Great King by an annual present (oŵpov, expressly opposed to pópos) of 1000 talents of frankincense (iii. 97), the regularity of which may have depended on how far the king took care to humour them. With reference to the army of Xerxes, Herodotus distinguishes the Arabs who dwelt above Egypt from the rest: they were joined with the Aethiopians (vii. 69). As they were independent of the Persians, so had they been of the earlier empires. The alleged conquests of some of the Assyrian kings could only have affected small portions of the country on the N. and NW. (Diod. i. 53. § 3.) Xenophon gives us some of the information which he had gathered from his Persian friends respecting the Arabs. (Cyr. i. 1. § 4, 5. § 2, vi. 2. § 10.)

The independence of Arabia was supposed to be threatened by the schemes entertained by Alexander after his return from India. From anger, as some thought, because the Arabs had neglected to court him by an embassy, or, as others supposed, impelled only by insatiable ambition, he prepared a fleet on the Euphrates, whose destination was undoubtedly

Arabia, but whether with the rash design of subjugating the peninsula, or with the more modest intention of opening a highway of commercial enterprise between Alexandria and the East, modern criticism has taken leave to doubt. (Arrian. Anab. vii. 19, foll.; Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, vol. vii. c.55.) He sent out expeditions to explore the coast; but they effected next to nothing; and the project, what ever it may have been, expired with its author.

The successors of Alexander in Syria experienced the difficulties which even their leader would have failed to surmount. Diodorus relates the unsuccessful campaigns made against the Nabathaean Arabs, by order of Antigonus, in which his lieutenant, Athenaeus, was signally defeated, and his son Demetrius was compelled to make a treaty with the enemy (xix. 94-100). Under the Seleucidae, the Arabs of Arabia Petraea cultivated friendly relations with Syria, and made constant aggressions on the S. frontier of Palestine, which were repelled by the more vigorous of the Maccabaean princes, till at last an Idumean dynasty was established on the throne of Jerusalem. [IDUMAEA: Dict. of Biog. art. Herodes.]

Meanwhile, the commercial enterprise of the Ptolemies, to which Alexander had given the great impulse by the foundation of Alexandria, caused a vast accession to the knowledge already possessed of Arabia, some important results of which are preserved in the work of Agatharcides on the Erythraean Sea (Phot. Cod. 250, pp.441-460, ed. Bekker). A great step in advance was gained by the expedition sent into Arabia Felix by Augustus in B.C. 24, under Aelius Gallus, who was assisted by Obodas, king of Petra, with a force of 1,000 Nabathaean Arabs. Starting from Egypt, across the Arabian Gulf, and landing at Leuce Come, the Romans penetrated as far as the SW. corner of the peninsula to Marsyabae, the capital of the Sabaeans; but were compelled to retreat, after dreadful sufferings from heat and thirst, scarcely escaping from the country with the loss of all the booty The allusions of the poets prove the eagerness with which Augustus engaged in this unfortunate expedition (Hor. Carm. i. 29. 1, 35. 38, ii. 12. 24, iii. 24. 1, Epist. i. 7. 35; Propert. ii. 8. 19); and, though it failed as a scheme of conquest, it accomplished more than he had set his heart on. Aelius Gallus had the good fortune to number among his friends the geographer Strabo, who accompanied him to Egypt, and became the historian both of the expediti n and of the important additions made by it to what was already known of the Arabian peninsula (Strab. xvi. pp. 767, foll.). A very full account of the people and products of the country is also given by his contemporary Diodorus (ii. 48-54, xix. 94-100). Of subsequent writers, those who have collected the most important notices respecting Arabia are, Mela (i. 2, 10, iii 8); Pliny (vi. 28. s. 32. et alib.); Arrian (Anab. ii. 20, iii. 1, 5, v. 25, vii. 1, 19, 20, 21, Ind. 32, 41, 43); Ptolemy (v.17, 19, vi. 7, et alib.); Agathemerus (ii. 11, et alib.); and the author of the Periplus Maris Erythraei, ascribed to Arrian. It is needless to enter into the details of these several descriptions, which all correspond, more or less accurately, to the accounts which modern writers give of the still unchanged and unconquered people. The following summary completes the history of Arabia, so far as it belongs to this work.

In A.D. 105, the part of Arabia extending E. of Damascus down to the Red Sea was taken posses

on of by A. Cornelius Palma, and formed into a Roman province under the naine of ARABIA. (Dion. Cass. lxviii. 14; Amm. Marc. xiv. 8.) Its principal towns were Petra and Bostra, the former in the S. and the latter in the N. of the province. [PETRA; BOSTRA.] The province was enlarged in A.D. 195 by Septimius Severus. (Dion. Cass. lxxv. 1, 2; Eutrop. viii. 18.) Eutropius speaks of this emperor forming a new province, and his account appears to be confirmed by the name of ARABIA MAJOR, which we find in a Latin inscription, to which A. W. Zumpt assigns the date of 211 (Inser. Lat. Sel. No. 5366). The province was subject to a Legatus, subsequently called Consularis, who had a legion under him. After Constantine Arabia was divided into two provinces; the part S. of Palestine with the capital Petra, forming the province of Palaestina Tertia, or Salutaris, under a Praeses; and the part E. of Palestine with the capital Bostra Leing under a Praeses, subsequently under a Dux. (Marquardt, Becker's Röm. Alterthum. vol. iii. pt. i. p. 201.)

Some partial temporary footing was gained, at a much later period, on the SW. coast by the Aethiopians, who displaced a tyrant of Jewish race; and both in this direction and from the N., Christianity was introduced into the country, where it spread to a great extent, and continued to exist side by side with the old religion (which was Sabacism, or the worship of heavenly bodies), and with some admixture of Judaism, until the total revolution produced by the rise of Mohammedanism in A.D. 622. While maintaining their independence, the Arabs of the desert have also preserved to this day their ancient form of government, which is strictly patriarchal, under heads of tribes and families (Emirs and Sheikhs). In the more settled districts, the patriarchal authority passed into the hands of kings; and the people were divided into the several castes of scholars, warriors, agriculturists, merchants, and mechanics. The Mohammedan revolution lies beyond our limits.

VI. Geographical Details.-1. Arabia Petraea. [PETRA; IDUMAEA; NABATHAEI].

2. Arabia Deserta (ʼn ěpnuos ’Apasía), the great Syrian Desert, N. of the peninsula of Arabia Proper, between the Euphrates on the E., Syria on the N., and Coelesyria and Palestine on the W., was entirely inhabited by nomad tribes (the Beduins, or more properly Bedawee), who were known to the ancients under the appellation of SCENITAE (EnviTal, Strab. xvi. p. 767; Plin. vi. 28. s. 32; Ptol.) from their dwelling in tents, and Nomadae (Noudda) from their occupation as wandering herdsmen, and afterwards by that of SARACENI (Zаракпνol), a name the origin of which is still disputed, while its renown has been spread over the world by its mistaken application to the great body of the Arabs, who burst forth to subdue the world to El Islam (Plin. c.; Ptol.; Ammian. xiv. 4, 8, xxii. 15, xxiii. 5, 6, xxiv. 2, xxxi. 16; Procop. Pers. ii. 19, 20). Some of them served the Romans as mercenary light cavalry in the Persian expedition of Julian. Ptolemy (v. 19) mentions, as separate tribes, the Cauchabeni, on the Euphrates; the Batanaei, on the confines of Syria [BATANAEA], the Agubeni and Rhaabeni, on the borders of Arabia Felix; the Orcheni, on the Persian Gulf; and, between the above, the Aeseitae, Masani, Agraei, and Marteni. He gives a long list of towns along the course of the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf, from

Thapsacus downwards; besides many in the inland parts; most of which are merely wells and halting places on the three great caravan-routes which cross the Desert, the one from Egypt and Petra, eastward to the Persian Gulf, the second from Palmyra southward into Arabia Felix, and the third from Palmyra SE. to the mouth of the Tigris.

3. Arabia Felix ('Apabía ǹ Evdaíμwv), included the peninsula proper, to which the name was extended from the SW. parts (see above). The op. posite case has happened to the modern name ElYemen, which was at first applied to the whole peninsula, but is now used in a restricted sense, for the SW. part, along the S. part of the Red Sea coast. Ptolemy makes a range of mountains, extending across the isthmus, the North boundary of Arabia Felix, on the side of Arabia Deserta; but no such mountains are now known to exist. The tribes and cities of this portion, mentioned by Ptolemy and Pliny, are far too numerous to repeat; the chief of them are treated of in separate articles, or under the following titles of the most important tribes; beginning S. of the NABATHAEI, on the W. coast: the THAMY DENI and MINYAE (in the south part of Hejaz) ir the neighbourhood of MACORABA (Mecca); the SABAEI and HOMERITAE in the SW. part of the peninsula (Yemen); on the SE. coast, the CHATRAMOTITAE and ADRAMITAE (in El-Hadramaut, a country very little known, even to the present day); on the E. and NE. coast the OMANITAE and DARACHENI and GERRAEI (in Oman, and El-Ahsa or El-Hejeh). [P.S.]

in

ARABIA FELIX (Apabía evdalμwv, Peripl. p. 14; 'Apasías európiov, Ptol. vi. 7. §9; 'ApaGía тò éμπóρiov, viii. 22. § 8), or ATTANAE (Plin. vi. 28. s. 32, Sillig, 'Adárn, Philostorg. H. E. iii. 4; Aden), the most flourishing sea-port of Arabia Felix, whence its name; the native name being that given by Pliny and Philostorgius. It was on the coast of the Homeritae, in the extreme S. of the peninsula, about 1° E. of the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, 45° 10' E. long., and 12° 46' N. lat. Ptolemy places it in 80° long. and 111° N. lat. It was one of his points of recorded astronomical observation; its longest day being 12 hrs. 40 min., its distance E. from Alexandreia 1 hr. 20 min. The author of the Periplus ascribed to Arrian states that it was destroyed by Caesar, which can only refer to the expedition of Aelius Gallus, under Augustus. The blow, however, was soon recovered, for the port continued to flourish till eclipsed by Mokha. Its recent occupation, in 1839, as our packet station between Suez and Bombay, is raising it to new consequence; its population, which, in 1839, was 1,000, was nearly 20,000 in 1842. The ancient emporium of Arabian spices and Indian wealth, restored to importance, after the lapse of centuries, as a station and coal depôt for the overland mail, exhibits a curious link between the ancient and modern civilization of the East, and a strange example of the cycles in which history moves. Aden is undoubtedly the Arabia of Mela (iii. 8. § 7), though he places it within the Arabian Gulf. Michaelis supposed it to be the Eden of Ezekiel (xxvii. 23), but his opinion is opposed by Winer (Bibl. Realwörterbuch, s. v. Eden). Some also suppose it to be the Ophir of Scripture. [OPHIR]. [P.S.]

ARABIAE and ARABICUS MONS (rns 'Apa6íns, Tò 'Apáciov obpos: Jebel Mokattem, fc.), the name given by Herodotus (ii. 8) to the range of mountains which form the eastern border of the