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The location of Tabai (Periplus Maris Erythraei 12–13)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Lionel Casson
Lionel Casson*
Affiliation:
New York University
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Extract

The Periplus Maris Erythraei, written probably in the latter half of the first century ad, is a guide for merchants trading with eastern Africa, Arabia, and India. The anonymous author lists the various ports along the routes, indicating for each the facilities to be found and the objects of trade to be bought or sold there.

A few of the ports are well known and can be identified with certainty. Many which are also mentioned in other writers, such as Strabo or Ptolemy, can be identified with varying degrees of certainty. The most difficult are those that occur only in the Periplus. One such is Tabai, on the African trade route.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 106 , November 1986 , pp. 179 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1986

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References

1 For a comprehensive review of the problem of the date of the Periplus, see Rodinson, M. in Annaire de l‘École pratique des Hautes Études, ive Section (Sciences historiques et philologiques) cvii (1974–1975) 210–38Google Scholar and cviii (1975–1976) 201–219. Rodinson bends over backward to give each and every argument a fair hearing and in the process concedes undeserved consideration to some that are patently of lesser worth and some that are highly dubious and so arrives at an unnecessarily imprecise conclusion. The strongest evidence, as is clear from even his cautious account (cf. 1974–1975, 212–16, 1975–1976, 218), is the mention in Periplus 19 of a Nabataean king named Malichas. Our knowledge of the Nabataean kings is fairly complete, and the list includes but two of that name. The Malichas of the Periplus cannot be Malichas I since his reign, 60–30 BC, was too early. The sole candidate is Malichas II, who held the throne from AD 40 to 71, although allowance must be made for a possible Malichas III who may have ruled during the early years of the Roman occupation; see Beeston, A. in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies xliv (1981) 353 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Gizeir, motô, and asyphê were respectively the best, second best, and a cheap grade, of cassia; arôma and magla probably were grades of cassia as well. See Casson, L., CQ xxx (1980) 496 Google Scholar and Ancient trade and society (Detroit 1984) 228–29Google Scholar.

3 The translation is from the text in Frisk, H., Le Périple de la Mer Érythrée (Göteborgs Högskolas Årsskrift xxxiii, [Göteborg 1927])Google Scholar.

4 All translators agree on these identifications: Müller, C. in Geog. Gr. Min. i (Paris 1855)Google Scholar; McCrindle, J., The Commerce and Navigation of the Erythraean Sea (Calcutta 1879)Google Scholar; Fabricius, B., Der Periplus des Erythraïschen Meeres (Leipzig 1883)Google Scholar; Schoff, W., The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (New York 1912)Google Scholar; Huntingford, G., The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (Hakluyt Society, series 2, cli, London 1980)Google Scholar. On the phonetic connection between Opônê and Hafun, see Glaser, E., Skizze der Geschichte und Geographie Arabiens ii (Berlin 1890) 202 Google Scholar; Storbeck, F. in Mitt, des Sem.für Orientalische Sprachen an den königlichen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, zweite Abteilung xvii (1914) 123 Google Scholar. On the port of Hafun, see Villiers, A., Sons of Sinbad (New York 1940) 97–99 Google Scholar.

5 Chittick, N. in Azania xi (1976) 123–24Google Scholar and International journal of Nautical Archaeology viii (1979) 275 Google Scholar.

6 Casson, L. in TAPA cx (1980) 27–29 Google Scholar = Ancient trade and society 187–88.

7 So McCrindle, Fabricius, Schoff, Warmington, E. in Cambridge History of the British Empire viii 2 (Cambridge 1963) 64 Google Scholar.

8 Cf. Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Pilot (Hydrographer of the [British] Navy, twelfth edition 1980) 14. 184–85; Sailing Directions for the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf ([U.S.] Defense Mapping Agency, Hydrographic/Topographic Center, second edition 1983) 167. Neither publication lists any anchorages in the vicinity of Ras Shenaghef.

9 This factitious leg has made its way into a number of translations: Schoff's, Warmington's (n. 7), Mauny's, R. (Journal de la Société des Africanistes xxxviii [1968] 26)Google Scholar.

10 Glaser (n. 4) 201–202; Huntingford 94.

11 Documents sur l'histoire, la géographie et le commerce de l'Afrique Orientale i (Paris 1856) 99–100 Google Scholar.

12 Azania xi (1976) 120–23Google Scholar; IJNA viii (1979) 275–77Google Scholar.

13 Chori Hordio at present is too shallow for anything but small craft and its use was limited even in Guillain's day (op. cit. n. 11, ii 390–91). However, he had no hesitation in accepting it as a harbor of refuge in ancient times, and the archaeological evidence that a port of the Greco-Roman period once existed there confirms his judgement.

14 E.g. Theophr. Sign. 10, 11, 21 (signs indicating rain within three days). Columbus, seaman nonpareil, was a skilled reader of the signs of a storm to come in the near, not immediate, future. When he arrived at San Domingo on 29 June 1502, he was certain trouble was brewing, so he not only requested permission from the local governor to bring his ships into the safety of the harbor but cautioned that a big fleet which was already there and preparing to depart, should not be allowed to leave for the next eight days. He was refused the permission, and his advice was pointedly disregarded. The fleet sailed out on 1 July, the weather no doubt still being deceptively fair, and thirty or forty hours later the storm hit—three days after Columbus' prediction. He himself had time to take refuge at a harbor some 50 nautical miles from San Domingo. See Bartolomé de la Casas, Historia de las Indias, Bk. 2, chap. 5.

15 Periplus 12, 13.