Geography

​And adjacent to this is the most prosperous country of the Sabaeans, a very great tribe, among whom are myrrh, frankincense, and cinnamon; and on the coast is also balsam and another kind of grass, exceedingly fragrant, but having a scent that quickly fades; there are also fragrant palms and reed, and snakes a span long, crimson in color, which leap up even as high as the waist, having an incurable bite. Because of the abundance of fruits, the people are lazy and easy-going in their lives; most of the common people sleep on the roots of the trees, cutting away [the branches]; and those who are near always receive the cargoes in succession and pass them on to those after them, as far as Syria and Mesopotamia; and when they are made drowsy by the sweet odors, they dispel the drowsiness with the incense of asphalt and goat’s beard. The city of the Sabaeans, Mariaba, lies on a well-wooded mountain. It has a king who is lord of the judgments and other matters, but it is not lawful for him to go out of the palace, or else the crowds immediately stone him to death in accordance with some oracle; and both he and those about him live in womanly luxury; and of the multitudes, some cultivate the soil, and others trade in the aromatics, both the local ones and those from Ethiopia, sailing for them across the straits in skin boats; and these are so great in quantity that they use cinnamon and cassia and the others instead of firewood and fuel. And among the Sabaeans there is also larimnum, a most fragrant incense. From their trade both these and the Gerrhaeans are the richest of all, and they possess a vast abundance of gold and silver vessels, beds, tripods, and mixing-bowls together with drinking-cups, and luxury in their houses; for indeed, their doorways, walls, and ceilings happen to be variegated with ivory, gold, and silver inlaid with precious stones. He has said these things about them, but as for the rest, some things he tells in a similar manner to Eratosthenes, and other things he cites from other historians.

​For he says that some call the sea Red from the color appearing by reflection, either from the sun being directly overhead, or from the mountains being reddened by the scorching heat; for they conjecture both ways. And Ctesias of Cnidus records a spring that discharges red and ochre-colored water into the sea. And Agatharchides, his fellow-citizen, records on the authority of a certain Boxus, by birth a Persian, that a certain Persian named Erythras, when a herd of horses was driven to the sea by a lioness driven mad by estrus, and from there crossed over to a certain island, built a raft and was the first to cross over to the island. And seeing that it was well suited for habitation, he led the herd back again to Persia, and sent colonists there and to the other islands and the coast, and made the sea eponymous of himself. And some declare that Erythras was a son of Perseus, and that he ruled over those places. And it is said by some that the distance from the straits of the Arabian Gulf to the outermost cinnamon-bearing country is five thousand stadia, though not clearly, whether to the south or to the east. And it is also said that emerald and beryl are found in the gold mines. There is also fragrant salt among the Arabs, as Poseidonius says.