Greek Texts & Translations

Their food consists of flesh and bones pounded together, wrapped up in skins and then baked, or prepared after many other methods by the cooks, who are called Acatharti, or impure. In this way they eat not only the flesh, but the bones and skins also.

They use (as an ointment for the body ?) a mixture of blood and milk ; the drink of the people in general is an infusion of the paliurus (buckthorn); ^note that of the tyrants is mead; the honey being expressed from some kind of flower.

Their winter sets in when the Etesian winds begin to blow (for they have rain), and the remaining season is summer.

They go naked, or wear skins only, and carry clubs. They deprive themselves of the prepuce, ^note but some are circumcised like Egyptians. The Ethiopian Megabari have their clubs armed with iron knobs. They use spears and shields which are covered with raw hides. The other Ethiopians use bows and lances. Some of the Troglodytae, when they bury their dead, bind the body from the neck to the legs with twigs of the buckthorn. They then immediately throw stones over the body, at the same time laughing and rejoicing, until they have covered the face. They then place over it a ram's horn, and go away.

They travel by night; the male cattle have bells fastened to them, in order to drive away wild beasts with the sound. They use torches also and arrows in repelling them. They watch during the night, on account of their flocks, and sing some peculiar song around their fires. 18

Having given this account of the Troglodytae and of the neighbouring Ethiopians, Artemidorus returns to the Arabians. Beginning from Poseidium, he first describes those who border upon the Arabian Gulf, and are opposite to the Troglodytae. He says that Poseidium is situated within the bay of [Heroopolis], ^note and that contiguous to Poseidium ^note is a grove of palm trees, ^note well supplied with water, which is