Greek Texts & Translations

The houses are sumptuous, and of stone. The cities are without walls, on account of the peace [which prevails among them]. A great part of the country is fertile, and produces everything except oil of olives; [instead of it], the oil of sesamum is used. The sheep have white fleeces, their oxen are large; but the country produces no horses. ^note Camels are the substitute for horses, and perform the [same kind of] labour. They wear no tunics, but have a girdle about the loins, and walk abroad in sandals. ^note The dress of the kings is the same, but the colour is purple.

Some merchandise is altogether imported into the country, others are not altogether imports, especially as some articles are native products, as gold and silver, and many of the aromatics; but brass and iron, purple garments, styrax, saffron, and costus (or white cinnamon), pieces of sculpture, paintings, statues, are not to be procured in the country.

They look upon the bodies of the dead as no better than dung, according to the words of Heracleitus, dead bodies more fit to be cast out than dung; wherefore they bury even their kings beside dung-heaps. They worship the sun, and construct the altar on the top of a house, pouring out libations and burning frankincense upon it every day. 27

When the poet says, I went to the country of the Ethiopians, Sidonians, and Erembi, ^note it is doubtful, what people he means by Sidonians, whether those who lived near the Persian Gulf, a colony from which nation are the Sidonians in our quarter (in the same manner as historians relate, that some Tyrian islanders are found there, and Aradii, from whom the Aradii in our country derive their origin), or whether the poet means actually the Sidonians themselves.

But there is more doubt about the Erembi, whether we are to suppose that he means the Troglodytae, according to the opinion of those who, by a forced etymology, derive the word Erembi from ἔραν ἐμ<>αίνειν, that is, entering into the earth, or whether he means the Arabians. Zeno the philosopher of our sect alters the reading in this manner, And Sidoni, and Arabes;