The Account Which Agatharcides Gives Of Sabaea Is Very Curious And
Important; And, As We Shall Afterwards Have Occasion To
Make use of it, in
endeavouring to prove that, in very early ages, the Arabians supplied the
western world with
The productions of the east, we shall extract here what
he says of Sabaea from the translation of Dr. Vincent.
"Sabaea, (says Agatharcides,) abounds with every production to make life
happy in the extreme: its very air is so perfumed with odours, that the
natives are obliged to mitigate the fragrance by scents that have an
opposite tendency, as if nature could not support even pleasure in the
extreme. Myrrh, frankincense, balsam, cinnamon, and casia are here
produced, from trees of extraordinary magnitude. The king, as he is, on the
one hand, entitled to supreme honour, on the other, is obliged to submit to
confinement in his palace; but the people are robust, warlike, and able
mariners: they sail in very large vessels to the country where the
odoriferous commodities are produced; they plant colonies there, and import
from thence the larimna, an odour no where else to be found. In fact, there
is no nation on the earth so wealthy as the Gerrheans and Sabeans, as being
in the centre of all the commerce that passes between Asia and Europe.
These are the nations which have enriched the kingdom of Ptolemy: these are
the nations that furnish the most profitable agencies to the industry of
the Phoenicians, and a variety of advantages which are incalculable. They
possess themselves every profusion of luxury, in articles of plate and
sculpture, in furniture of beds, tripods, and other household
embellishments, far superior in degree to any thing that is seen in Europe:
their expence of living rivals the magnificence of princes: their houses
are decorated with pillars glistening with gold and silver: their doors are
crowned with vases and beset with jewels: the interior of their houses
corresponds with the beauty of their outward appearance, and all the riches
of other countries are here exhibited in a variety of profusion. Such a
nation, and so abounding in superfluity, owes its independence to its
distance from Europe; for their luxurious manners would soon render them a
prey to the European sovereigns, who have always troops on foot prepared
for any conquest; and who, if they could find the means of invasion, would
soon reduce the Sabeans to the condition of their agents and factors;
whereas they are now obliged to deal with them as principals."
The importance and the bearing of these curious facts, first brought to our
notice by Agatharcides, as well as the inferences which may be drawn from
them regarding the mode in which the ancients obtained their commodities of
India, will call our particular attention afterwards: at present we shall
merely notice the characteristic and minute picture which Agatharcides has
drawn of the Sabeans, and the just notions he had formed on the nature of a
commerce, of which all the other writers of antiquity seemed to have been
utterly ignorant.
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