Professor Heeren, in his excellent work on the Commerce of the Phœnicians, states that he is of opinion that the fleet of Solomon did visit India; but, on his own showing, this was unnecessary, for if the Phœnician colonies trading to India did, at the time of the Hebro-Phœnician voyage, exist in the Persian Gulf, it would be unnecessary for Solomon’s fleet to proceed further than to those colonies in the Persian Gulf to obtain all the produce of India which they were constantly importing. This opinion, held by Seetzen, has evidently induced him to place Ophir in the Persian Gulf.
Although the large majority of writers on this subject seek for Ophir in India, they are by no means united as to the exact locality; some believing it to be the town of Σομπάρα, at or near Goâ, mentioned by Ptolemy, Ammianus, and Abulfeda, while the majority place it on the island of Trophane, generally recognized as that of Ceylon.
2.—That Ophir was in the Persian Gulf.
Some have sought Ophir in the islands of this Gulf; while others have proceeded up the Euphrates in search of it. Among the latter may be mentioned Calmet, in his “Dissertation sur le Pays d’Ophir,” who places the Ophir of Solomon in Armenia. To carry out this theory, he makes the fleet of Solomon to pass through the Persian Gulf up the Tigris and Euphrates, as far as these rivers were navigable, and to where they receive the produce of Armenian Ophir. It will be subsequently shown that, by the building of Tadmor in the wilderness, Solomon commanded the Phœnician trade, by this route, from India to Tyre, and that it would therefore have been useless for Hiram and Solomon to dispatch a fleet up the Persian Gulf. The Rev. Charles Foster, B.D., in “The Historical Geography of Arabia,” London, 1844, places the Ophir of Solomon in the east of Arabia, recognizing that locality in the town of Ofor, situated at about 60 or 70 miles from the sea-coast—having a river running a few miles from that town, and discharging itself into the Persian Gulf. After arguing the subject very fully, he sums up his opinion as to the above being the locality in the following words—“From these collective premises may unpresumptuously be drawn the conclusions—1. That the Ofor of Sale and d’Anville, a town and district in the mountains of Omân, west of the coast of Maham, is the Ophir of the Old Testament. 2. That the littus Hammœum ubi auri Metalla, or Gold Coast, mentioned by Pliny, was the true term of the famous voyage in the reign of Solomon, from Ezion-geber, or Akaba, at the head of the Gulf of Elah. 3. And, lastly, that this Ophir or Ofor, the country of the Kottabani of Ptolemy, one of the many tribes known generally in Arabia by the denomination of Beni Kahtan or Kahtanys, was the primitive and proper seat of the family of Ophir, the son of Joktan, which, like so many other districts denominated from the brethren of this patriarch, still preserves, at the present day, the name and memory of their fathers.” The Rev. Mr. Foster adds in a note, “The name of this Joktanite patriarch, and of the famous gold country of Arabia, which, in the time of Ptolemy and Pliny, bore, and which still retains, his name, is a curious specimen of the flexibility of proper names in the Arabic, and its kindred dialects. For Ophor can be traced through, at least, eight varieties of form—thus, in the prophecies of Jeremiah and Daniel (Jer. x. 9, Dan. x. 5), it is written Uphaz; in the Song of Solomon (v. 11) [?] Paz, (LXX. vers.) Kephaz; in Chronicles (2 Chron. iii. 6) Paravim; by Eupolemus, Orphe; by Ptolemy, Appa; by Niebuhr, Efi; and by Sale d’Anville, and all subsequent authorities, Ofor. M. Niebuhr notices variations nearly as numerous in the pronunciation of the word Simoom.” “Vent empoisonné, qu’on nomme Sâm, Smum, Samiel, ou Samêle, suivant les différens prononciations des Arabes.”—Descript. de l’Arabie, tome iii. p. 7; Historical Geography of Arabia, vol. i. p. 171. To the opinion expressed by the Rev. Mr. Foster the objection already made to that of Calmet equally applies, viz., that Hiram and Solomon already commanded all the trade of the Persian Gulf which reached Tyre and Jerusalem by way of Tadmor.
3.—That Ophir was situated in South Arabia.
M. Niebuhr may be quoted as the great authority for Ophir being situated in South Arabia, although he failed in pointing out its exact position, as may be learned from the following:—“Je n’ai point trouvé de nom ressemblant à celui d’Ophir; mais je ne doute pas que si quelq’un avoit occasion de parcourir le pays depuis Aden jusqu’à Dafar, comme je l’ai parcouru de l’Mâm, il ne la trouve quelque part. Ophir étoit vraisemblablement le principal port du royaume des Sabéens, et il étoit san doute situé entre Aden et Dafar, peut-être même étoit-ce le port que les Grecs appellent Cana.”—Niebuhr, tome iii. p. 253.
4. That Ophir was situated at Sofala.
Two thousand years before the Christian era, we learn that Semiramis, the great Queen of Assyria, not contented with the extensive dominions left to her by her husband, Ninus, enlarged them by the conquest of a great part of Ethiopia. (Rollin, book iii. chap. i. sec. 5. See also Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres, vol. iii. p. 343, et seq. for two learned dissertations upon the Assyrian Empire, and particularly on the reign and actions of Semiramis.)
Sesostris, one of the most powerful kings of Egypt, ascended the throne on the death of his father, B.C. 1491. He formed no less a project than the conquest of the known world. He began his expedition by the conquest of Ethiopia, and obliged the nations of that country to furnish him, annually, with a certain quantity of ebony, ivory, and gold. Having fitted out a fleet of four hundred sail, he advanced to the Red Sea, and made himself master of the isles and coasts of that sea, proceeding afterwards to India. In the countries which he conquered, he left pillars on which the following inscription was engraved:—“Sesostris, king of kings, and lord of lords, subdued this country by the power of his arms.” His empire extended from the Ganges to the Danube. Diodorus Siculus tells us that he cut canals from Memphis to the Red Sea, opening Egypt to the commerce of Libya, Ethiopia, and Arabia. (Herod. l. ii. chap. 102, 110. Diod. l. 1, sec. 48, 54.)
In the sublime poem of Job—now generally attributed to Moses, and supposed to have been written previous to the Egyptian Exodus, during some part of Moses’ residence with his hospitable father-in-law, Jethro, in that district of Idumæa which was named Midian—about 1520 B.C.—mention is made of the gold of Ophir, Job xxviii. v. 16, showing that the gold of Ophir was at the date of this poem known to the Arabs of Idumæa, where the poem was written. In Genesis and Exodus frequent mention is made of myrrh, cinnamon, cassia, and aloes, articles which were imported by the Arabs of the south of Arabia from India and Africa, but which were believed by the Hebrews to be the produce of Arabia.