[658] Hardouin remarks that Mariaba, the name found in former editions, has no such meaning in the modern Arabic.
[659] Mentioned by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, B. v. l. 165, et seq. Sillig, however, reads “Ciani.”
[660] An intimate friend of the geographer Strabo. He was prefect of Egypt during part of the reign of Augustus, and in the years B.C. 24 and 25. Many particulars have been given by Strabo of his expedition against Arabia, in which he completely failed. The heat of the sun, the badness of the water, and the want of the necessaries of life, destroyed the greater part of his army.
[661] By adoption, as previously stated.
[662] The town of the Calingii, mentioned above.
[663] Or wandering tribes.
[664] Its uses in medicine are stated at length in the last Chapter of B. xxi.
[665] Another form of the name of Atramitæ previously mentioned, the ancient inhabitants of the part of Arabia known as Hadramant, and settled, as is supposed, by the descendants of the Joctanite patriarch Hazarmaveth.
[666] Arabia at the present day yields no gold, and very little silver. The queen of Sheba is mentioned as bringing gold to Solomon, 1 Kings, x. 2, 2 Chron. ix. i. Artemidorus and Diodorus Siculus make mention, on the Arabian Gulf, of the Debæ, the Alilæi, and the Gasandi, in whose territories native gold was found. These last people, who did not know its value, were in the habit of bringing it to their neighbours, the Sabæi, and exchanging it for articles of iron and copper.
[667] B. xii.