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Periplus Maris Erythraei: Three Notes on The Text

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Lionel Casson
Affiliation:
New York University

Extract

I Per. 4: As the text stands now, we read that Adulis, the principal port of the Axumite Kingdom, is on a deep bay that extends due south, in front of which is an island called Oreiue, situated about 200 stades from the innermost [sc. part of the] bay towards the open seaand with both its shores paralle to the mainland, where arriving vessels now moor…Formerly they used to moor at this innermost [part of the] bay at what is called Didorus Island right by this [part of the]

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1980

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References

1 Citations are from the text of Frisk, H., Le Périple de la mer Érytbrée (Göteborgs Högskolas Arsskrift 33, Göteborg, 1927),Google Scholar which supersedes that of Muller, C. in Geographi Graeci minores i.257305 (Paris, 1853).Google Scholar Muller's commentary is still the best available. McCrindle, J., The Commerce and Navigation of the Erythraean Sea (Calcutta, 1879),Google Scholar offers a translation with concise commentary and Schoff, W., The Periplus of the Erytbraean Sea (New York, 1912), a translation with full commentary.Google Scholar

2 Foras demonstrative, see Frisk, pp. 65–6, and Moulton, J., A Grammar of New Testament Greek, vol. v, Syntax, by Turner, N. (Edinburgh, 1963), p. 194.Google Scholar

3 Cf. Müller, McCrindle, Schoff, nn. ac loc.; RE s.v. ‘Adule’ (1894) and Suppibd. 7 (1940).

4 Müller, the sole commentator to acknowledge that there was a problem, could only suggest that, in the course of time, the island had become part of the mainland.

5 In 26 and 42,of the MSS is a mictake forcf Frick n 110

6 There is no problem even why cassia, grown only in India and China, is here calle a product of East Africa. African, Arab, and Indian shippers brought it there fore reexport, and for centuries were incredibly successful in concealing the source of their supplies; see Warmington, E., The Commerc, Between the Roman Empire and India (Cambridge, 1928), pp. 185–94.Google Scholar

7 Schoff translates (26–7): ‘cinnamon (and its different varieties, gizir, asypha, arebo, magla, and moto) and frankincense’; ‘cinnamon …(the arebo and moto)’. The most recent translation, Mauny's, R. in Journal de la Societe des Africanistes 38 (1968), 1933, has (p. 26) ‘Kasia (et ses différentes variétés, gizir, asypha, arebo, maqla (sic), moto) et de l‘encens’, which seems more a rendering of Schoff's English than the Periplus' Greek. McCrindle mentions Muller's emendation approvingly in his introduction (p. 16) but translates (p. 62) ‘fragrant gums’; this is incorrect since the Periplus, when it talks of ‘fragrant gums,’ uses the plural ap(cf. 7, 10), as do the Greek papyri (where the word in the singular is not even attested) and ancient authors in general (cf., e.g., TLL s.v. aroma).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 S.v., with no indication whatsoever that a conjecture is involved.

9 Miller, J., The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1969), p. 161.Google Scholar

10 Cf. Dirksen, H., ‘Über ein, in Justinian's Pandekten enthaltenes, Verzeichnis auslindischer Waaren’, Abhandlungen der kiiniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Phil.-hist. KI. (1843), 59 ff. at p. 88.Google Scholar

11 Freeman-Grenville, G., The East African Coast: Select Documents from the First to the Earlier Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1962), p. 2, translates ‘and a little coconut oil’. R. Mauny, op. cit., p. 28, has ‘et un peu d'huile “de palme”’, and then muddies the waters for fair by explaining in s note that ‘Huile de palme (nauplios) doit etre corrigé en nargilios…= noix de coco.’ Mc-Crindle, although he translated (p. 73) ‘and a little nauplius’, in his introduction (p. 26) discussed the word under the general rubric of ‘Plants and their products’, and there expressed his approval of Miiller's conjecture.Google Scholar

12 Tkac in RE s.v. ‘P´, p. 240 (1920); Warmington, op. cit., pp. 216–17; Wheeler, M., Rome Beyond the Imperial Frontiers (London, 1954), p. 113;Google ScholarFreeman-Grenville, G., The Medieval History of the Coast of Tanganyika (London, 1962), pp. 26–7.Google ScholarAltheim, A. and Stiehl, R., Die Araber in der alten Welt, i (Berlin, 1964), p. 134, by carefully citing MS readings avoided the pitfall of nargilios, but by careless copying introduced an object of trade of their own manufacture, ‘das far uns unbekannteGoogle Scholar