Sabaeans

SABAEANS. This name is used loosely for the ancient dwellers in south-west Arabia, in the parts now called Yemen, Hadramaut and Asir. Strictly it belongs to one tribe and one State only. The chief source of information about these peoples is their inscriptions, found in their own land and elsewhere ; other sources are the Greek geographers, Babylonian and Ethiopic in scriptions, the Bible and the record of Aelius Gallus' expedition. The Arab tradition is not of much value and only for the latest period of the history.

History.

The land produced spices and incense and was a stage on the trade road from India. the Malay archipelago and Africa. At an early date men from Arabia migrated to Abyssinia. The oldest State in Yemen of which anything is known was Ma'in or Ma'an, the Minaeans of the Greeks. Its chief towns, Karnawu, Kaminahu and Yathil (the modern Barakish) lay in the southern TM, about i2okm. N.N.E. of Sanaa. Though the names of 20 kings are known the history of Ma'in cannot be written. Relations with Hadramaut were friendly, indeed they "almost suggest a personal union," and there was a colony or outpost at Ma'in Mus ran (now El 'Ola) to guard the trade road to Egypt and Palestine. Later the State of Kataban began to encroach on Minaean terri tory, and after fighting with and becoming a vassal or ally of Saba, it joined with that State in destroying Ma'in about 700 B.C. Tak ing all things into account, the extent of the State, the number of kings, the highly developed script and language, the beginning of the Minaean kingdom cannot be put later than about i soo B.C. The Sabaeans are mentioned in a Minaean inscription as nomads who raided the caravan road to El 'Ola. This suggests that they may have migrated south to Yemen and founded the kingdom of Saba which bears their name. Perhaps the queen of Sheba lived in the north of Arabia though she has been decorated with the wealth of the kingdom in Yemen. Marib, i oolun. east of Sanaa was its capital. An inscription of Sargon (c. 715 B.C.) refers to It'i-amara the Sabaean, and one of Sennacherib (c. 685 B.c.) to Ka-ri-bi-lu, king of Saba'i. More than once the second successor of a Yt"Mr was a Krb'l. Most probably the pair referred to by the Assyrian kings was Yt"mr'Byn, who completed the Marib dam, so famous in Arab story, and defeated Ma'in, killing 45,000 of its inhabi tants, and his grandson Krb'l Wtr, who finished the overthrow of Ma'in and pacified the country. Sennacherib speaks of receiv

ing a present from Saba ; even court flattery did not dare to call it tribute. About the same time Ausan, which had been a vassal of Kataban, was crushed along with its ally and neighbour Datinat.

Krb'l Wtr was one of the last of a line of rulers who bore the title Mkrb. It was used also by the earlier lords of Kataban. Not long after, the title of king was adopted by the ruler of Saba and used till 115 B.C. This period is marked by the rise of noble clans and ended with the incorporation of Ic.ataban after war both civil and foreign. At home the Haman clan tried for the throne and Himyar appears for the first time among the external enemies with Gedarot which had taken the place of the older Ausan. This year 115 is the first of an era by which some of the later monu ments are dated. Now began a serious attack on the trade suprem acy of the Sabaeans. The Nabataeans fixed themselves across the trade road to Syria and from Egypt as a base Rome tried to con trol the sea traffic, besides sending Gallus to attack by land. The royal title now became king of Saba and Du Raidan. About A.D. 30o Hadramaut was conquered and the style became king of Saba, Du Raidan, Hadramaut and Yamnat. This change coin cided with a slackening of the Roman effort to control the eastern trade. In the middle of the century Abyssinia conquered the land but already in A.D. 375 there was a native king again. His im mediate successor adopted the Jewish religion, a mark of an anti Roman policy, and in A.D. 525 Du Nuwas, the last Jewish king, was killed and an Abyssinian governor ruled the land. The failure of the dam at Marib was at once an effect and a cause of the na tional decay. In A.D. 579 Persia conquered the country and in A.D. 628 the governor turned Muslim and submitted to the prophet. Kataban was ruled at first by Mkrb and then by kings who may have been foreigners. The capital Tmna lay some 1 1 okm. S.E. of Marib. The capital of Hadramaut was Sabwat, the Sabota of the ancients.