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PERIPLUS OF THE ERYTHRAAN SEA.
APRIL, 1879.]
2. The country which adjoins them on the right below Berenîkê is Barbaria. Here the sea-board is peopled by the Ik hthyophagoi, who live in scattered huts built in the narrow gorges of the hills, and further inland are the Berbers, and beyond them the Agriopha
the principal port of the Egyptian trade with India in preference to Arsinoe, 16 N. N. E. of Suez, on account of the difficulty and tediousness of the navigation down the Heroöpolite Gulf. The vessels bound for Africa and the south of Arabia left its harbour about the time of the autumnal equinox, when the North West wind which then prevailed carried them quickly down the Gulf. Those bound for the Malabar Coast or Ceylon left in July, and if they cleared the Red Sea before the 1st of September, they had the monsoon to assist their passage across the ocean. Myos Hormos was distant from Koptos [lat. 26° N.], the station on the Nile through which it communicated with Alexandria, a journey of seven or eight days along a road opened through the desert by Philadelphos. The name Myos Hormos is of Greek origin, and may signify either the Harbour of the Mouse, or, more probably, of the Mussel, since the pearl mussel abounded in its neighbourhood. Agatharkhidês calls it Aphrodites Hormos, and Pliny Veneris Portus. [Veneris Portus however was probably at Sherm Sheikh, lat. 24° 36′ N. Off the coast is Wade Jemâl Island, lat. 24° 39' N., long. 35° 8' E., called Lambe by Pliny, and perhaps the Aphroditês Island of Ptolemy IV. v. 77.] Referring to this name Vincent says: "Here if the reader will advert to Aphroditê, the Greek title of Venus, as springing from the foam of the ocean, it will immediately appear that the Greeks were translating here, for the native term to this day is Suffange-el-Bahri, sponge of the sea'; and the vulgar error of the sponge being the foam of the sea, will immediately account for Aphrodite."
The rival of Myos-Hormos was Berenikê, a city built by Ptolemy Philadelphos, who so named it in honour of his mother, who was the daughter of Ptolemy Lagos and Antigonê. It was in the same parallel with Syênê and therefore not far from the Tropic [lat. 23° 55′ N.]. It stood nearly at the bottom of Foul Bay (ἐν βάθει τοῦ ̓Ακαθάρτου Koλrou), so called from the coast being foul with shoals and breakers, and not from the impurity of its water, as its Latin name, Sinus Immundus, would lead us to suppose. Its ruins are still perceptible even to the arrangement of the streets, and in the centre is a small Egyptian temple
16 There was another Arsinoe between Ras Dh'ib and Bas Shukhair, lat. 28° 3 N. The few geographical
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goi and Moskhophagoi, tribes under regular government by kings. Beyond these again, and still further inland towards the west [is situated the metropolis called Meroê].
3. Below the Moskhophagoi, near the sea, lies a little trading town distant from Bere
adorned with hieroglyphics and bas-reliefs of Greek workmanship. Opposite to the town is a very fine natural harbour, the entrance of which has been deep enough for small vessels, though the bar is now impassable at low water. Its prosperity under the Ptolemies and afterwards under the Romans was owing to its safe anchorage and its being, like Myos-Hormos, the terminus of a great road from Koptos along which the traffic of Alexandria with Ethiopia, Arabia, and India passed to and fro. Its distance from Keptos was 258 Roman miles or 11 days' journey. The distance between Myos-Hormos and Berenikê is given in the Periplús at 225 miles, but this is considerably above the mark. The difficulty of the navigation may probably have made the distance seem greater than it was in reality.
(2) Adjoining Berenikê was Barbaria (Bapßapik xópa)-the land about Ras Aba Fatima [lat. 22° 26' N.-Ptol. IV. vii. 28]. The reading of the MS. is Tonßapin which Müller rejects because the name nowhere occurs in any work, and because if Barbaria is not mentioned here, our author could not afterwards (Section 5) say aλn Bapßapia. The Agriophagoi who lived in the interior are mentioned by Pliny (vi. 35), who says that they lived principally on the flesh of panthers and lions. Vincent writes as if instead of Aypropάyou the reading should be Axpidopáуov locust-eaters, who are mentioned by Agatharkhidês in his De Mari Erythraeo, Section 58. Another inland tribe is mentioned in connection with them-the Mos
khophagoi, who may be identified with the Rizophagoi or Spermatophagoi of the same writer, who were so named because they lived on roots or the tender suckers and buds of trees, called in Greek póoxo. This being a term applied also to the young of animals, Vincent was led to think that this tribe fed on the brinde or flesh cut out of the living animal as described by Bruce.
(3) To the south of the Moskhophagoi lies Ptolemais Therôn, or, as it is called by Pliny, Ptolemais Epitheras. [On Er-rih island, lat. 18° 9' N., long 38° 27′ E., are the ruins of an ancient town-probably Ptolemaïs Therôn,Müller however places Suche here.-Ptol. I. indications I have added to these comments as they passed through the press are enclosed in brackets. []-ED.
