Lived first century B.C.

During the period of classical Greece and the Roman Republic, nothing was known about Arabia other than the trading centers on the northern edges. The Greeks and Romans knew there were caravan routes that went from Aqaba at the head of the Red Sea to southern Arabia and from the Euphrates to the Hadhramaut, in the area that is now Yemen. It was known that there was a central desert, but there was no knowledge of the great inland plateau.

Leads expedition to Arabia

The expedition of Aelius Gallus sent out by Emperor Augustus of Rome was therefore important, not so much for what it accomplished but because it represented a systematic effort to gather information about a part of the world about which there was only scant information. Gallus was the Roman governor of Egypt. He was put in charge...