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.
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 of a military expedition of 10,000 troops that was supposed to travel to the land of the Himyarites, the pre–Arab inhabitants of southern Arabia. Our knowledge of the expedition comes from the writings of the Roman historian Strabo.
Gallus’s army consisted of Egyptian troops, Jews, and Nabataean allies of the Romans who came from the trading city of Petra. The force was assembled around 25 B.C. at Cleopatris in the Gulf of Suez and then sailed down the Gulf of Suez and the northern part of the Red Sea to the port of El Haura in northern Arabia (or Leuke Kome as it was known in classical times). They were forced to stay there through the following summer and winter because many of the troops became ill after eating contaminated food and drinking polluted water. They set out into the desert in the spring of the following year, using camels to carry the water supplies.
Gallus and his troops traveled for 30 days through the lands of the friendly Areta tribe and then another 50 days more through a desert region that was ruled by the Bedouin king Sabos. At the end of this journey, they reached Najran in what is now the southwestern part of Saudi Arabia. This was a fertile part of the peninsula, and the Roman soldiers stayed there long enough to conquer some of the nearby towns and replenish their supplies.
The army went as far south as the town of Mar’ib in the interior of Yemen; however, their siege of the town was unsuccessful because they ran out of water. Gallus heard that he was only two days’ march from what he called the Aromatic region, the source of frankincense and myrrh, which is now the Hadhramaut region of Yemen. He hired a guide named Syllaeus, who then proceeded to spend six months getting the Romans lost in the desert. Gallus blamed all of his problems on the treachery of Syllaeus. By this time many of his troops had died from hunger, thirst, and disease. Gallus was forced to return to Najran.
The return trip to the port of Egra on the Red Sea required only 60 days. The army crossed over to Egypt and returned home. It is said that only seven men were lost in battle, but it is clear that many more died from hunger or disease, although there is no record of how many. Gallus brought back some information on the Himyarites and the rest of Arabia but otherwise his expedition was a failure. As a result, the Romans gave up any ideas of expanding their empire in that direction. They later created a province in northern Arabia centered on the city of Petra. They pursued peaceful relations with the Arabs through trading caravans out of Palmyra and Petra and by voyages around the coasts of the peninsula.
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