Arabia Felix#Eudaemon

The Latin term Arabia Felix was the Roman translation of the earlier Hellenistic {{langx|el|Εὐδαίμων Ἀραβία|translit=Eudaimon Arabia}}, attributed to Eratosthenes of Cyrene.[https://www.britannica.com/place/Arabia-Felix Arabia Felix]. Encyclopædia Britannica.Roller, Duane W. (2010) Eratosthenes’ Geography. Fragments Collected and Translated, with Commentary and Additional Material. Princeton University Press. Felix has the meanings of both "fecund, fertile" and "happy, fortunate, blessed", this area being the best irrigated of the Arabian peninsula. Arabia Felix, referring to Yemen,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3D5FulN2WqQC&pg=PA505|title=Political Leaders of the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa: A Biographical Dictionary|last=Reich|first=Bernard|date=1990|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=9780313262135|language=en}} was one of the three regions into which the Romans divided the peninsula: Arabia Deserta, Arabia Felix, and Arabia Petraea.

File:Ibb (14931213550) (cropped).jpg in Yemen, a region with a high density of vegetation]]

The southwestern corner of the peninsula experienced more rainfall in ancient times and was thus much greener than the rest of the peninsula, enjoying more productive fields. The high peaks and slopes are capable of supporting significant vegetation and river beds called wadis help make other soil fertile.

Part of what led to Arabia Felix's wealth and importance to the ancient world was its near monopoly of the trade in cinnamon and spices, both its native products and imports from India and the Horn of Africa.

{{cite journal

| last = Harding

| first = G Lankester

| title = Inside Arabia Felix

| journal = Saudi Aramco World

| volume = 16

| issue = 1

| pages = 24–27

| location = Houston, TX

| date = January–February 1965

| url = http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/196501/inside.arabia.felix.htm

| format = HTML

| access-date = 2009-07-06

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090905023614/http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/196501/inside.arabia.felix.htm

| archive-date = 2009-09-05

| url-status = dead

}}

Strabo says that Arabia Felix was composed of five kingdoms, one each of warriors, farmers, "those who engage in the mechanical arts; another, the myrrh-bearing country, and another the frankincense-bearing country, although the same countries produce cassia, cinnamon, and nard."{{cite book |last1=Strabo |last2=Jones |first2=Horace Leonard (tr.) |title=Geography XVI.26 |date=1917 |publisher=Loeb Classical Library |isbn=9780674990555 |page=365 |url=https://www.loebclassics.com/view/strabo-geography/1917/pb_LCL241.365.xml?result=4&rskey=D715mA |access-date=July 22, 2020}}

In the 1st century BC, the Arabian city of Eudaemon (usually identified with the port of Aden, and meaning "good spirit" in the sense of angelic beings),{{Cite Merriam-Webster|eudaemon|accessdate=2023-09-24}} in Arabia Felix, was a transshipping port in the Red Sea trade. It was described in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (probably 1st century AD) as if it had fallen on hard times. Of the auspiciously named port we read in the periplus that

{{quote|Eudaemon Arabia was once a full-fledged city, when vessels from India did not go to Egypt and those of Egypt did not dare sail to places further on, but came only this far.}}

In 26 BC, Aelius Gallus under Augustus' order led a military expedition to Arabia, but after some beginning successes he was obliged by the unhealthy climate and epidemic to desist in the conquest of the area.{{cite book |last1=Cassius Dio |last2=Cary |first2=Earnest (tr.) |last3=Foster |first3=Herbert B. (tr.) |title=Roman History LIII.29 |date=1917 |publisher=Loeb Classical Library |isbn=9780674990920 |pages=267–271 |url=https://www.loebclassics.com/view/dio_cassius-roman_history/1914/pb_LCL083.267.xml?result=1&rskey=7zM9Bc |access-date=July 22, 2020}}

New developments in trade during the 1st century AD led to traders avoiding the middlemen of Eudaemon and making the dangerous direct crossing of the Arabian Sea to the coast of India.

Arabia Felix is the title of the 1962 book by Danish novelist Thorkild Hansen, detailing a disastrous scientific expedition to the area led by Carsten Niebuhr lasting from 1761 to 1767.{{Cite news|url=https://www.npr.org/2017/06/17/531929925/in-the-refrains-of-arabia-felix-a-reminder-often-the-end-is-just-a-start|title=In The Refrains Of 'Arabia Felix,' A Reminder: Often The End Is Just A Start|newspaper=NPR|date=17 June 2017|language=en|access-date=2020-03-05|last1=Dwyer|first1=Colin}} The historian Lawrence J. Baack in his book, Undying Curiosity: Carsten Niebuhr and the Royal Danish Expedition to Arabia, however, says of Hansen's book "While lively and interesting as a novel, Hansen's work is not reliable as a historical study".{{Cite book |last=Baack |first=Lawrence J |title=Undying Curiosity: Carsten Niebuhr and the Royal Danish Expedition to Arabia (1761-1767) |publisher=Franz Steiner Verlag |year=2014 |isbn=978-3-515-10768-6 |location=Stuttgart |pages=18 |language=en}}

{{reflist}}

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• [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/31586/Arabia-Felix Arabia Felix]
• [http://nabataea.net/redsea.html Nabataean Travel: trade on the Red Sea]

Category:Ancient history of Yemen

Category:Ancient cities of the Middle East

Category:Latin words and phrases

Category:Historical regions in Saudi Arabia

Category:Ancient Greek geography of Arabia