Old South Arabia

Back when the Happy Arabia still had Jews, and not yet Muslims, some Greek author wrote the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. George Hatke has a chapter about how well this text did at aligning its report on the Red Sea and Yemen, with the epigraphic data from the local southrons. And with the elder Pliny.

This paper focuses before Pliny's time. And I'm sorry to report that, here, it relies on secondary akhbar such as Eratosthenes as provided by Strabo, and on our boy Bar-Agatharch. Luckily: I am a Late Antiquity student. So I don't care. I'm looking here at the later data and, here, Hatke is legit.

So, the Periplus is authentic, as far as it goes. Maybe not entirely accurate beyond what its author experienced directly. And of course it would go out of date, for instance when Parthia lost control of its Indian protectorates at the end of the first century AD. I think this is about when the Indian-Ocean silk route diverted to Singapore. Luckily for us, the Periplus stayed "in print" like Agatharchides lingered on, and even more luckily a MS survived to our day: Codex Palatinus Graecus 398.

The Romans, too, had protectorates, and these lasted until the Five Good Emperors. Drumanagh might be an example in the Dublin area. (UPDATE 9/29: Post-plague.) We learn that their outpost down south was Ḥimyar. Ḥimyar's régime called itself "owner of Raydan [palace]" and claimed overlordship over Saba but, by then, the Julio-Claudians and Flavians had a garrison, so this kingship was rather hollow. The Romans were also friendly to Ḥaḍramawt, further east - but didn't hold troops out there. Dhu-Raydan-and-Saba paid for the Romans' services with "gifts" meaning, tribute. It was that or get overrun by Qatabān, says Hatke; erstwhile lords over Ḥimyar before 110 BC.

At this time Ḥaḍramawt sometimes hit the Raydan régime too. From up northwest the Hijazis did some recreational pillaging of their own, against Qatabān as well as Ḥimyar. The South Arabians like the Greeks deemed these raiders all "Arabs" and annoying. I've already related this to how the Assyrians had summarised "the Medes". As for which "Arabs": some Arabians called themselves "Amîr" speaking a Semitic language... but no language anybody can place yet, for instance using hn for "that". Hatke has to point out however that the Amîrs didn't identify themselves as Arabs. Other Arabians out there were Tayy who used the am- definite-article, although - at first - they didn't attempt the level of notice as did the Amîrs. Neither of these tongues are Safaitic; neither of these peoples are "Arabic" as Allâh knows them. Although I do wonder about those Tayy whom the Syriac peoples will (famously) name Tayayé.

Over Late Roman Antiquity that am- article would trickle into Ḥimyar such that Ḥamdani and then Rabin later called it out as typical of the first/seventh century dialect. In Late Antiquity, perhaps due to Ghassân, al- would replace that one in the Hijaz. That tongue was Arabic.