136 ANCIENT KINGS OF ARABIA. 



on their rear, would require more time on the 

 march than is occupied by the pilgrims of the pres- 

 ent day. The hypothesis of D'Anville, that iden- 

 tifies Mariaba with Mareb, is therefore as probable 

 as any other ; and the catastrophe arising from the 

 bursting of the mound was, perhaps, after all, the 

 work of the Roman army. The two events cer- 

 tainly accord very nearly 'in point of time; and as 

 Gallus was informed that the city lay wathin two 

 days' march of the region that produced aromatics, 

 there is a strong presumption, notwithstanding the 

 confusion of names and the silence of the Arabs, 

 whose national pride might prompt them to ascribe 

 this disaster to the operation of local causes rather 

 than the invasion of an enemy, that the famous 

 deluge, which desolated the capital of Yemen and 

 dispersed so many tribes, must be referred to this 

 adventurous inroad of the Egyptian prefect.* 



When Titus laid siege to Jerusalem, a body of 

 Arabian auxiliaries, as we learn from Tacitus, ac- 

 companied his army; but till the days of Trajan, 

 whose fleets ravaged the coasts of the Red Sea, their 

 country is little noticed in Roman history. In the 

 year 106, his heutenant, Cornehus Palma, governor 

 of Syria, reduced Petrsea to the form of a province, 

 under the name of Palestina Tertia or Salutaris ; 

 but the fluctuating power of the empire was unable 

 to retain it in a state of absolute dependence. The 

 flatterers of Trajan, especially Lucian, Dion, and 

 Eutropius, have numbered among his other victories 

 the subjugation of all Arabia, and part of India; 

 and coins were actually struck in commemoration 

 of these exploits ; — monuments which prove no- 

 thing but the fulsome adulation of their authors, 

 or the excessive vanity of the Romans. With the 

 exception of Severus, who conducted a numerous 



* Strabo, lib. x^-i. Pliny, bb. vi. cap. 28. Vincent's Periplus 

 vol. ii, Horace ailudea to the failure of this expedition.— Carw. 

 lib. i. cd« 35. 



