MOCHA. 
471 
The advantages derived from this conquest over Yemen appear 
to bave been very trifling, for the troops sent over became 
so enamoured with the country that they permanently settled 
there, and soon lost every tie, except a nominal allegiance, which 
bound them to the mother state. About seventy years after the 
death of Aretas (according to the Arabian accounts) the Persians, 
whose consequence had revived in proportion to the degradation 
of the Roman empire, sent an overpowering force against the 
Abyssinians in Yemen, reconquered that country,* and, as it 
appears, gained a naval superiority in the Red Sea, the tradition 
of the country assigning to them not only complete possession of 
Aden and the Arabian ports, but also of the whole of the islands 
and harbours oh the African side of the sea; so that from this 
period the Abyssinians may be considered as having lost all their 
influence as a maritime state. 
How long the superiority of the Persians continued is uncer- 
tain, but in all probability it gave way to the rising greatness 
of the Mahomedan power, which soon afterwards overwhelmed 
all the countries adjoining Arabia, spread to the remotest parts 
of the East, and penetrated even across the unsocial regions of 
Africa; while Abyssinia, unconquered and true to the Christian 
faith, remained within two hundred miles of the walls of Mecca, 
* This was not effected by one effort, for, after the first Persian expedition, the Abys- 
sinians recovered their power on a fresh force being sent over from the mother country 
(Vide Hist. Joct. 135. Horum Habassiorum aliquis imperium iterum invasit Jemanamque 
caedibus miscuit atque evastavit) which was probably the expedition of the emperor 
Caleb, so particularly noticed in the Al)yssinian Chronicles, a circumstance very likely to 
have swallowed up the remembrance of their other conquests, owing to its having been 
the last great effort made by the country; this probably occurred in about 5S4, two years 
before the death of the Persian Emperor Nushurwan, and the final conquest of Yemen 
must be brought down a few years later. 
