88 
PLmx's NATURAL HISTORY. 
[Book VI. 
capital, Sabota, has sixty temples within its walls. But the 
royal city of all these nations is Mariaba it lies upon a bay, 
ninety-four miles in extent, and filled with islands that produce 
perfumes. Lying in the interior, and joining up to the Atra- 
mitse, are the Minsei ; the Elamitse"*^ dwell on the sea-shore, in a 
city from which they take their name. IS'ext to these are the 
Chaculatae ; then the town of Sibi, by the Greeks called Apate 
the Arsi, the Codani, the Yadei, who dwell in a large town, 
the Barasas^i, the Lechieni, and the island of S^^garos,^" into 
the interior of which no dogs are admitted, and so being ex- 
posed on the sea- shore, they wander about there and are left to 
die. We then come to a gulf which runs far into the in- 
terior, upon which are situate the Laeenitse, who have given 
to it their name ; also their royal city of Agra,^^ and upon 
the gulf that of Lseana, or as some call it ^lana indeed, 
by some of our writers this has been called the JElanitic Gulf, 
and by others again, the -^lenitic ; Artemidorus calls it the 
Alenitic, and Juba the Laenitic. The circumference of Arabia, 
measured from Charax to Laeana, is said to be four thousand 
six hundred and sixty-six miles, but Juba thinks that it is 
somewhat less than four thousand. Its widest part is at the 
north, between the cities of Heroopolis and Charax. We will 
now mention the remaining places and peoples of the interior 
of Arabia. 
Up to the JSTabatsei^^ the ancients joined the Thimanei; at 
present they have next to them the Taveni, and then the Suel- 
leni, the Arraceni,^^ and the Areni,^^ whose town is the centre of 
who were situate on tlie coast of the Red Sea to the east of Aden. Sa- 
bota, their capital, was a great emporium for their drugs and spices. 
Still known as Mareb, according to Ansart. 
*5 Hardouin is doubtful as to this name, and thinks that it ought to be 
Elaitae, or else Laeanitae, the people again mentioned below. 
A name which looks very much like *' fraud," or "cheating," as 
Hardouin observes, from the Greek aTrdrrj. 
^7 Off the Promontory of E,as-el-Had. 
Probably in the district now known as Akra. It was situate on the 
eastern coast of the Red Sea, at the foot of Mount Hippus. 
*9 See B. V. c. 12, where this town is mentioned. 
50 Whose chief city was Petra, previously mentioned. 
Supposed by some writers to have been the ancestors of the Saracens, 
80 famous in the earlier part of the middle ages. Some of the MSS., in- 
deed, read " Sarraceni." 
^2 Their town is called Arra by Ptolemy. 
