The Greeks in Bactria and India c14.28

c14.28

Lastly I must notice ’Αραπηνή in Arabia, as it comes in Strabo, and is instructive. Strabo (XVI, 781) says that Aelius Gallus, after leaving Leuce Come, went south through the land of Obodas’ kinsman Aretas and then through a land of nomads, largely desert, called Ararene, under a king Sabos. The Nabataean state, though never Seleucid, had the Seleucid province-names, like Saracene (the first occurrence of the name Saracen), but in the first century B.C. and later the southward boundary of that state was at Hegra,⁶ a little north of Al-’Ula, and Ararene was far beyond its bounds. But Ararene was not east of the Euphrates and is a late name, belonging to the reign of Augustus; it is the first example of a process, due to the -ηνή termination having become so usual throughout Asia, whereby under the Roman Empire that too familiar termination tended to be applied loosely to any territorial district; examples are the already mentioned Dosarene of the Periplus and the later Palmyrene. But this late usage has nothing to do with the second century B.C., and (Dosarene apart) I have only met with two instances of it east of the Euphrates. Writers of the Roman Empire, even Strabo, sometimes misused two particular words and wrote Bactriane and Parthyene for Bactria and Parthia;¹ but this is a mere mistake, due to the cause mentioned above, and cannot affect the general result arrived at for the Hellenistic period.