Note 212 — Chapter IX · —Description of India

Agatharchides, a writer of the second century B.C., begins his work on the Erythraean Sea by inquiring into the origin of its name. On this point four different opinions were held, and of these he adopted that which fathered the name on King Erythrus. He then tells the story of this king (who was a Persian) as he had learned it from a Persian called Boxos who had settled in Athens. Strabo (xvi. 20) gives a brief summary of this passage, and Pliny (N. H. vi. 28) a still briefer. Nearchos, as we learn from Arrian’s Indika (c. 37), in the course of his memorable voyage put into an island called Oärakta (now Kishm), where the natives showed him the tomb of the first king of the island. They said that his name was Erythrês, and that the sea in those parts was called after him the Erythraean. Opinions still differ as to the origin of the name. According to some it was given from the red and purple colouring of the rocks which in some parts border the sea, according to others from the red colour sometimes given to the waters by the sea-weed called Sûph. Fresnel, however, rejecting such views, interprets the name as meaning the sea of the Homêritai, i.e. Himyar or Hhomayr, or red men, whose name and the Arabic word ahhmar (red) have the same root. The people here indicated occupied Yemen, and were called red men in contrast to the black men of the opposite coast. Others again attribute the name to Edom (Idumea), which bordered the Gulf of Akaba, the eastern arm of the Red Sea, at its northern extremity. Edom signifies red. Further references to this subject will be found in Mela (III. viii. 1), Solinus (c. 36), Dio Cassius (lxviii. 28), and Stephanos Byz. s.v. Ἐρυθρά.