Erythraean Sea

The Greeks themselves derived the name from an eponymous King Erythras, knowing that the waters so described were deep blue.[2][3][4] Modern scholars sometimes attribute the name to the seasonal blooms of the red-hued Trichodesmium erythraeum in the Red Sea.[5]

In Tamil, ery - burn, Thirai - sea. As the sea waves burned red, the Erythraean Sea was called the "Erithraean" (burning sea) by the ancient south Indian Tamil merchants and later forgotten as the Erythraean Sea.

According to Agatharchides, a Persian man lived near the sea and islands in the time of the Medes under the name of Erostras and became popular and became widely known for calling the sea his name. Strabo considers his tomb on the island of Oguris. Researchers call the island one of the islands of Qeshm or Hormuz.[6][7][8]

Erythraean Sea was the term applied by Greek and Roman geographers to the entire Indian Ocean, including its adjuncts, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Erythra means Red so that the modern name perpetuates the ancient; but we are assured by Agatharchides that it means, not Red Sea, but Sea of King Erythras, following a Persian legend. The following is the account given by Agatharchides of the origin of the name: (De Mari Erythraeo, § 5.)

Here is manifestly a kernel of truth, referring, however, to a much earlier time than the Empire of the Medes and their capital Pasargadae. It suggest the theory of a Cushite-Elamite migration around Arabia, as set forth by Glaser and Hommel: the story of a people from Elam, who settled in the Bahrein Islands and then spread along South Arabia, leaving their epithet of "Red" or "ruddy" in many places, including the sea that washed their vessels: "Sea of the Red People," or, according to Agatharchides, "of the Red King." See under §§ 4, 23, and 27.

Opone is the remarkable headland now known as Ras Hafun, 10° 25′ N., 51° 25′ E., about 90 miles below Cape Guardafui.

Glaser finds a connection between these names, Pano and Opone, the Egyptian "Land of Punt" or Poen-at, the island Pa-anch of the Egyptians (Socotra), the incense-land Panchaia of Virgil (Georgics, II, 139; "Totaque turiferis Panchaia pinguis arenis,") and the Puni or Phoenicians; who, he thinks, divided as they left their home in the Persian Gulf (the islands of King Erythras in the story quoted by Agatharchides); one branch going to the coasts of Syria, the other to those of South Arabia and East Africa. [9] [10] [11]

The name "Erythraean Sea" has been or is still used for the following places:

• In the opening sentences of Herodotus's history, written in the 5th century BC, he refers to the Phoenicians having come originally from the Erythraean Sea.
• In the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written in the 1st century AD, as well as in some ancient maps, the name of the sea refers to the whole area of the northwestern Indian Ocean, including the Arabian Sea.[12]
• In centuries past, the name "Erythraean Sea" was applied by cartographers to the NW part of the Indian Ocean, mainly the area around Socotra, between Cape Guardafui and the coast of Hadhramaut. This appellation has now become obsolete and the name Gulf of Aden is used, although for a smaller area. In maps where the NW Indian Ocean is named thus, the Red Sea appears as "Arabian Gulf".
• The name "Erythraean Sea" was used as well to refer to some gulfs attached to the Indian Ocean, specifically, the Persian Gulf.[13]
• As a name for the Red Sea, especially after the 19th century. The modern country of Eritrea was named after this ancient Greek name.
• Since 1895, the name has also been applied to a large dusky region on the surface of planet Mars, known as Mare Erythraeum.

Names, routes and locations of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.

17th-century map depicting the locations of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.

Chronological listing of classical literature sources for Erythraean:

• Herodotus, Herodotus 1. 18 (trans. Godley) (Greek history C5th BC)
• Herodotus, Herodotus 1. 142
• Herodotus, Herodotus 1. 180 (The Greek Classics ed. Miller 1909 Vol 5 p. 96 trans. Laurent)
• Herodotus, Clio Book 1 (trans. Laurent)
• Herodotus 2. 11 (The Greek Classics ed. Miller 1909 Vol 5 p. 116 trans. Laurent)
• Herodotus 2. 158 (The Greek Classics ed. Miller 1909 Vol 5 p. 186)
• Herodotus 2. 159 (The Greek Classics ed. Miller 1909 Vol 5 p. 186 )
• Herodotus, Herodotus 6. 8. 8 ff (trans. Godley)
• Thucydides, Thucydides 8. 4 (trans. Smith) (Greek history C5th BC)
• Thucydides, Thucydides 8. 14
• Thucydides, Thucydides 8. 16
• Thucydides, Thucydides 8. 24
• Thucydides, Thucydides 8. 33
• Aeschylus, Fragment 105 (192) Prometheus Unbound (trans. Weir Smyth) (Greek tragedy C5th BC)
• Aristotle, De Mundo 393b ff (ed. Ross trans. Forster) (Greek philosophy C4th BC)
• Tibullus, Tibullus 3. 4. 11 ff (trans. Postgate) (Latin poetry C1st BC)
• Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 14. 84. 4 ff (trans. Oldfather) (Greek history C1st BC)
• Parthenius, The Love Romances 9. 1 (The Story of Polycrite) (trans. Gaselee) (Greek poetry C1st BC)
• Strabo, Geography 7. 3. 6 (trans. Jones) (Greek geography C1st BC to C1st AD)
• Strabo, Geography 13. 1. 14
• Strabo, Geography 13. 1. 19
• Strabo, Geography 13. 1. 64
• Strabo, Geography 14. 1. 31
• Strabo, Geography 14. 1. 33
• Strabo, Geography 16. 3. 5
• Scholiast on Strabo, Geography 16. 3. 5 (The Geography of Strabo trans. Jones 1930 Vol 7 p. 305)
• Strabo, Geography 16. 4. 20
• Scholiast on Strabo, Geography 16. 4. 20 (The Geography of Strabo trans. Jones 1930 Vol 7 p. 305)
• Strabo, Geography 17. 1. 43
• Livy, The History of Rome 38. 39. 11 ff (trans. Moore) (Roman history C1st BC to C1st AD)
• Pliny, Natural History 4. 36. (trans. Bostock & Riley) (Roman history C1st AD)
• Pliny, Natural History 7. 57 (trans. Rackham)
• Pliny, Natural History 8. 73 (43)
• Pliny, Natural History 9. 54 ff
• Scholiast on Pliny, Natural History 9. 54 ff (The Natural History of Pliny trans. Bostock & Riley 1855 Vol 2 p. 431)
• Pliny, Natural History 12. 35 (trans. Bostock & Riley)
• Bacchylides papyrus, The Drinking-song (Lyra Graeca trans. Edmonds 1927 Vol. 3 p. 657) (Greek poetry C1st AD)
• Statius, Silvae 4. 6. 17 (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic poetry C1st AD)
• Statius, Thebaid 7. 564 ff (trans. Mozley)
• Josephus, Berossus from Alexander Polyhistor, Of the Cosmogony and Causes of the Deluge (The Ancient Fragments trans. Cory 1828 p. 19) (Romano-Jewish-Babylonian history C1st AD)
• Plutarch, Moralia, Bravery of Women, 3 (The Women of Chios) 244F ff (trans. Babbitt) (Greek history C1st to C2nd AD)
• Plutarch, Moralia, Bravery of Women 17 (Polycrite) 254C ff
• Plutarch, Moralia, The Greek Questions (30) 298B ff
• Pausanias, Description of Greece 7. 5. 3 ff (trans. Frazer) (Greek travelogue C2nd AD)
• Pausanias, Description of Greece 7. 5. 5. 12 ff
• Pausanias, Description of Greece 10. 12. 4
• Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned 4. 74 (trans. Yonge) (Greek rhetoric C2nd AD to C3rd AD)
• Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned 10. 44 ff
• Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned 11. 49 ff
• Dio, Roman History, Epitome of Book LXVIII 28. 3 ff (trans. Cary) (Roman history C2nd to C3rd AD)
• Eusebius, Berossus from Apollodorus, Of The Chaldean Kings (The Ancient Fragments trans. Cory 1828 p. 19) (Christian-Babylonian history 4th AD)
• Tzetzes, Chiliades or Book of Histories 8.57. 621 (trans. Untila et. al.) (Greco-Byzantine history C12th AD)
• Tzetzes, Chiliades or Book of Histories 8.57. 628 ff

Classical literature source for Erythean:

• Ovid, Fasti 1. 543-586 (trans. Frazer) (Roman epic poetry C1st BC to C1st AD)

• Indo-Roman trade relations
• Sea of Zanj
• Socotra

• The Periplus of the Erythrean sea, containing an account of the navigation of the ancients, from the sea of Suez to the coast of Zanguebar, William Vincent (ed.), 2 voll., London, 1800, vol. 1, vol. 2.
• William H. Schoff, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912), with additional commentary including alternate spellings or translations from Lionel Casson's more recent edition.