volume 1, chapter 8.

{121}

AQUITAINE: 12th Century. The state of the southern parts.

See PROVENCE: A. D. 1179-1207.

AQUITAINE: A. D. 1360-1453. Full sovereignty possessed by the English Kings. The final conquest and union with France.

"By the Peace of Bretigny [see FRANCE: A. D. 1337-1360] Edward III. resigned his claims on the crown of France; but he was recognized in return as independent Prince of Aquitaine, without any homage or superiority being reserved to the French monarch. When Aquitaine therefore was conquered by France, partly in the 14th, fully in the 15th century [see FRANCE: A. D. 1431-1453], it was not the 'reunion' of a forfeited fief, but the absorption of a distinct and sovereign state. The feelings of Aquitaine itself seem to have been divided. The nobles to a great extent, though far from universally, preferred the French connexion. It better fell in with their notions of chivalry, feudal dependency, and the like; the privileges too which French law conferred on noble birth would make their real interests lie that way. But the great cities and, we have reason to believe, the mass of the people, also, clave faithfully to their ancient Dukes; and they had good reason to do so. The English Kings, both by habit and by interest, naturally protected the municipal liberties of Bourdeaux and Bayonne, and exposed no part of their subjects to the horrors of French taxation and general oppression."

_E. A. Freeman, The Franks and the Gauls (Historical Essays, 1st Series, No.7)._

AQUITAINE: End----------

AQUITANI, The.

See IBERIANS, THE WESTERN.

ARABIA.--ARABS: The Name.

"There can be no doubt that the name of the Arabs was ... given from their living at the westernmost part of Asia; and their own word 'Gharb,' the 'West,' is another form of the original Semitic name Arab."

_G. Rawlinson, Notes to Herodotus, volume 2, page 71._

ARABIA: The ancient succession and fusion of Races.

"The population of Arabia, after long centuries, more especially after the propagation and triumph of Islamism, became uniform throughout the peninsula. ... But it was not always thus. It was very slowly and gradually that the inhabitants of the various parts of Arabia were fused into one race. ... Several distinct races successively immigrated into the peninsula and remained separate for many ages. Their distinctive characteristics, their manners and their civilisation prove that these nations were not all of one blood. Up to the time of Mahomet, several different languages were spoken in Arabia, and it was the introduction of Islamism alone that gave predominence to that one amongst them now called Arabic. The few Arabian historians deserving of the name, who have used any discernment in collecting the traditions of their country, Ibn Khaldoun, for example, distinguish three successive populations in the peninsula. They divide these primitive, secondary, and tertiary Arabs into three divisions, called Ariba, Motareba, and Mostareba. ... The Ariba were the first and most ancient inhabitants of Arabia. They consisted principally of two great nations, the Adites, sprung from Ham, and the Amalika of the race of Aram, descendants of Shem, mixed with nations of secondary importance, the Thamudites of the race of Ham, and the people of the Tasm, and Jadis, of the family of Aram. The Motareba were tribes sprung from Joktan, son of Eber, always in Arabian tradition called Kahtan. The Mostareba of more modern origin were Ismaelitish tribes. ... The Cushites, the first inhabitants of Arabia, are known in the national traditions by the name of Adites, from their progenitor, who is called Ad, the grandson of Ham. All the accounts given of them by Arab historians are but fanciful legends. ... In the midst of all the fabulous traits with which these legends abound, we may perceive the remembrance of a powerful empire founded by the Cushites in very early ages, apparently including the whole of Arabia Felix, and not only Yemen proper. We also find traces of a wealthy nation, constructors of great buildings, with an advanced civilisation analogous to that of Chaldæa, professing a religion similar to the Babylonian; a nation, in short, with whom material progress was allied to great moral depravity and obscene rites. ... It was about eighteen centuries before our era that the Joktanites entered Southern Arabia. ... According to all appearances, the invasion, like all events of a similar nature, was accomplished only by force. ... After this invasion, the Cushite element of the population, being still the most numerous, and possessing great superiority in knowledge and civilisation over the Joktanites, who were still almost in the nomadic state, soon recovered the moral and material supremacy, and political dominion. A new empire was formed in which the power still belonged to the Sabæans of the race of Cush. ... Little by little the new nation of Ad was formed. The centre of its power was the country of Sheba proper, where, according to the tenth chapter of Genesis, there was no primitive Joktanite tribe, although in all the neighbouring provinces they were already settled. ... It was during the first centuries of the second Adite empire that Yemen was temporarily subjected by the Egyptians, who called it the land of Pun. ... Conquered during the minority of Thothmes III., and the regency of the Princess Hatasu, Yemen appears to have been lost by the Egyptians in the troublous times at the close of the eighteenth dynasty. Ramses II. recovered it almost immediately after he ascended the throne, and it was not till the time of the effeminate kings of the twentieth dynasty, that this splendid ornament of Egyptian power was finally lost. ... The conquest of the land of Pun under Hatasu is related in the elegant bas-reliefs of the temple of Deir-el-Bahari, at Thebes, published by M. Duemichen. ... The bas-reliefs of the temple of Deir-el-Bahari afford undoubted proofs of the existence of commerce between India and Yemen at the time of the Egyptian expedition under Hatasu. It was this commerce, much more than the fertility of its own soil and its natural productions, that made Southern Arabia one of the richest countries in the world. ... For a long time it was carried on by land only, by means of caravans crossing Arabia; for the navigation of the Red Sea, much more difficult and dangerous than that of the Indian Ocean, was not attempted till some centuries later. ... {122} The caravans of myrrh, incense, and balm crossing Arabia towards the land of Canaan are mentioned in the Bible, in the history of Joseph, which belongs to a period very near to the first establishment of the Canaanites in Syria. As soon as commercial towns arose in Phœnicia, we find, as the prophet Ezekiel said, 'The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy merchants: they occupied in thy fairs with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones and gold.' ... A great number of Phœnician merchants, attracted by this trade, established themselves in Yemen, Hadramaut, Oman, and Bahrein. Phœnician factories were also established at several places on the Persian Gulf, amongst others in the islands of Tylos and Arvad, formerly occupied by their ancestors. ... This commerce, extremely flourishing during the nineteenth dynasty, seems, together with the Egyptian dominion in Yemen, to have ceased under the feeble and inactive successors of Ramses III. ... Nearly two centuries passed away, when Hiram and Solomon despatched vessels down the Red Sea. ... The vessels of the two monarchs were not content with doing merely what had once before been done under the Egyptians of the nineteenth dynasty, namely, fetching from the ports of Yemen the merchandise collected there from India. They were much bolder, and their enterprise was rewarded with success. Profiting by the regularity of the monsoons, they fetched the products of India at first hand, from the very place of their shipment in the ports of the land of Ophir, or Abhira. These distant voyages were repeated with success as long as Solomon reigned. The vessels going to Ophir necessarily touched at the ports of Yemen to take in provisions and await favourable winds. Thus the renown of the two allied kings, particularly of the power of Solomon, was spread in the land of the Adites. This was the cause of the journey made by the queen of Sheba to Jerusalem to see Solomon. ... The sea voyages to Ophir, and even to Yemen, ceased at the death of Solomon. The separation of the ten tribes, and the revolutions that simultaneously took place at Tyre, rendered any such expeditions impracticable. ... The empire of the second Adites lasted ten centuries, during which the Joktanite tribes, multiplying in each generation, lived amongst the Cushite Sabæans. ... The assimilation of the Joktanites to the Cushites was so complete that the revolution which gave political supremacy to the descendants of Joktan over those of Cush produced no sensible change in the civilisation of Yemen. But although using the same language, the two elements of the population of Southern Arabia were still quite distinct from each other, and antagonistic in their interests. ... Both were called Sabæans, but the Bible always carefully distinguishes them by a different orthography. ... The majority of the Sabæan Cushites, however, especially the superior castes, refused to submit to the Joktanite yoke. A separation, therefore, took place, giving rise to the Arab proverb, 'divided as the Sabæans,' and the mass of the Adites emigrated to another country. According to M. Caussin de Perceval, the passage of the Sabæans into Abyssinia is to be attributed to the consequences of the revolution that established Joktanite supremacy in Yemen. ... The date of the passage of the Sabæans from Arabia into Abyssinia is much more difficult to prove than the fact of their having done so. ... Yarub, the conqueror of the Adites, and founder of the new monarchy of Joktanite Arabs, was succeeded on the throne by his son, Yashdjob, a weak and feeble prince, of whom nothing is recorded, but that he allowed the chiefs of the various provinces of his states to make themselves independent. Abd Shems, surnamed Sheba, son of Yashdjob, recovered the power his predecessors had lost. ... Abd Shems had several children, the most celebrated being Himyer and Kahlan, who left a numerous posterity. From these two personages were descended the greater part of the Yemenite tribes, who still existed at the time of the rise of Islamism. The Himyarites seem to have settled in the towns, whilst the Kahlanites inhabited the country and the deserts of Yemen. ... This is the substance of all the information given by the Arab historians."

_F. Lenormant and E. Chevalier, Manual of Ancient History of the East, book 7, chapter 1-2 (volume 2)._

ARABIA: Sabæans, The.

"For some time past it has been known that the Himyaritic inscriptions fall into two groups, distinguished from one another by phonological and grammatical differences. One of the dialects is philologically older than the other, containing fuller and more primitive grammatical forms. The inscriptions in this dialect belong to a kingdom the capital of which was at Ma'in, and which represents the country of the Minæans of the ancients. The inscriptions in the other dialect were engraved by the princes and people of Sabâ, the Sheba of the Old Testament, the Sabæans of classical geography. The Sabæan kingdom lasted to the time of Mohammed, when it was destroyed by the advancing forces of Islam. Its rulers for several generations had been converts to Judaism, and had been engaged in almost constant warfare with the Ethiopic kingdom of Axum, which was backed by the influence and subsidies of Rome and Byzantium. Dr. Glaser seeks to show that the founders of this Ethiopic kingdom were the Habâsa, or Abyssinians, who migrated from Himyar to Africa in the second or first century B. C.; when we first hear of them in the inscriptions they are still the inhabitants of Northern Yemen and Mahrah. More than once the Axumites made themselves masters of Southern Arabia. About A. D. 300, they occupied its ports and islands, and from 350 to 378 even the Sabæan kingdom was tributary to them. Their last successes were gained in 525, when, with Byzantine help, they conquered the whole of Yemen. But the Sabæan kingdom, in spite of its temporary subjection to Ethiopia, had long been a formidable State. Jewish colonies settled in it, and one of its princes became a convert to the Jewish faith. His successors gradually extended their dominion as far as Ormuz, and after the successful revolt from Axum in 378, brought not only the whole of the southern coast under their sway, but the western coast as well, as far north as Mekka. Jewish influence made itself felt in the future birthplace of Mohammed, and thus introduced those ideas and beliefs which subsequently had so profound an effect upon the birth of Islam. The Byzantines and Axumites endeavoured to counteract the influence of Judaism by means of Christian colonies and proselytism. The result was a conflict between Sabâ and its assailants, which took the form of a conflict between the members of the two religions. {123} A violent persecution was directed against the Christians of Yemen, avenged by the Ethiopian conquest of the country and the removal of its capital to San'a. The intervention of Persia in the struggle was soon followed by the appearance of Mohammedanism upon the scene, and Jew, Christian, and Parsi were alike overwhelmed by the flowing tide of the new creed. The epigraphic evidence makes it clear that the origin of the kingdom of Sabâ went back to a distant date. Dr. Glaser traces its history from the time when its princes were still but Makârib, or 'Priests,' like Jethro, the Priest of Midian, through the ages when they were 'kings of Sabâ,' and later still 'kings of Sabâ and Raidân,' to the days when they claimed imperial supremacy over all the principalities of Southern Arabia. It was in this later period that they dated their inscriptions by an era, which, as Halévy first discovered, corresponds to 115 B. C. One of the kings of Sabâ is mentioned in an inscription of the Assyrian king Sargon (B. C. 715), and Dr. Glaser believes that he has found his name in a 'Himyaritic' text. When the last priest, Samah'ali Darrahh, became king of Sabâ, we do not yet know, but the age must be sufficiently remote, if the kingdom of Sabâ already existed when the Queen of Sheba came from Ophir to visit Solomon. The visit need no longer cause astonishment, notwithstanding the long journey by land which lay between Palestine and the south of Arabia. ... As we have seen, the inscriptions of Ma'in set before us a dialect of more primitive character than that of Sabâ. Hitherto it had been supposed, however, that the two dialects were spoken contemporaneously, and that the Minæan and Sabæan kingdoms existed side by side. But geography offered difficulties in the way of such a belief, since the seats of Minæan power were embedded in the midst of the Sabæan kingdom, much as the fragments of Cromarty are embedded in the midst of other counties. Dr. Glaser has now made it clear that the old supposition was incorrect, and that the Minæan kingdom preceded the rise of Sabâ. We can now understand why it is that neither in the Old Testament nor in the Assyrian inscriptions do we hear of any princes of Ma'in, and that though the classical writers are acquainted with the Minæan people they know nothing of a Minæan kingdom. The Minæan kingdom, in fact, with its culture and monuments, the relics of which still survive, must have flourished in the grey dawn of history, at an epoch at which, as we have hitherto imagined, Arabia was the home only of nomad barbarism. And yet in this remote age alphabetic writing was already known and practised, the alphabet being a modification of the Phœnician written vertically and not horizontally. To what an early date are we referred for the origin of the Phœnician alphabet itself! The Minæan Kingdom must have had a long existence. The names of thirty-three of its kings are already known to us. ... A power which reached to the borders of Palestine must necessarily have come into contact with the great monarchies of the ancient world. The army of Ælius Gallus was doubtless not the first which had sought to gain possession of the cities and spice-gardens of the south. One such invasion is alluded to in an inscription which was copied by M. Halévy. ... But the epigraphy of ancient Arabia is still in its infancy. The inscriptions already known to us represent but a small proportion of those that are yet to be discovered. ... The dark past of the Arabian peninsula has been suddenly lighted up, and we find that long before the days of Mohammed it was a land of culture and literature, a seat of powerful kingdoms and wealthy commerce, which cannot fail to have exercised an influence upon the general history of the world."

_A. H. Sayce, Ancient Arabia (Contemporary Review., December, 1889)._

ARABIA: 6th Century. Partial conquest by the Abyssinians.

See ABYSSINIA: 6TH TO 16TH CENTURIES.

ARABIA: A. D. 609-632. Mahomet's conquest.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.

ARABIA: A. D. 1517. Brought under the Turkish sovereignty.

See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.

ARABIA: End----------

ARABS, Conquests of the.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST.

ARACAN, English acquisition of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1823-1833.

ARACHOTI, The.

A people who dwelt anciently in the Valley of the Arghandab, or Urgundab, in eastern Afghanistan. Herodotus gave them the tribal name of "Pactyes," and the modern Afghans, who call themselves "Pashtun" and "Pakhtun," signifying "mountaineers," are probably derived from them.

_M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 7, chapter 1._

ARAGON: A. D. 1035-1258. Rise of the kingdom.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1035-1258.

ARAGON: A. D. 1133. Beginning of popular representation in the Cortes. The Monarchical constitution.

See CORTES, THE EARLY SPANISH.

ARAGON: A. D. 1218-1238. The first oath of allegiance to the king. Conquest of Balearic Islands. Subjugation of Valencia.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1212-1238.

ARAGON: A. D. 1410-1475. The Castilian dynasty. Marriage of Ferdinand with Isabella of Castile.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1368-1479.

ARAGON: A. D. 1516. The crown united with that of Castile by Joanna, mother of Charles V.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1496-1517.

ARAGON: End----------

ARAICU, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: GUCK OR COCO GROUP.

ARAM.--ARAM NAHARAIM.--ARAM--ZOBAH.--ARAMÆANS.

See SEMITES; also, SEMITIC LANGUAGES.

ARAMBEC.

See NORUMBEGA.

ARAPAHOES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, and PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.

ARAR, The. The ancient name of the river Saone, in France.

ARARAT.--URARDA.

See ALARODIANS.

ARATOS, and the Achaian League.

See GREECE: B. C. 280-146.

ARAUCANIANS, The.

See CHILE.

ARAUSIO.

A Roman colony was founded by Augustus at Arausio, which is represented in name and site by the modern town of Orange, in the department of Vaucluse, France, 18 miles north of Avignon.

_P. Goodwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul,