LIBER V · CAPUT 11
THE COASTS OF ARABIA, SITUATE ON THE EGYPTIAN SEA
Latine · Mayhoff 1906
Vltra Pelusiacum Arabia est, ad Rubrum mare pertinens et odoriferam illam ac divitem terram et Beatae cognomine inclutam. haec Catabanum et Esbonitarum et Scenitarum Arabum vocatur, sterilis, praeterquam ubi Syriae confinia attingit, nec nisi Casio monte nobilis. his Arabes iunguntur, ab oriente Canchlei, a meridie Cedrei, qui deinde ambo Nabataeis. Heroopoliticus vocatur alterque LaeaniticusvelAelaniticus sinus Rubri maris in Aegyptum vergentis, CL intervallo inter duo oppida, Laeana et in nostro mari Gazam. Agrippa a Pelusio Arsinoen, Rubri maris oppidum, per deserta CXXV p. tradit: tam parvo distat ibi tanta rerum naturae diversitas.
English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57
Beyond the Pelusiac Mouth is Arabia, which extends to the Red Sea, and joins the Arabia known by the surname of Happy, so famous for its perfumes and its wealth. This is called Arabia of the Catabanes, the Esbonitæ, and the Scenitæ; it is remarkable for its sterility, except in the parts where it joins up to Syria, and it has nothing remarkable in it except Mount Casius. The Arabian nations of the Canchlæi join these on the east, and, on the south the Cedrei, both of which peoples are adjoining to the Nabatæi. The two gulfs of the Red Sea, where it borders upon Egypt, are called the Heroöpolitic and the Ælanitic. Between the two towns of Ælana and Gaza upon our sea, there is a distance of 150 miles. Agrippa says that Arsinoë, a town on the Red Sea, is, by way of the desert, 125 miles from Pelusium. How different the characteristics impressed by nature upon two places separated by so small a distance!