The Origins of Islam Ammianus Marcellinus attached to an early (and now lost) book of hisHis-
tory, dealing with the reign of Marcus Aurelius.^5 But theArabesorArabioiof
antiquity have so far not had a Menahem Stern to collect and analyse all the
classical references to them, which begin in the fifth century with Aeschylus
and Herodotus.^6 Much is indeed reported—above all as preserved in Diodo-
rus, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder—about the extensive area, from the Tigris to
the Yemen, as well as the Eastern Desert of Egypt, which could be described
as ‘‘Arabia,’’ and about its products and the customs and beliefs of the peoples
who lived there.^7 Pliny in particular notes the names of a large number of
Arabgentes(tribes) andoppida(settlements), as does Ptolemy in hisGeography.^8
But, so far as I can determine, no Greek or Roman writer made any serious
attempt to provide an ancestry, from within pagan mythology, either for the
Arabs as a whole or for individual peoples who were regarded as ‘‘Arab.’’ As re-
gards the various ‘‘Arab’’ peoples, it would in any case be a mistake on our part
to expect too much consistency on the part of classical writers in identifying
stable ‘‘tribal’’ groupings or in attaching definite names to them; for we have
to allow for fluctuations over time, for movements in space, for ignorance
or confusion among Graeco-Roman observers, for the notorious difficulties
of transliteration as between Semitic and Indo-European languages, and for
inaccurate manuscript transmission. None the less, it is worth recording that
the ‘‘Arabeswho are calledThamoudēnoi’’ recorded by Diodorus (, , ) as
inhabiting the eastern coast of the Red Sea reappear asTamudaeiin Pliny (,
), asThamoudēnoiin Ptolemy, and asThamoudain Uranius, apparently writ-
. Ammianus , , .
. See the typically concise and exhaustive treatment by Th. Nöldeke, s.v. ‘‘Arabia,
Arabians,’’Enc. Bibl. I (), ; Aeschylus,Pers. ; Herodotus , ; , –. See now
J. Retsö,The Arabs in Antiquity: Their History from the Assyrians to the Umayyads().
. See, e.g., Diodorus , , –; , –; , , –, ; Strabo,Geog. , , (–),
from Posidonius (FGrH, F. a; Edelstein-Kidd, F. ); , , (); , , – ();
, , – (–); Pliny,NH, –.
. Ptolemy,Geog., ed. Nobbe, , : ‘‘The map of Arabia Petraia,’’ mentioning (para. )
‘‘theSarakēne’’ (the earliest attested use of the word) and ‘‘thePharanitai’’ (for the significance
of Pharan, in the Sinai Peninsula, in biblical tradition, see text to nn. and below); , :
‘‘The map of Arabia Deserta.’’ Note the peoples listed in , , , including theAgraioi(cf.
theAgraeirecorded by Pliny,NH, and , and see further text to nn. – below);
, : ‘‘The map of Arabia Felix.’’ Note esp. , , , the long list of peoples listed as occupying
the mountainous northern part of the inland region, includingSkēnitai(treated here as an
ethnic name),Sarakēnoi(as withSarakēneabove, the earliest use), Thamudēnoi, and in , ,
,Thanouītai.