1. 1. XVII. THE PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIAN ELEMENT 7
and his army as "the Arabian host." So, too, the Persian period
lasted for about 200 years and presumably the settlements of Asiatics
that now occurred included a proportion of Arabs. The presumption
is made more certain by the fact that when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 B.C. he appointed Cleomenes of Naukratis
to be governor of "Arabia about Heroopolis" with the title of "Arabarch," and so important was this official's position that he was also responsible to Alexander for the w^hole tribute of Egypt^.
XV In the reign of the first Ptolemy we hear of the Arabs providing
great convoys of camels for the abortive invasion by Antigonus^, and no doubt they transported and raided both sides alternately through-
out all the wars of the successive Ptolemies on the Syrian frontier;
but to what extent they made any permanent settlement in Egypt during this period it is impossible to say.
XVI Meanwhile let us not forget the more continuous intercourse
that was proceeding further south. Not only were trade relations
maintained, but the Kahtanites or Himyarites of southern Arabia were forming a definite link between the Arabs and the negro popu-
lation of Abyssinia^, and periodically invaded the Nile valley. We need not pay much attention to the tale of Sheddad, a Himyarite
king of the 'Adites, who invaded Egypt in the days of Ashmun the
great-grandson of Ham son of Noah, and built pyramids and reser-
voirs before he was compelled to retreat*, but the tradition that one
of the early kings of Yemen, 'Abd Shams Saba, the founder of Marib, invaded Egypt ^ probably refers to an actual incursion from the
south-east during the Nubian period.
XVII More important matters were the expeditions of Abraha "Dhu el Manar«" and Afrikus.
The former was born, according to Caussin de Perceval, about
134 B.C., and was king of Yemen, and brother or son of el Sa'ab "Dhu el Karnayn" ("The two-horned")'^. He is said to have made
^ Mahaffy, History of Egypt, pp. 20, 21. ^ Mahaffy, loc. cit. 49.
* Cp. Palgrave, Arabia, i, 453, 454. * Makrizi, Khetdt, 11, 523.
* See, e.g. Abu el Fida, pp. 114, 115, quoting Ibn Sa'fd ; Van Dyck, p. 15 ; and Caussin de Perceval, i, 52.
* "He of the Signposts." For his expedition see Abu el Fida, p. 117 ; Van Dyck,
p. 16 ; and Caussin de Perceval, i, 67 (citing el Nuwayry, Hist. Imp. Vet. Yoct.
P- 52).
' Caussin de Perceval (i, 65) calls el Sa'ab "Essab." He was called "The two horned because he wore two plaits of hair hanging down over his temples" (Van Dyck, p. 16), or else because "he wore a crown with points like horns" (C. de Perceval, loc. cit.). By reasonof the nickname he was sometimes confused with Alexander the Great "Dhu el Karnayn." It is possible there is a connection here with the "two horns" worn by the Mek of Bujaras {q.v. Part HI, Chap. 2, xxxiii) and the two-homed "takia" worn by the Fung (see Part III, sub "'Abdulldb"). "On ne sait pas prdcis^ment pourquoi Alexandre re^ut le surnom de
' Zou-I-