Aelius Gallus

The name of the Roman prefect of Egypt from 27 to 25 BCE. In an Arabian context, Aelius Gallus is famous as the leader of the expedition to South Arabia he was ordered to undertake by the emperor Augustus. The motives behind this expedition are usually considered to be both economic and political, but are still debated.

This expedition, which was launched either in 26–25 (Jameson 1968) or in 25–24 BCE (Scheid 2007: 72), is known from a number of literary and epigraphic sources. The most detailed is the account given in Strabo, who was a friend of Aelius Gallus, in his Geography (XVI.4.22–24). The expedition is also mentioned in the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (V.26), in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History (VI.32.160–161), in Flavius Josephus (Jewish Antiquities XV.317), and in Cassius Dio’s Roman History (LIII.29.3–8). The epigraphic sources consist in a number of inscriptions, only two of which seem to explicitly mention the expedition. The first is the Qatabanic inscription T.02.B 22 from Tamnaʿ, the capital city of the kingdom of Qatabān, palaeographically dated to the first centuries BCE-CE, which mentions “the day when the Romans undertook a military expedition”. The second is the Sabaic inscription Ja 772 from the Awām temple dedicated to Almaqah in Maʾrib, palaeographically dated to the first centuries BCE-CE, which contains the phrase “when he fought with/against the Romans”. The word Rm(n) is clear in at least one of these two texts.

Three other inscriptions are only indirectly related to the expedition: the undated Greek and Latin funerary inscription YM 605, possibly from near Barāqish, which mentions a Roman soldier (who would have participated in the expedition?), and two Sabaic inscriptions copied by H.St J. Philby in the region of Najrān (nos. 103 and 135A). The latter two inscriptions mention the Nabataeans, considered to refer to the contingent of Nabataeans who participated in the expedition. However, the link with the expedition remains uncertain in all these inscriptions.

Based on Strabo’s account, the military forces engaged by Gallus consisted of an army of 10,000 men, including 1,000 Nabataeans led by Syllaeus, the minister of the Nabataean king Obodas II (formerly III, 30–9 BCE), as well as 500 Jews sent by Herod the Great (37–4 BCE). Syllaeus was accused by Gallus to have deliberately misled the Roman troops and was held responsible for the ultimate failure of the expedition, but the situation was probably more complex. Gallus first built 80 warships, which proved to be unsuitable to sail on the Red Sea and were subsequently replaced by 130 transport vessels.

Also according to Strabo, the forces sailed from Cleopatris (Clysma) at the northern end of the Gulf of Suez to Leuke Kome (al-Wajh? ʿAynūna?) on the Arabian shore of the Red Sea. From Leuke Kome, where they had to stop for the summer and winter to recover from difficult sailing conditions, they moved into the territory of a man named Aretas, who was related to the Nabataean king Obodas. On their way south, the cities of Negrani (Najrān), Asca (Nashq/al-Bayḍāʾ), and Athrula (Yathill/Barāqish) were captured and others were destroyed. The forces were then unsuccessful at Marsiaba (Maryab/Maʾrib), where they had to raise the siege after six days due to the lack of water. Pliny (NH VI.32.17) adds that Caripeta (Haribat, today Ḥinū al-Zurayr in the Wadi Ḥarīb), the furthest position reached by the expedition, was destroyed.

The outward journey from Leuke Kome to Marsiaba is said by Strabo to have taken six months, whereas the return journey, via Negrani (Najrān) and several unidentified localities up to Egra Kome (a site possibly not far from al-Wajh or ancient Hegra), is said to have taken just 60 days, during which many men died. From Egra Kome, the army sailed west to Myos Hormos in Egypt (Quṣayr) and from there to Coptos (Qifṭ, on the Nile) and Alexandria.

It has been suggested by M. Speidel and G. Bowersock that the Romans took control of parts of South Arabia after the expedition and left a garrison in Barāqish. Going further, Chr.J. Robin assumes that the Nabataeans themselves stayed in Ṣirwāḥ as well as, possibly, in Najrān, and Qaryat al-Fāw. This hypothesis is uncertain as it is based on a debatable reinterpretation of some of the abovementioned sources, others concerning Rome’s southern alliances, and the chronology of the kings of Sabaʾ. However, if it is true, the expedition was more successful from a military point of view than is usually thought. On the other hand, the commercial, political and diplomatic benefits of the expedition are generally accepted.

Whatever the practical consequences of the expedition, between complete failure and full control, it allowed the Romans to establish direct contact with South Arabia and to tighten their commercial and political links with this region.

Laïla Nehmé

References and suggested readings

Sources

• Philby 103: Philby, H. St J.B. & A.S. Tritton 1943. Najran inscriptions. JRAS 1–2: 123.
• Philby 135A: idem: 127.

Studies

• Arbach, M. & J. Schiettecatte 2017. Premiers échos de l’expédition romaine d’Ælius Gallus dans la documentation sudarabique. CRAI 2017 (Apr.-Jun.): 675–700. DOI : 10.3406/crai.2017.96234.
• Bowersock, G.W. 2019. The Nabataeans under Augustus, in A. Heller, C. Müller, A. Suspène (eds) Philorhômaios kai philhellèn. Hommage à Jean-Louis Ferrary (Hautes études du monde gréco-romain, 56): 225–233. Geneva: Droz.
• Jameson, S. 1968. Chronology of the Campaigns of Aelius Gallus and C. Petronius. JRS 58: 71–84. DOI: 10.2307/299696.
• Robin, C.J. 2019. Les silences d’Aelius Gallus. L’hypothèse d’une brève occupation romaine et nabaṭéenne du royaume de Sabaʾ, in Ex Oriente Lux. Collected Papers to mark the 75th anniversary of Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky: 234–263. Saint Petersburg: The State Hermitage Publishers.
• Scheid, J. 2007. Res Gestae Diui Augusti. Hauts Faits du Divin Auguste. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
• Sidebotham, S.E. 1986. Aelius Gallus and Arabia. Latomus 45: 590–602.
• Speidel, M.A. 2015. Wars, Trade and Treaties: New, Revised, and Neglected Sources for the Political, Diplomatic, and Military Aspects of Imperial Rome’s Relations with the Red Sea Basin and India, from Augustus to Diocletian, in K.S. Mathew (ed) Imperial Rome, Indian Ocean Regions and Muziris: New Perspectives on Maritime Trade: 83–128. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers & Distributors.