The Erythraean Sea (, ''Erythrà Thálassa'', ) was a former maritime designation that always included the

Gulf of Aden The Gulf of Aden (; ) is a deepwater gulf of the Indian Ocean between Yemen to the north, the Arabian Sea to the east, Djibouti to the west, and the Guardafui Channel, the Socotra Archipelago, Puntland in Somalia and Somaliland to the south. ...

, and at times other seas between Arabia Felix and the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...

. Originally an ancient Greek geographical designation, the term was used throughout Europe until the 18th and 19th centuries. The area referred to by this name frequently extended beyond the Gulf of Adenas in the famous 1st-century ''

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' (), also known by its Latin name as the , is a Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman periplus written in Koine Greek that describes navigation and Roman commerce, trading opportunities from Roman Egyptian ports lik ...

''to designate all of the present-day

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea () is a region of sea in the northern Indian Ocean, bounded on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel, on the northwest by Gulf of Oman and Iran, on the north by Pakistan, on the east by India, and ...

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

, and

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

as a single maritime area.

Name

The Greeks themselves derived the name from an

eponym An eponym is a noun after which or for which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. Adjectives derived from the word ''eponym'' include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Eponyms are commonly used for time periods, places, innovati ...

ous King Erythras and knew that the waters so described were deep blue. Modern scholars sometimes attribute the name to the seasonal blooms of the red-hued '' Trichodesmium erythraeum'' in the

Agatharchides Agatharchides or Agatharchus ( or , ''Agatharchos'') of Cnidus was a Greek historian and geographer (flourished 2nd century BC). Life Agatharchides is believed to have been born at Cnidus, hence his appellation. As Stanley M. Burstein notes, the ...

had written of the origin of the name Erythraean Sea on the book (De Mari Erythraeo, § 5) in a story about the king Erythras: "There was a man famous for his valor and wealth, by name Erythras, a Persian by birth, son of Myozaeus.... the glory of the Island ascribed to him by the popular voice because of these his deeds, that even down to our own time they have called that sea, infinite in extent, Erythraean Sea".

Use

The name "Erythraean Sea" has been or is still used for the following places: *In the opening sentences of

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

' history, written in the 5th century BC, he refers to the

Phoenicians Phoenicians were an ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syrian coast. They developed a maritime civi ...

having come originally from the Erythraean Sea. *In the ''

'', written in the 1st century AD, as well as in some ancient maps, the name of the sea refers to the whole area of the northwestern Indian Ocean, including the

. *In centuries past, the name "Erythraean Sea" was applied by

cartographers Cartography (; from , 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and , 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can ...

to the north-western part of the

, mainly the area around

Socotra Socotra, locally known as Saqatri, is a Yemeni island in the Indian Ocean. Situated between the Guardafui Channel and the Arabian Sea, it lies near major shipping routes. Socotra is the largest of the six islands in the Socotra archipelago as ...

, between

Cape Guardafui Cape Guardafui is a headland in Somalia, in the federal state of Puntland. It forms the geographical apex of the Horn of Africa. Its shore at 51°27'52"E is the second easternmost point on mainland Africa after Ras Hafun. The offshore oceanic st ...

and the coast of

Hadhramaut Hadhramaut ( ; ) is a geographic region in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula which includes the Yemeni governorates of Hadhramaut, Shabwah and Mahrah, Dhofar in southwestern Oman, and Sharurah in the Najran Province of Saudi A ...

. This appellation has now become obsolete and the name

is used although for a smaller area. In maps in which the north-western part of the Indian Ocean is named thus, the Red Sea appears as "Arabian Gulf". *The name "Erythraean Sea" was used as well to refer to some gulfs attached to the Indian Ocean, specifically,

and

Gulf of Oman The Gulf of Oman or Sea of Oman ( ''khalīj ʿumān''; ''daryâ-ye omân''), also known as Gulf of Makran or Sea of Makran ( ''khalīj makrān''; ''daryâ-ye makrān''), is a gulf in the Indian Ocean that connects the Arabian Sea with th ...

. *As a name for the

, especially after the 19th century, the Red Sea is also always called with the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

name in

Modern Greek Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ...

. The modern country of

Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

was named after the Ancient Greek name. *Since 1895, the name has also been applied to a large dusky region on the surface of planet

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

that is known as Mare Erythraeum.

Classic literature sources

Chronological listing of classical literature sources for Erythraean: * Herodotus, ''Herodotus'' 1. 18 (trans. Godley) (Greek history C5th BC) * Herodotus, ''Herodotus'' 1. 142 * Herodotus, ''Herodotus'' 1. 180 (''The Greek Classics'' ed. Miller 1909 Vol 5 p. 96 trans. Laurent) * Herodotus, ''Clio'' Book 1 (trans. Laurent) * Herodotus 2. 11 (''The Greek Classics'' ed. Miller 1909 Vol 5 p. 116 trans. Laurent) * Herodotus 2. 158 (''The Greek Classics'' ed. Miller 1909 Vol 5 p. 186) * Herodotus 2. 159 (''The Greek Classics'' ed. Miller 1909 Vol 5 p. 186 ) * Herodotus, ''Herodotus'' 6. 8. 8 ff (trans. Godley) * Thucydides, ''Thucydides'' 8. 4 (trans. Smith) (Greek history C5th BC) * Thucydides, ''Thucydides'' 8. 14 * Thucydides, ''Thucydides'' 8. 16 * Thucydides, ''Thucydides'' 8. 24 * Thucydides, ''Thucydides'' 8. 33 * Aeschylus, Fragment 105 (192) ''Prometheus Bound'' (trans. Weir Smyth) (Greek tragedy C5th BC) * Aristotle, ''De Mundo'' 393b ff (ed. Ross trans. Forster) (Greek philosophy C4th BC) * Tibullus, ''Tibullus'' 3. 4. 11 ff (trans. Postgate) (Latin poetry C1st BC) * Diodorus Siculus, ''Library of History'' 14. 84. 4 ff (trans. Oldfather) (Greek history C1st BC) * Parthenius, ''The Love Romances'' 9. 1 (The Story of Polycrite) (trans. Gaselee) (Greek poetry C1st BC) * Strabo, ''Geography'' 7. 3. 6 (trans. Jones) (Greek geography C1st BC to C1st AD) * Strabo, ''Geography'' 13. 1. 14 * Strabo, ''Geography'' 13. 1. 19 * Strabo, ''Geography'' 13. 1. 64 * Strabo, ''Geography'' 14. 1. 31 * Strabo, ''Geography'' 14. 1. 33 * Strabo, ''Geography'' 16. 3. 5 * Scholiast on Strabo, ''Geography'' 16. 3. 5 (''The Geography of Strabo'' trans. Jones 1930 Vol 7 p. 305) * Strabo, ''Geography'' 16. 4. 20 * Scholiast on Strabo, ''Geography'' 16. 4. 20 (''The Geography of Strabo'' trans. Jones 1930 Vol 7 p. 305) * Strabo, ''Geography'' 17. 1. 43 * Livy, ''The History of Rome'' 38. 39. 11 ff (trans. Moore) (Roman history C1st BC to C1st AD) * Pliny, ''Natural History'' 4. 36. (trans. Bostock & Riley) (Roman history C1st AD) * Pliny, ''Natural History'' 7. 57 (trans. Rackham) * Pliny, ''Natural History'' 8. 73 (43) * Pliny, ''Natural History'' 9. 54 ff * Scholiast on Pliny, ''Natural History'' 9. 54 ff ('' The Natural History of Pliny'' trans. Bostock & Riley 1855 Vol 2 p. 431) * Pliny, ''Natural History'' 12. 35 (trans. Bostock & Riley) * Bacchylides papyrus, The Drinking-song (''Lyra Graeca'' trans. Edmonds 1927 Vol. 3 p. 657) (Greek poetry C1st AD) * Statius, ''Silvae'' 4. 6. 17 (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic poetry C1st AD) * Statius, ''Thebaid'' 7. 564 ff (trans. Mozley) * Josephus, Berossus from Alexander Polyhistor, Of the Cosmogony and Causes of the Deluge (''The Ancient Fragments'' trans. Cory 1828 p. 19) (Romano- Jewish-Babylonian history C1st AD) * Plutarch, ''Moralia'', Bravery of Women, 3 (The Women of Chios) 244F ff (trans. Babbitt) (Greek history C1st to C2nd AD) * Plutarch, ''Moralia'', Bravery of Women 17 (Polycrite) 254C ff * Plutarch, ''Moralia'', The Greek Questions (30) 298B ff * Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'' 7. 5. 3 ff (trans. Frazer) (Greek travelogue C2nd AD) * Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'' 7. 5. 5. 12 ff * Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'' 10. 12. 4 * Athenaeus, ''Banquet of the Learned'' 4. 74 (trans. Yonge) (Greek rhetoric C2nd AD to C3rd AD) * Athenaeus, ''Banquet of the Learned'' 10. 44 ff * Athenaeus, ''Banquet of the Learned'' 11. 49 ff * Dio, ''Roman History,'' Epitome of Book LXVIII 28. 3 ff (trans. Cary) (Roman history C2nd to C3rd AD) * Eusebius, Berossus from Apollodorus, Of The Chaldean Kings (''The Ancient Fragments'' trans. Cory 1828 p. 19) (Christian-Babylonian history 4th AD) * Tzetzes, ''Chiliades or Book of Histories'' 8.57. 621 (trans. Untila et al.) (Greco-Byzantine history C12th AD) * Tzetzes, ''Chiliades or Book of Histories'' 8.57. 628 ff Classical literature source for Erythean: * Ovid, ''Fasti'' 1. 543–586 (trans. Frazer) (Roman epic poetry C1st BC to C1st AD)

References

External links

*''The Periplus of the Erythrean sea, containing an account of the navigation of the ancients, from the sea of Suez to the coast of Zanguebar'', William Vincent (ed.), 2 voll., London, 1800
vol. 1vol. 2
* William H. Schoff,

' (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912), with additional commentary including alternate spellings or translations from Lionel Casson's more recent edition. {{Authority control Seas of the Indian Ocean Seas of Africa Seas of Asia Bodies of water of the Red Sea History of cartography History of geography Ancient Greek geography Bodies of water of Yemen Bodies of water of Somalia

Name

Use

Classic literature sources

See also

References

External links