Trogodytica: The Red Sea Littoral in Ptolemaic Times

Abstract

The ancient greeks and Romans had a word troglodytai (Greek TpcoyAohvrai, Latin troglodytae) which meant 'cave-enterers' and was used to describe primi? tive people who lived in caves. Such people may well have been included among the Troglodytes recorded in Greek and Roman authors as dwelling in Moesia south of the Danube and in the region of the Caucasus mountains, and possibly those who lived in Nabataean Arabia. But scholars of to-day are agreed that the right 'hellenized' name for some primitive peoples of Africa is TpcoyohvTcu (Trogodytae), without a letter 1; that, whatever the meaning may be, this was what the Greeks and Romans normally called them; that the chief land of such people was called by them TpcoyoBvrtKrj (Trogodytica); and that, wherever the letter 1 occurs in these names in the manuscripts of authors, it is an error, most probably having its origin in a popular mistaken alteration of the right name to one which had a simple and recognizable meaning. Omission of the 1 rests on good authority. Greek papyri found in Egypt have Tpcoyoy for example P. Cair. Zen. 40. 2; Papirigr. e lat. IV. 332,14; Class. Philology XIX, 233, 234 (all of the 3rd century b.c); P. Theb. Bank 9. 2 (ist century b.c); so has an inscription (Orientis Gr. Inscript. i. 70, Egypt, 3rd century B.c); Strabo, born c. 63 b.c, seems to have omitted 1 though apparently he knew of the spelling with 1, and all the manuscripts of his works include it. In Latin authors we have no 1 in Pliny VI 169, 173, etc; cf. Cicero Div. ii. 44, 93. Manuscripts called A, B and C of Herodotus (fifth century b.c) have Tpwyo at IV. 183; so has the Codex Vaticanus (codex B) in the Septuagint at ii Chronicles XII. 3. To these examples others could be added. Murray was therefore right to insist on the name Trogodytica and Trogodytai, English Trogodytes. The original draft of his paper contains a footnote to the title: 'Not Troglodytes. There are no caves in the eastern desert; and the Trogodytes probably lived in wickerwork huts as the modern Bega do'. E. H. Warmington