Erythraeum Mare

ERYTHRAEUM MARE [RUBRUM MARE]

(ἡ ἐρυθρὰ θάλασσα). A name applied to the whole ocean by the Greeks, extending from the coast of Ethiopia to the island of Taprobana, when their geographical knowledge of India was in its infancy. They believed the name to be derived from that of Erythras, an ancient monarch who reigned along these coasts, and asserted that his grave was to be found in one of the adjacent islands (Curtius, viii. 9, 14). Afterwards, when the Greeks learned the existence of an Indian Ocean, the term was applied merely to the sea below Arabia, and to the Arabian and Persian Gulfs. In this latter sense Strabo uses the name. Herodotus follows the old acceptation of the word, according to the opinion prevalent in his age. The appellation was probably derived from Edom (Esan), whose descendants were called Idumaeans, and inhabited the northern parts of Arabia. They navigated upon the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, and also upon the Indian Ocean; and the Oriental name Edom signifying red, the sea of the Idumaeans was called the Red Sea and the Erythraean Sea (Ἐρυθρὰ θάλασσα), of which the Latin Mare Rubrum is a translation.