Troglodytae
| Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R) |
Troglodytae were people mentioned in various locations by many ancient Greek and Roman geographers and historians, including Herodotus (5th century BCE), Agatharchides (2nd century BCE), Diodorus Siculus (1st century BCE), Strabo (64/63 BCE – c. 24 CE), Pliny (1st century CE), Josephus (37 – c. 100 CE), Tacitus (c. 56 – after 117 CE), Claudius Aelianus (c. 175 CE – c. 235 CE),[1] Porphyry (c. 234 CE – c. 305 CE).[1]
Variants
- Greek: Τρωγλοδύται, Trōglodytai
- Troglodyti (literally "cave goers")
- Troglodytæ
- Troglodytae (Pliny.vi.34)
- Troglodytice
In Herodotus
Herodotus referred to the Troglodytae in his Histories as being a people hunted by the Garamantes in Libya. He said that the Troglodytae were the swiftest runners of all humans known and that they ate snakes, lizards, and other reptiles. He also stated that their language was unlike any known to him, and sounded like the screeching of bats.[2] Alice Werner (1913) believed (in passing) that this was a clear allusion to the early Khoisan, indigenous inhabitants of Southern Africa, because their languages contain distinctive click sounds.[3]
In Strabo
In his work Geographica, Strabo mentions a tribe of Troglodytae living along with the Crobyzi in Scythia Minor, near the Ister (Danube) and the Greek colonies of Callatis and Tomis.[4][5] He also mentions tribes living in various parts of Africa from Libya to the Red Sea.[6]
Mention by Pliny
Pliny[7] while describing Arabia mentions...We then come to a promontory, from which to the mainland of the Troglodytæ it is fifty miles, and then the Thoani, the Actæi, the Chatramotitæ, the Tonabei, the Antidalei, the Lexianæ, the Agræi, the Cerbani, and the Sabæi37, the best known of all the tribes of Arabia, on account of their frankincense; these nations extend from sea to sea.38
37 Their country is supposed to have been the Sheba of Scripture, the queen of which visited king Solomon. It was situate in the south-western corner of Arabia Felix, the north and centre of the province of Yemen, though the geographers before Ptolemy seem to give it a still wider extent, quite to the south of Yemen. The Sabæi most probably spread originally on both sides of the southern part of the Red Sea, the shores of Arabia and Africa. Their capital was Saba, in which, according to their usage, their king was confined a close prisoner.
38 The Persian Gulf to the Red Sea.
Mention by Pliny
Pliny[8] mentions Troglodytice....We learn also from the same author that some nations of the Troglodytae have the name of Therothoæ28, being so called from their skill in hunting. They are remarkable for their swiftness, he says, just as the Ichthyophagi are, who can swim like the animals whose element is the sea. He speaks also of the Bangeni, the Gangoræ, the Chalybes, the Xoxinæ, the Sirechæ, the Daremæ, and the Domazames.
28 Apparently meaning in the Greek the "jackal-hunters," θηροθῶες. For an account of this animal, see B. viii. c. 52, and B. xv. c. 95.
References
- ↑ Porphyry, De abstinentia, 4.21
- ↑ Herodotus, Histories, 4.183
- ↑ Werner, A. (January 1913). "The Languages of Africa". Journal of the Royal African Society. 12 (46): 120–135. JSTOR 715866.
- ↑ Strabo & 20 AD, VII 5,12.
- ↑ Boardman, John, ed. (1991). The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 3, Part 1: The Prehistory of the Balkans, and the Middle East and the Aegean world, tenth to eighth centuries B.C. London: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22496-3.
- ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Troglodytes". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 298–299.
- ↑ Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 32
- ↑ Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 34