Troglodytae
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
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.[4] 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.[5]
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.[7][8] He also mentions tribes living in various parts of Africa from Libya to the Red Sea.[6]
Pliny[2] 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.