The Historians' History of the World 08

At this time two new names for the Arabs came into existence, “Saracens” and “Taits.” Ptolemy (5, 16) mentions Σαρακηνή as a district in the Sinaitic peninsula.[5] The inhabitants of this district, who are unknown to Arab tradition, must have made themselves notorious in the Roman provinces in their vicinity; we can hardly suppose by other means than predatory incursions by hindering the march of caravans or levying heavy tolls upon them. Thus in that region all Bedouins came to be called Saraceni (Σαρακηνοί), in Aramaic Sarkaje, usually with no very favourable meaning. We meet with the latter form in a dialogue concerning Fate, written about 210 A.D. by a pupil of Bardesanes.[6] The designation then became general; thus it occurs very frequently in Ammianus Marcellinus. The name “Saracen” continued to be used in the West in later times probably rather through the influence of literature than by oral tradition, and was applied to all Arabs, and even to all Moslems, without distinction.

In precisely the same fashion and at exactly the same time the designation “Taits” came to be used for all Arabs by the Syrians of Edessa and the inhabitants of Babylonia. Only, while we know nothing of a distinct tribe of Saracens, which must very early have ceased to exist as such, we have plentiful and trustworthy information concerning the Tai in Arab literature. Their principal seat was in northern Nejd, but they spread abroad in many directions. Even now their name has not wholly passed out of remembrance.[7] By degrees the Aramæans came to style all Arabs “Tayaye,” and the Persians adopted the name from them.[8] Amongst the latter it is pronounced Tadjik, Tazik, in its more ancient form (with the Persian suffix), and Tazi in the later form.[9] The Arabs themselves reckon the Tai among the tribes which were once settled in the south of the Arabian peninsula. We are probably right in connecting their appearance in the north with a fresh wave which carried quite a number of the tribes of south Arabia into the northern districts; a tribal migration of which Arab tradition has much to tell, and some of it authentic.

The Arabs were known at that period only as a wholly savage race. Ammianus says of them: “natio perniciosa” (14, 4, 7), “nec amici nobis unquam nec hostes optandi” (14, 4, 1). The whole description, which he gives from contemporary information (14, 4), is very instructive, though somewhat one-sided and exaggerated in certain particulars. When he says that the Saracens live upon flesh and milk, and that most of them are unacquainted with wheat or wine, the statement agrees with that in the not much later Syrian Vita of Simeon Stylites[10] that many “Taits” did not know what bread was, but lived entirely upon flesh. There can be no question that the northern Bedouins, the only ones the author had in mind, can seldom have had an opportunity of procuring dates. Bread is an article of luxury in Arabia even at the present time. The Bedouins of the Sinaitic district, with whom S. Nilus (fifth century A.D.) had to do, were quite exceptionally barbarous.[11]

ARAB CIVILISATION