The three Minaean citadels lie nearly in this position (.·.), with old
Sabaean settlements (Raiam) all round them, and even with some
Sabaean places (e.g. Nask and Kamnā) within the triangle they
form. The dialect of the Minaeans is sharply distinguished from
the Sabaeans (see above). The inscriptions have yielded the names
of twenty-seven Minaean kings, who were quite independent, and,
as it would seem, not always friends of the Sabaeans, for neither
dynasty mentions the other on its inscriptions, while minor kings
and kingdoms are freely mentioned by both, presumably when they
stood under the protection of the one or the other respectively.
The Minaeans were evidently active rivals of the Sabaean influence,
and a war between the two is once mentioned. In Ḥaḍramut
they disputed the hegemony with one another, the government
there being at one time under a Minaean, at another under a Sabaean
prince, while the language shows now the one and now the other
influence. The religions also of the two powers present many
points of agreement, with some notable differences. Thus, puzzling
as the fact appears, it is clear that the Minaeans formed a sort of
political and linguistic island in the Sabaean country. The origin
of the Minaeans from Ḥaḍramut is rendered probable by the
predominance of their dialect in the inscriptions of that country (except
in that of Ḥiṣn Ghorāb), by the rule, already mentioned, of a Minaean
prince in Ḥaḍramut, and by Pliny's statement (H.N. xii. 65) that
frankincense was collected at Sabota (the capital of Ḥaḍramut;
inscr. שביה), but exported only through the Gebanites, whose
kings received custom dues on it, compared with xii. 69, where
he speaks of Minaean myrrh “in qua et Atramitica est et
Gebbanitica et Ausaritis Gebbanitarum regno,” &c., implying that
Minaean myrrh was really a Hadramite and Gebanite product. All
this suggests a close connexion between the Minaeans and Ḥaḍramut;
and from the Minaean inscriptions we know that the Gebanites
were at one time a Minaean race, and stood in high favour with the
queen of Ma‛īn. Thus we are led to conclude that the Minaeans
were a Hadramite settlement in the Jauf, whose object was to
secure the northern trade road for their products. We cannot but
see that their fortified posts in the north of the Sabaean kingdom
had a strategical purpose; and so Pliny (xii. 54) says, “Attingunt
et Minaei, pagus alius, per quos evehitur uno tramite angusto [from
Ḥaḍramut]. Hi primi commercium turis fecere maximeque
exercent, a quibus et Minaeum dictum est.” Besides this road, they
had the sea-route, for, according to Pliny, their allies, the Gebanites,
held the port of Ocelis. If the Minaeans were later immigrants
from Ḥaḍramut, we can understand how they are not mentioned
in Gen. x. In later times, as is proved by the Minaean colony in
Al-‛Olā, which Euting has revealed to us, they superseded the
Sabaeans in some parts of the north. In the ‛Olā inscriptions we
read the names of Minaean kings and gods. Notable also is the
mention in 1 Chron. iv. 41 of the “Bedouin encampments אהלים
and the Ma‛ïīnīm” smitten by the Simeonites, which may possibly
refer to the destruction of a Minaean caravan protected by these
Bedouins. The LXX. at least renders Ma‛īnīm by Mιναίους. It seems
bold to conjecture that the Minaeans were in accord with the Romans
under Aelius Gallus, yet it is noteworthy that no Minaean town
is named among the cities which that general destroyed, though ruin
fell on Nask and Kamna, which lie inside the Minaean territory.
The inscriptions seem to indicate that the monarchies of South Arabia were hereditary, the son generally following the father, though not seldom the brother of the deceased came between, apparently on the principle of seniority, which we find also in North Arabia. Eratosthenes (in Strabo xvi. 4, 3) says that the first child born to one of the magnates after a king came to the throne was his designated successor; the wives of the magnates who were pregnant at the king's accession were carefully watched, and the first child born was brought up as heir to the kingdom. There seems to be a mistake in the first part of this statement; what Eratosthenes will have said is that the oldest prince after the king was the designated successor. This law of succession explains how we repeatedly find two kings named together among the Sabaeans, and almost always find two among the Minaeans; the second king is the heir. The principle of seniority, as we know from North Arabian history, gives rise to intrigues and palace revolutions, and was probably often violated in favour of the direct heir. On the other hand, it readily leads to a limited power of election by the magnates, and in fact good Arabian sources speak of seven electoral princes. Some inscriptions name, besides the king, an eponymus, whose office seems to have been priestly, his titles being dhū ḥarīf, eponymus and rashūw, “sacrificer.” All royal inscriptions are signed by him at the beginning and the end, and he appears with the king on coins.
Religion.—In spite of the many ruins of temples and inscriptions,
the religion of the Sabaeans is obscure. Most of the many names
of gods are mere names that appear and vanish again in particular
districts and temples. Of the great national gods of the Sabaeans and
Minaeans we know a little more. The worship of the heavenly
bodies, for which there is Arabic evidence, had really a great place
in Yemen. Sun-worship seems to have been peculiar to the Sabaeans and
Hamdanites; and, if the Sabis of Sabota (Pliny) was in fact the
sun deity Shams, this must be ascribed to Sabaean influence. The
Sabaean Shams was a goddess, while the chief divinity of the
Minaeans was the god ‛Athtar, a male figure, worshiped under
several forms, of which the commonest are the Eastern ‛Athtar and
’‛Athtar Dhū Kabḍ. Wadd and Nikrah, the gods of love and hate, are
possibly only other forms of the two ‛Athtars. The Sabaeans also
recognize ‛Athtar; but with them he is superseded by Almaqah, who,
according to Hamdānī, is the planet Venus, and therefore is identical
with ‛Athtar. The moon-god Sīn appears on an inscription of Shabwat;
but, according to Hamdānī, Haubas, “the drier,” was the
Sabaean moon-god. On the Shabwat inscription ‛Athtar is the
father of Sīn, and it is noteworthy that these two deities also appear
as nearly related in the Babylonian legend of ‛Ishtar's descent to
Hades, where ‛Ishtar is conversely the daughter of the god Sīn.
The mother of ‛Athtar on another inscription is probably the sun.
We find also the common Semitic Il (El) and a Dhū Samai answering
to the northern Ba‘al Shamayim. Three gods of the inscriptions
are named in the Koran—Wadd, Yaghūth and Nasr. In the
god-name Ta’lab there may be an indication of tree-worship. The many
minor deities may be passed over; but we must mention the
sanctuary of Riyām, with its images of the sun and moon, and, according
to tradition, an oracle. In conformity with old Semitic usage,
pilgrimages were made at definite seasons to certain deities, and the
Sabaean pilgrim month, Dhū Ḥijjatān, is the northern Dhū’l-Ḥijja.
The outlines, and little more, of a few of the many temples can still
be traced. Noteworthy are the elliptic form of the chief temples
in Ma’rib and Ṣirwāh; and the castle of Naqab-al-Ḥajar with its
entrances north and south.
Sacrifices and incense were offered to the gods. The names for altar (midhbaḥ) and sacrifice (dhibḥ) are common Semitic words, and the altar of incense has among other names that of miḳṭar, as in Hebrew. A variety of spices—the wealth of the land—are named on these altars, as rand, ladanum, costus, tarum, &c. Frankincense appears as lubān, and there are other names not yet understood. The gods received tithes of the produce of trade and of the field, in kind or in ingots and golden statues, and these tributes, with freewill offerings, erected and maintained the temples. Temples and fortifications were often combined. The golden statues were votive offerings; thus a man and his wife offer four statues for the health of their four children, and a man offers to Dhū Samai statues of a man and two camels, in prayer for his own health and the protection of his camels from disease of the joints.
Their commerce brought the Sabaeans under Christian and Jewish influence; and, though the old gods were too closely connected with their life and trade to be readily abandoned, the great change in the trading policy, already spoken of, seems to have affected religion as well as the state. The inland gods lost importance with the failure of the overland trade, and Judaism and Christianity seem for a time to have contended for the mastery in South Arabia. Jewish influence appears in the name Raḥmān (see above), while efforts at Christianization seem to have gone forth from several places at various times. According to Philostorgius, the Homerites were converted under Constantius II. by the Indian Theophilus, who built churches in Ẓafar and Aden. Another account places their conversion in the reign of Anastasius (491–518). In Nejrān Syrian missionaries, seem to have introduced Christianity (Nöldeke). But, as the religion of the hostile Ethiopians, Christianity found political obstacles to its adoption in Yemen; and, as heathenism had quite lost its power, it is intelligible that Dhū Nuwās, who was at war with Ethiopia before the last fatal struggle, became a Jew. His expedition against Christian Nejrān had therefore political as well as religious motives. The Ethiopian conquest rather hurt than helped Christianity. The famous qalīs (ἐκκλησία) of Abraha in San‛ā seems to have been looked on as a sign of foreign dominion, and Islam found it easy to supersede Christianity in Yemen.
Coins.—In older times and in many districts coins were not used, and trade was carried on mainly by barter. Nor have there been many great finds of coins; indeed most of the pieces in European collections probably come from the same hoard. At the same time the coins throw a general light on the relations of ancient Yemen. The oldest known pieces are imitations of the Athenian mintage of the 4th century B.C., with the legend ΑΘΕ and the owl standing on an overturned amphora. The reverse has the head of Pallas with a Sabaean N. Of younger coins the first series has a king's head on the reverse, and the old obverse is enriched with two Sabaean monograms, which have been interpreted as meaning “majesty” and “eponymus” respectively. In a second series the Greek legend has disappeared, and, instead of the two Sabaean monograms, we have the names of the king and the eponymus. A third series shows Roman influence and must be later than the expedition of Gallus. As the standard of the coins of Attic type is not Attic but Babylonian, we must not think of direct Athenian influence. The type must have been introduced either from Persia or from Phoenicia (Gaza). One remarkable tetradrachm with the Sabaean legend Abyath’ā is imitated from an Alexander of the 2nd century B.C., the execution being quite artistic and the weight Attic. There are also coins struck at Raydān and Ḥarib, which must be assigned to the Himyarite period (1st and 2nd century A.D.). The inscriptions speak of “bright Hayyilī coins in high relief,” but of these none have been found. They also speak of sela‛ pieces. The sela‛ in late Hebrew answers to the older shekel, and the mention of it seems to point to Jewish or Christian influence.
Literature.—Fresnel, Pièces rel. aux inscrr. Himyarites déc. par M. Arnaud (1845); Inscriptions in the Himyaritic Character in the
