Page 81 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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congenial one. As Toussaint (1966) notes, Seleucus Nicator negotiated a treaty with
the Indian king Chandragupta in 302 B.C. which presumably was designed to
promote maritime trade between India and the Seleucid Empire. Voyages were
begun but were disrupted by attacks from various gulf tribes and most notably from
Gerrha. Ghirshman (quoted in Toussaint 1966) maintained that the Seleucids had to
keep a naval force in the gulf solely to protect their shipping. The historian
Polybius reported military expeditions against Gerrha by Antiochus HI (205 B.C.)
aimed at quelling such disturbances. Gerrha was able to preserve its autonomy by
paying tribute in silver and precious stones, and as Potts (Potts, Mughannum, Frye,
and Saunders 1978) notes, a tenuous partnership with the Seleucids was established
which prevented Greek merchants from sailing the Gulf as competitors. Gerrha
reached its peak development after the removal of this direct competition. TTius,
the Seleucid sea route via the Arabian Gulf was influenced not only by the
Ptolemies, but by Gerrha as well. T7ie Seleucid Empire disintegrated shortly after
the death of Antiochus IV in 164 B.C., and was followed closely by renewed Persian
control, this time through a Parthian aristocracy.
There does not seem to have been a sharp break in the existing exchange
patterns. Although we learn of the importance of the inland caravan routes
connecting the East with the Mediterranean from the contemporary writer Isidore
of Charax, the fragmentary nature of his manuscripts obscure the actual patterns.
Both Nodelman (1960) and Whitehouse and Williamson (1973) discuss the two major
ports of entry for the gulf in the first centuries of the common era. These
remained Gerrha and Charax Spasinu. The latter simply replaced the Seleucid city
of Alexandria-Antiochia as a port in the Mesopotamian delta region. Caravan
trade to Palestine began at Gerrha while the delta region was again the staging
area for the inland trade routes between Charax and Palmyra. Palmyrene trading
groups were also active in the gulf during the Parthian period (Nodelman 1960).

It would appear that neither the Greeks under Alexander nor those under
the Seleucid Dynasty had real control over the Arabian Gulf coasts. Rather, they
seem to have been the competitors of Chaldean groups centered on the Arabian
coast near Bahrain. If Polybius1 sources are any indication of the political