Arabia Felix

[4][5] Felix has the meanings of both "fecund, fertile" and "happy, fortunate, blessed", this area being the best irrigated of the Arabian peninsula.

The high peaks and slopes are capable of supporting significant vegetation and river beds called wadis help make other soil fertile.

Of the auspiciously named port we read in the periplus that Eudaemon Arabia was once a full-fledged city, when vessels from India did not go to Egypt and those of Egypt did not dare sail to places further on, but came only this far.In 26 BC, Aelius Gallus under Augustus' order led a military expedition to Arabia, but after some beginning successes he was obliged by the unhealthy climate and epidemic to desist in the conquest of the area.

[10] New developments in trade during the 1st century AD led to traders avoiding the middlemen of Eudaemon and making the dangerous direct crossing of the Arabian Sea to the coast of India.

Arabia Felix is the title of the 1962 book by Danish novelist Thorkild Hansen, detailing a disastrous scientific expedition to the area led by Carsten Niebuhr lasting from 1761 to 1767.