Eudaemon

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For the Greek concept of happiness, see Eudaimonia.

In the 1st century BCE, the Arabian city Eudaemon (usually identified with the port of Aden) was a transshipping port in the Red Sea trade. The city and surrounding country were the Latin Arabia Felix. It was described in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (probably 1st century CE) as if it had fallen on hard times. Of the auspiciously named port we read in the periplus that

Eudaemon Arabia was once a fully-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.

The new development in trade during the first century CE avoided the middlemen at Eudaemon and made the courageous direct crossing of the Arabian Sea to the coast of India.