Rhapta as the southernmost metropolis known in the Roman world was first mentioned by periplus of the Erythrean Sea in the mid first century AD as the major trading port of Azania, then The coast of East Africa(Edited and Translated by...
moreRhapta as the southernmost metropolis known in the Roman world was first mentioned by periplus of the Erythrean Sea in the mid first century AD as the major trading port of Azania, then The coast of East Africa(Edited and Translated by Casson1989, Huntinford1980, and Schoff 1912), also discussed by others (Freeman-Grenville1962, Carry and Warmington1963). Azania itself was first mentioned by Pliny the Elder in the early first century AD in relation to trade of spices particularly, Cinnamon and cassia. These were brought thither by people from south East Asia, probably Austronesians. From Azania the spices were carried to the Nile Valley and then to the Mediterranean world (Miller1969). In Periplus, the Romans are reported to have had found in Rhapta foreign traders, particularly Homerite Arabs who knew the local language and were intermarrying with the locals. In the second century AD, Claudius Ptolemy produced a map of Azania with Phapta placed at latitude 8̊ south at a river today identified as Rufiji in Tanzania because of the same latitude provided by Ptolemy and the identification by Ptolemy of the settlers of the area as Rafiji, which is similar to the name of the modern people in the area, the Wa- Rufiji.
In the same period of Ptolemy, the Chinese identified Azania as Zesan.
Archaeologists working on the delta region and other coastal areas of Tanzania have found sites of the Roman period some with trade artifacts.
Rhapta was an ancient port and also the capital of the ancient territory of Azania, then the coast of East Africa. Rhapta and Azania were reported in the Roman documents of the first three centuries AD. The documents include that of Periplus of the Erythrean Sea and that of Claudius Ptolemy’s Geography. These have been translated in several modern documents (Schoff 1912, (Casson 1989) and Huntingford 1980, and also well reported in others, Freeman- Grenville 1963, and Cary and Warmington 1963, Lacrois1998.
It has to be stressed here that whereas scholars have doubted pre-Roman documents, of the Greeks and Egyptians on their knowledge of East Africa, scholars have not doubted the Roman documents. From the time of Emperor Augustus Cesar the Romans had a firm control of the Indian Ocean all the way to India and beyond.( Cary and Warmington1963, Miller 1969:viii).Surprisingly however, according to Cimino1994:7 The Romans, “adhered to Hipparchus, namely that African coast near Zanzibar proceeded east instead, of south-west, and met the Asiatic territory and formed the Erithrean Lake”.
