Theodor Mommsen wrote that Aelius Gallus sailed with 10,000 legionaries from Egypt and landed at Leuce Kome, a trading port of the Nabateans in the northwestern Arabian coast. He then conquered without difficulty Yathrib (Medina) and the village of Makkah (Mecca).[citation needed] From there he made a march of nearly one thousand km to the south until Marib, but was forced to abandon those conquests -according to Mommsen- not only because of diseases and epidemics, but also because he had overextended his line of supplies from Egypt in a land full of deserts.