Hence a date for the Adulis throne in or a little before the third century, on the basis of the language it deploys, can be strengthened by the new Farasan inscription. But more than that: it is supported by the startling references of the anonymous king himself to the overseas campaigns that he waged in South Arabia, in the area of modern Yemen and the coastal Tihāma of Saudi Arabia. After the sweep of his conquests to the north and south of Axum, the king turned to the other side of the Red Sea. It is in Sabaic epigraphy of the early third century that the earliest attestations of the presence of Axumite forces in this region occur.14 At that time the occupying Axumites are designated by the Sabaic word for Ethiopians, ḥabashat, and its king bears the name Gadara. This king appears in the Sabaic epigraphy of South Arabia between 200 and 230 AD, and, most remarkably, he also appears on an inscription in Ethiopia itself as the negus of Aksum. He is the first attested ruler with that title. By contrast the Arabian inscriptions call him king, with the Sabaic malik.15 Surviving documentary evidence for the Ethiopian presence in South Arabia has suggested to recent scholars that the Ethiopians remained in the peninsula until about 270. But the expedition that installed the Ethiopians there—the expedition described in the Adulis inscription—must belong to the very first decades of the third century, or perhaps even a little earlier.16
This chronology fits perfectly with the appearance of the Kinaidocolpitai in the inscription. These enigmatic people bear a name that is inexplicably obscene if understood as Greek (kinaidos is a pathic homosexual). The element colpitai in their name points to their dwelling on or near a gulf or bay (kolpos). They appear rarely in ancient texts, but the few attestations that exist point clearly to the second and third centuries. Apart from the Adulis inscription and a Byzantine lexicon they are found only in Ptolemy’s Geography from the mid-second century AD, on an ostracon from Arabia that is also from the mid-second century, and in a chronicle of Saint Hippolytus from 234.17 The location of these people was clearly in the center of the western part of the Arabian peninsula, which is exactly where we should expect to find them on the basis of the Adulis text. The northernmost city in that text is Leukê Kômê, perhaps modern Wajh but in any case north of the apparent territory of the Kinaidocolpitai. These people disappear altogether from the historical record after the mid-third century. They reappear only in the Byzantine age in an entry of a comprehensive lexicon of ethnic names, where they are identified as a people in Arabia Felix, which is hardly surprising because Arabia Felix is the Arabian peninsula.18 So the presence of the Kinaidocolpitai, mysterious as their name may be, serves effectively to confirm a late second or early third century date for the Adulis throne inscription.
What remains uncertain after anchoring the date of the Adulis inscription to this period is the identity of the negus himself. He boasts that he was the “first and only” king to have done what he did, and we have to ask whether Gadara, who is known both from Arabia and from Ethiopia at this time, is that person. On present evidence there is just one other candidate for Adulis’ anonymous king. That is a certain Sembrouthes, whom we know from a carefully incised Greek inscription found north of Asmara in Eritrea.19 He styles himself “king from Axumite kings” (basileus ek basileôn Axômeitôn) and so he obviously had predecessors, just as the author of the Adulis text who boasted that he was the “first and only” king to make such conquests. But Sembrouthes also calls himself “great” (megas), as Ptolemy III had done on the basalt stele near the throne. Since we lack the prescript for the throne inscription, it is impossible to know whether the anonymous king of that text called himself megas too, but it is probable that he did. Furthermore, Sembrouthes declares that he was in the twenty-fourth year of his reign when he set up his inscription, and on present evidence long reigns at Axum were uncommon. Yet the Adulis king had an even longer reign since he claims to have written in his twenty-seventh year. The Greek letter-forms on Sembrouthes’ inscription are large and clear, and they could belong anywhere in the second or third centuries AD. They are therefore wholly consistent with the period of Ethiopian occupation in South Arabia.
Identifying the anonymous king at Adulis as Gadara would be credible because he is the only Ethiopian ruler who is actually documented both in Arabia itself and in Ethiopia at this time. Such an identification would fit well with the conquests enumerated on the inscription.20 On the other hand, Sembrouthes’ title megas is echoed in the Ptolemaic titulature at Adulis, and that titulature, like so much else on that old stele, presumably inspired the throne’s anonymous king. In his brief prescript Sembrouthes describes himself with the exalted language “king of Axumite kings.” But he conspicuously does not use the more traditional formulation “king of kings” that was later used by the Axumite kings and is most often associated with Persia. Sembrouthes’ Greek basileus ek basileôn (“king from kings”), rather than the customary basileus basileôn (“king of kings”) may conceivably point to a royal lineage for Sembrouthes, rather than a claim to be a king who ranks above other kings.
What is particularly remarkable about the conquests of the king who dedicated the Adulis throne is that he now appears, with a fair degree of certainty, to have put up three other Greek inscriptions—one in Axum itself, and, more remarkably, two in Nubian Meroë. These texts, fragmentary as they are, also lack the royal name, but their allusions to expeditions across the sea point unmistakably to the Adulis king. The inscription at Axum explicitly refers to crossing the sea, and it also mentions infantry transported in the expedition.21 The text boasts that the enterprise is the “first,” and it records a dedication to Ares. The two Greek inscriptions at Meroë look very much as if they were put up by the same ruler with reference to the same expedition.22 One Meroitic stone mentions both Axumites and Ḥimyarites (the people of Ḥimyar in southwestern Arabia), and it also mentions generals and the payment of tribute. The other, which is extremely fragmentary, contains just enough to show another dedication of a throne to Ares. It is more than likely that these texts have combined allusions to the king’s Arabian campaign with the imposition of tribute in the territory of Meroë. Whether the negus behind all this was Gadara or Sembrouthes, he is manifestly the Adulis king. The name of this energetic ruler is ultimately less important than the secure assignment of the events on the Adulis inscription to a dated historical context. These events marked the beginning of some seventy years of Ethiopian occupation in the Arabian peninsula in the third century AD.
The significance of two inscriptions set up in Greek by an Ethiopian negus in Meroë is immense. The Meroitic kingdom was undoubtedly in decline at this period, and the last known attestation of a Meroitic king is a graffito on the Nile island of Philae from 260. Although a few later graffiti show that some Nubians from this kingdom were still traveling, the great days of prosperity from the caravans that transported goods across Egypt between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea seem to have ended by 320 or so.23 An ambitious negus would have sensed a golden opportunity in the realm to his northwest. Since the negus of the Adulis inscription had clearly not yet invaded Meroë at the time it was incised on the throne, the fragmentary texts that survived in the Nubian capital must indicate further expansion to the northwest of the territories that Axum already controlled. The allusions to the overseas war and the phrasing that accompanies them both echo and postdate the Adulis text.
The message conveyed by the two Greek inscriptions at Meroë is reinforced by the imagination of the brilliant novelist Heliodorus, whose fictional narrative, the Aethiopica, shows revealing anachronisms in the midst of a story that was purportedly set in the sixth or fifth century BC. At a great celebration in Meroë the king Hydaspes receives gifts from foreign delegations.24 Those that are named have nothing whatever to do with the fictional date of Heliodorus’ tale but everything to do with the world in which he was writing, probably the fourth century AD or just possibly the third. The ambassadors to Meroë represent the regional powers of that time. They come from the Arabian peninsula (Arabia Fel
ix), from the Blemmyes (the Beja of the Adulis inscription), who dwelled alongside the Meroitic kingdom, and most strikingly the Axumites.25 The presence of Chinese (Seres) bearing silk could conceivably reflect knowledge of the silk trade in the Roman Empire, but there can be no doubt at all that the Arabians and Axumites provide a glimpse into the world of the very king who described his conquests in the text on the Adulis throne as well as into his further conquests after he wrote it.
As already noted, the departure of the Ethiopians can be assigned to about 270 on the basis of the Arabian inscriptions, which reveal the restoration of authority to local tribes in Arabia. Interestingly, it is precisely at the time of the Ethiopian withdrawal back to East Africa that the kings of Axum chose to consolidate their rule at home by inaugurating a coinage in gold, silver, and bronze with the names and busts of the kings themselves. Names on the coins were generally rendered in Greek, although one king, Wazeba, who is otherwise unknown, added unvocalized Ethiopic to the Greek legends.26 No inscriptions on stone survive from the kings who first issued coins, but the consistency of their images, with a close-fitting headcloth, suggest a deliberate effort not to represent the king as a Greek despite the use of the Greek language. By the early fourth century the imperial head had acquired a magnificent crown, as can be seen on the obverse of a series of gold coins issued by the basileus Ousanas, but the reverse of these issues continued to show the king with a traditional headcloth.27 The crown is absent from his silver and bronze coins. It was Ousanas’ successor Aezanas (‘Ezānā) who was the first in the fourth century to set up numerous inscriptions, and from him we discover the grandiose irredentist claim of the Ethiopians to the Arabian territory that Ethiopia had formerly occupied.
It is clear that the memory of Ḥimyar had never died despite the Ethiopian withdrawal from the Arabian peninsula in the third century. Aezanas never carried out any overseas conquests, but he did not hesitate to declare himself proudly “King of the Aksumites and Ḥimyarites, of Raydān, Ethiopians, Sabaeans, Silene, Siyamo, Beja (Blemmyes), and Kush (Meroë), King of Kings, son of the invincible god Ares (Maḥrem).”28 This is truly a “king of kings” and not, like Sembrouthes, a “king from kings.” The claim to Ḥimyar and Raydān was pure fiction, as these territories lay in southwestern Arabia, where the negus had no control whatever at that time. But the other regions lay to the north and west of Axum in East Africa and may well have represented, to some degree, his power in the region. Certainly by this time Meroë had become increasingly weak as rival Nubian peoples were growing stronger to the north, and Axum had already moved in to assert its authority there. On the whole Aezanas’ titles seem to have represented an ambitious program for the future.
5
CHRISTIANITY COMES TO AXUM
Exactly what drove the Ethiopians out of Arabia around 270 is just as obscure as what brought them there in the first place. Imperialist expansionism, probably nourished by a desire to control both sides of the Red Sea and the commercial traffic that sailed along it, would be a reasonable explanation of their arrival. But in any case by the end of the third century the Ethiopians were out of the territories of Saba and Ḥimyar in the southwest of the peninsula, which returned to the rule of their indigenous peoples. The names for the various regions varied, presumably as the centers of power reflected the places and cults of diverse Arab tribes. One region, in the Ḥaḍramawt, became known as Dhū Raydān, to indicate that it belonged to a pagan divinity called Raydān. This was not long before what is known today as the Kingdom of Ḥimyar with its capital at Zaphār emerged out of these various territories.1 It was this kingdom that the Ethiopians had occupied, and it was this kingdom that dominated the memory of the rulers in Axum after the Ethiopian withdrawal from Arabia.
As the Ethiopian kings consolidated their power in their East African homeland, they not only instituted mints for a coinage in all three metals, as we have seen, but arrogated titles that asserted sovereignty in the Arabian peninsula even though they no longer ruled there. They never forgot where they had been. In a spirit of both nostalgia and irredentism, the negus represented himself as “king of kings,” ruler over Axum and Ḥimyar, as well as over Dhū Raydān in the Ḥaḍramawt, and Saba in Yemen. He also made claims to sovereignty within East Africa at the borders of his own kingdom, and although these may have had more validity they cannot be verified. In the fourth century he had no hesitation in registering among his subjects many of the peoples that the anonymous king on the Adulis inscription proclaimed that he had conquered, including those he actually called Ethiopians (probably an allusion to the waning Meroitic kingdom), as well as Blemmyes and other peoples adjacent to Axum.
These royal assertions of sovereignty in the fourth century, echoing those at Adulis and including the phrase “king of kings,” appear considerably after Sembrouthes’ boast, from a century or more earlier, of being a “king from kings.” Although the expression “king of kings” is well known from the Persian monarchy, there is not the slightest reason to think that its appearance in Ethiopia was due to any direct influence from Persia, but the phrase had a certain currency in the eastern Roman Empire. The Pontic kingdoms of the time also had rulers who called themselves “king of kings.”2 This was when they were operating wholly outside the Persian orbit, and, in fact, most of the attestations of this title in the Pontic realms occur before the Sassanian Persians expelled the Parthian monarchy from its Iranian homeland in 224 AD. At Palmyra in the later third century “king of kings” even turns up for two local rulers at this powerful mercantile center in the Syrian desert. It cannot be excluded that the rulers in Axum were inspired indirectly by an awareness of the Sassanian fondness for the title shah-in-shah, or king of kings, but it seems far more likely that this expression arose locally in Ethiopia as a development from the phrase that Sembrouthes used when he declared himself to be a king from kings.
The extensive epigraphy of Aezanas, or ‘Ezana, reveals the full titulature of the negus in the fourth century. His inscriptions allow us to follow his career from the time when he was a great pagan ruler, claiming to be the son of the god Ares, who was equated with the Ethiopian Maḥrem, down to his later years as a devout Christian ruler who announced that he owed his kingship to God.3 The evolving titulature of Aezanas reflects the coming of Christianity to Axum.
The appearance of Christianity at the court did nothing to alter the irredentist claims of the negus, even as he transferred his allegiance from the traditional Ares (Maḥrem) to the newly adopted Christian God. The inscriptions of Aezanas imply clearly that his various texts all drew their inspiration from earlier royal documents of which the one on the Adulis throne is our sole surviving example. Aezanas is the most prominent of all the Axumite kings who reigned between the Adulis inscription and the sixth-century negus for whom Cosmas copied the inscriptions at Adulis when he was visiting the town. We shall see that Cosmas’ sixth-century king saw an opportunity to turn Aezanas’ hollow claims to Arabian territory into geopolitical reality. The first step in making this possible had been the conversion of Aezanas himself to Christianity.
Ecclesiastical legend, as preserved in the church historian Rufinus, attributed the Christianization of Axum to a certain Frumentius from Alexandria.4 A romantic story of his capture as a boy by Ethiopian pirates off the coast of East Africa, at a place presumed to be near Adulis, need not be believed, but the presence in Axum of someone by the name of Frumentius is securely documented in the Apology that Athanasius addressed to the Byzantine emperor Constantius II in 356. This was sent after one of Athanasius’ numerous expulsions from his seat as orthodox archbishop at Alexandria in direct consequence of hostility from the Arians. It is obvious from Athanasius’ carefully crafted Apology that Frumentius had been in Axum for a considerable period and was by that time bishop of a Christian community there that now included the king himself. The Apology quotes verbatim a letter that Constantius had sent to both Aezanas and his brother demanding that Frumentius, whom Athanasius
had instructed for his bishopric, be returned to Alexandria for fresh instruction at the hands of the new Arian patriarch George.5 Apart from demonstrating Constantius’ hostility to Athanasius and to the orthodox creed he espoused, the emperor’s letter to Axum, as quoted in the Apology, leaves no doubt that he and perhaps Constantine before him had approved, or at least accepted, the Christianizing mission of Frumentius to the Ethiopians.
The date of the conversion of Aezanas is irrecoverable, but the suggestion of Stuart Munro-Hay that it had already happened by 340 is not unreasonable.6 It had certainly happened when Constantius II acquired sole power over the Mediterranean empire from 343 onwards, and it was only the exile of Athanasius in 356 that precipitated the demand for Frumentius’ return to Alexandria for new instruction in Arian theology. These doctrinal issues cannot be discerned in the language of Aezanas’ inscriptions that span the great divide from paganism to Christianity. But the conceptualization of the Axumite kingship as the gift of Ares (Maḥrem) and subsequently the Christian God is unambiguous.
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