392; Inscrr. ap. Romanelli, vol. ii. pp. 470, 471; | Jason. (Apoll. Rhod. i. 411, and Schol.; Steph. Craven's Abruzzi, vol. ii. p. 83; Hoare's Classical Tour, vol. i. p. 227.)

the ancient capital of Meroë, our accounts of the various Aethiopian tribes are extremely scanty and perplexing. Their principal divisions were the Colobi, the Blemmyes, the Icthyophagi, the Macrobii, and the Troglodytae. But besides these were various tribes, probably however of the same stock, which were designated according to their peculiar diet and employments. The Rhizophagi or Root-eaters, who fed upon dhourra kneaded with the bark of trees; the Creophagi, who lived on boiled flesh, and were a pa toral tribe; the Chelenophagi, whose food was shell-fish caught in the saline estuaries; the Acridophagi or locust- eaters; the Struthophagi and Elephantophagi, vho hunted the ostrich and elephant, and some others who, like the inhabitants of the island Gagauda, took their name from a particular locality. The following, however, had a fixed habitation, although we find them occasionally mentioned at some distance from the probable site of the main tribe.

menced a little above the modern village of Khartoum, where the Bahr el Azrek, Blue or Dark River, unites with the Bahr el Abiad, or White Nile. (Lat. 15° 37' N., long. 33° E.) The desert of Bahiouda on the left bank of the Nile formed its western limit: its eastern frontier was the river Astaboras and the northern upland of Abyssinia-the pnuvol ris 'Apasías of Diodorus (i. 33). To the N. Aethiopia was bounded by a province called Dodecaschoenus or Aethiopia Aegypti-a debateable land subject sometimes to the Thebaid and sometimes to the kings of Meroë. The high civilisation of Aethiopia, as attested by historians and confirmed by its monuments, was confined to the insular area of Meroë and to Aethiopia Aegypti, and is more particularly described under the head of MEROE.

The connection between Egypt and Aethiopia was at all periods very intimate. The inhabitants of the Nile valley and of Aethiopia were indeed branches of the same Hamite stream, and differed only in (1.) The BLEMMYES, and MEGABARI, who dwelt degree of civilisation. Whether religion and the arts between the Arabian hills and the Tacazzé were ac- descended or ascended the Nile has long been a cording to Quatremère de Quincy (Mémoires sur subject of discussion. From Herodotus (ii. 29) it Egypte, ii. p. 127), the ancestors of the modern would appear that the worship of Ammon and Osiris Bischaries, whom earlier writers denominate Bejas or (Zeus and Dionysus) was imparted by Meroë to Bedjas. They practised a rude kind of agriculture; but Egypt. The annual procession of the Holy Ship, the greater part were herdsmen, hunters, and caravan with the shrine of the Ram-headed god, from Thebes guides. [BLEMMYES.] (2) ICTHYOPHAGI or fish- to the Libyan side of the Nile, as depicted on the eaters, dwelt on the sea coast between the Sinus temple of Karnak and on several Nubian monuments, Adulicus and the Regio Troglodytica, and of all these probably commemorates the migration of Ammonsavage races were probably the least civilised. Ac- worship from Meroë to Upper Egypt. Diodorus also cording to Diodorus, the Icthyophagi were a degraded says (iii. 3) that the people above Meroë worship branch of the Troglodytae. Their dwellings were Isis, Pan, Heracles, and Zeus: and his assertion would clefts and holes in the rocks, and they did not even be confirmed by monuments in Upper Nubia bearing possess any fishing implements, but fed on the fish the head of Isis, &c., could we be certain of the date which the ebb left behind. Yet Herodotus informs of their erection. The Aethiopian monarchy was us (iii. 20) that Cambyses employed Icthyophagi even more strictly sacerdotal than that of Egypt, at from Elephantine in Upper Egypt, as spies previous least the power of the priesthood was longer undisto his expedition into the interior- -an additional puted. "In Aethiopia," says Diodorus (iii. 6), “the proof of the uncertain site and wide dispersion priests send a sentence of death to the king, when of the Aethiopian tribes. (3) The MACROBII or they think he has lived long enough. The order to long-lived Aethiopians. Of this nation, if it were die is a mandate of the gods." In the age of Ptolemy not the people of Meroë, it is impossible to discover Philadelphus (B.C.284-246) however an important the site. From the account of Herodotus (iii. 17) it revolution took place. Ergamenes, a monarch who had appears that they were advanced in civilisation, since some tincture of Greek arts and philosophy, put all they possessed a king, laws, a prison, and a market; the priests to death (Diod. iii. 6. § 3), and plundered understood the working of metals, had gold in abun- their golden temple at Napata (Barkal?). If Hedance, and had made some progress in the arts. Yet rodotus (ii. 100) were not misinformed by the priests of agriculture they knew nothing, for they were unac- of Memphis, 18 Aethiopian kings were among the quainted with bread. Herodotus places them on the predecessors of Sesortasen. The monuments however shore of the Indian Ocean" at the furthest corner of do not record this earlier dynasty. Sesortasen is said the earth." But the Persians did not approach their by the same historian to have conquered Aethiopia abode, and the Greeks spoke of the Macrobii only (Herod. ii. 106); but his occupation must have been from report. Bruce (ii. p. 554) places them to the merely transient, since he also affirms that the country north of Fazukla, in the lower part of the gold above Egypt had never been conquered (iii. 21). But countries, Cuba and Nuba, on both sides of the Nile, in the latter part of the 8th century B. C. an Aethiand regards them as Shangallas. (4) The TRO-opian dynasty, the 25th of Egypt, reigned in Lower GLODYTAE or cave-dwellers were seated between the Blemmyes and Megabari, and according to Agatharcides (ap. Diod. i. 30. § 3, iii. 32, 33) they were herdsmen with their separate chiefs or princes of tribes. Their habitations were not merely clefts in the rocks, but carefully wrought vaults, laid out in cloisters and squares, like the catacombs at Naples, whither in the rainy season they retired with their herds. Their food was milk and clotted blood. In the dry months they occupied the pastures which slope westward to the Astaboras and Nile.

The boundaries of Aethiopia Proper († Ailioría úñèρ AlyúжToυ) are more easy to determine. To the south indeed they are uncertain, but probably com

Egypt, and contained three kings-Sabaco, Sebichus, and Taracus or Tirhakah. At this epoch the annals of Aethiopia become connected with universal history. Sabaco and his successors reigned at Napata, probably seated at that bend of the Nile where the rocky island of Mogreb divides its stream. The invasion of Egypt by the Aethiopian king was little more than a change of dynasty, as the royal families of the two kingdoms had previously been united by intermarriages. Bocchoris, the last Egyptian monarch of the 24th dynasty, was put to a cruel death by Sabaco, yet Diodorus (i. 60) commends the latter as exemplarily pious and merciful. Herodotus (ii. 137) represents Sabaco as substituting for criminals corn

pulsory labour in the mines for the punishment of death. Diodorus also celebrates the mildness and justice of another Aethiopian king, whom he calls Actisanes, and rumours of such virtues may have procured for the Aethiopian race the epithet of" the blameless." (Hom. Il. i. 423.)

Sebichus, the So or Seva of the Scriptures, was the son and successor of Sabaco. He was an ally of Hoshea, king of Israel; but he was unable, or too tardy in his movements, to prevent the capture of Samaria by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, in B. C. 722. One result of the captivity of Israel was an influx of Hebrew exiles into Egypt and Aethiopia, and eventually the dissemination of the Mosaic religion in the country north of Elephantine. Before this catastrophe, the Psalmist and the Prophets (Psalm, lxxxvii. 4; Isaiah, xx. 5; Nahum, iii. 9; Ezek. xxx. 4) had celebrated the military power of the Aethiopians, and the historical writings of the Jews record their invasions of Palestine. Isaiah (xix. 18) predicts the return of Israel from the land of Cush; and the story of Queen Candace's treasurer, in the Acts of the Apostles (ch. viii.), shows that the Hebrew Scriptures were current in the more civilised parts of that region. Sebichus was succeeded by Tirhakah · the Tarcus or Taracus of Manetho. The commentators on the Book of Kings (iii. 19) usually describe this monarch as an Arabian chieftain; but his name is recorded on the propylon of a temple at Medinet-Aboo, and at Gebelel-Birkel, or Barkal, in Nubia. He was, therefore, of Aethiopian lineage. Strabo (i. p. 61, xv. p. 687) says, that Tirhakah rivalled Sesortasen, or Rameses III., in his conquests, which extended to the Pillars of Hercules, meaning, probably, the Phoenician settlements on the northern coast of Africa. From Hebrew records (2 Kings, xviii, xix.; Isaiah, xxxvi, xxxvii.), we know that Tirhakah was on his march to relieve Judaea from the invasion of Sennacherib (B. C. 588); but his advance was rendered unnecessary by the pestilence which swept off the Assyrian army near Pelusium (Herod. ii. 141; Horapoll. Hierogl. i. 50). Tirhakah, however, was sovereign only in the Thebaid: one, if not two, native Egyptian kings, reigned contemporaneously with him at Memphis and Sais. According to the inscription at Gebel-el-Birkel, Tirhakah reigned at least twenty years in Upper Egypt. Herodotus, indeed, regards the 25th or Aethiopian dynasty in Egypt as comprised in the reign and person of Sabaco alone, to whom he assigns a period of fifty years. But there were certainly three monarchs of this line, and a fourth, Ammeris, is mentioned in the list of Eusebius. The historian (ii. 139) ascribes the retirement of the last Aethiopian monarch to a dream, which may perhaps be interpreted as a mandate from the hierarchy at Napata to forego his conquests below Philae.

In the reign of Psammetichus (B. C. 630), the entire war-caste of Egypt migrated into Aethiopia. Herodotus (ii. 30) says that the deserters (Automoii) settled in a district as remote from the Aethiopian metropolis (Napata) as that city was from Elephantine. But this statement would carry them below lat. 16°, the extreme limit of Aethiopian civilisation. Diodorus (i. 67) describes the Automoli as settled in the most fertile region of Aethiopia. North-west of Meroë, however, a tribe had established themselves, whom the geographers call Eaonymitae, the Asmach of Herodotus (ii. 30; Strab. xvii. p. 786; Plin. vi. 30), and there is

reason to consider these, who from their name may have once composed the left wing of the Egyptian army, the exiled war-caste. In that frontier po sition they would have been available to their adopted country as a permanent garrison against invasion from the north.

The Persian dynasty was scarcely established in Egypt, when Cambyses undertook an expedition into Aethiopia. He prepared for it by sending certain lethyophagi from Elephantine as envoys, or rather as spies, to the king of the Macrobians. (Herod. iii. 17-25.) But the invasion was so ill-planned, or encountered such physical obstacles in the desert, that the Persian army returned to Memphis, enfeebled and disheartened. Of this inroad the magazines of Cambyses (Taμieîa Kaμbúσov, Ptol. iv. 7. § 15), probably the town of Cambysis (Plin. H. N. vi. 29), on the left bank of the Nile, near its great curve to the west, was the only permanent record. The Persian occupation of the Nilevalley opened the country above Philae to Greek travellers. The philosopher Democritus, a little younger than Herodotus, wrote an account of the hieroglyphics of Meroë (Diog. Laert. ix. 49), and from this era we may probably date the establishment of Greek emporia upon the shore of the Red Sea. Under the Ptolemies, the arts, as well as the enterprise of the Greeks, entered Aethiopia, and led to the destruction of the sacerdotal government, and to the foundation or extension of the Hellenic colonies Dire-Berenices, Arsinoë, Adule, Ptolemais-Therôn, on the coast, where, until the era of the Saracen invasion in the 7th century A. D., an active trade was carried on between Libya, Arabia, and Western India or Ceylon (Ophir? Taprobane).

In the reign of Augustus, the Aethiopians, under their Queen Candace, advanced as far as the Roman garrisons at Parembole and Elephantine. They were repulsed by C. Petronius, the legatus of the prefect of Egypt, Aelius Gallus, who placed a Roman garrison in Premnis (Ibrim), and pursued the retreating army to the neighbourhood of Napata. (Dion Cass. liv. 5.) In a second campaign Petronius compelled Candace to send overtures of peace and submission to Augustus (B. C. 22-23) But the Roman tenure of Aethiopia above Egypt was always precarious; and in Diocletian's reign (A. D. 284-305), the country south of Philae was ceded generally by that emperor to the Nubae. Under the Romans, indeed, if not earlier, the population of Aethiopia had become almost Arabian, and continued so after the establishment of Christian churches and sees, until the followers of Mahomet overran the entire region from the sources of the Astaboras to Alexandria, and confirmed the predominance of their race.

In

Such were the general divisions, tribes, and history of Aethiopia in the wider import of the term. the interior, and again beginning from the south near the sources of the Astaboras we find the following districts. Near the headland Elephas were the Mosyli (Móσvλo), the Molibae (Moxísαi), and Soboridae (Zo6opída) (Ptol. iv. 7. § 28). Next, the Regio Axiomitarum [AXUME], immediately to the north of which was a province called Tenesis (Tηveσís) occupied by the Sembritae of Strabo (p. 770), or Semberritae of Pliny (H. N. vi. 30. § 35). North of Tenesis was the Lake Coloe, and between the Adulitae and Mount Taurus on the coast were the Colobi, who according to Agatharcides (ap. Diod. iii. 32) practised the rite of circumcision, and dwelt in

a woody and mountainous district (ăλσos Koλobŵv, | Phturis (Farras), and Aboccis or Abuncis (AbooStrab. 1. c.; opos Koλos@v, Ptol. iv. 8). Above these simbel, Ipsambul on the left, Cambysis (Taμiela were the Memnones (Meuvoveîs), a name celebrated Kausúσov) and Atteva or Attoba, near the third by the post-Homeric poets of the Trojan war, and cataract. If Josephus can be relied upon indeed, who are supposed by some to have been a colony the Persians must have penetrated the Nile-valley from Western India (Philological Museum, vol. ii. much higher up than the Romans, and than either p. 146); and above these, north of the Blemmyes Herodotus or Diodorus (i. 34) will permit us to and Megabari, are the Adiabarae, who skirted to the suppose. For the Jewish historian (Antiq. ii. 10) east the province of Dodecaschoenus or Aethiopia represents Cambyses as conquering the capital of above Egypt. But of all these tribes we know the Aethiopia, and changing its name from Saba to names only, and even these very imperfectly. Modern Meroë. travellers can only conjecturally connect them with the Bedjas, Bischáries, Shangallas, and other Nubian or Arabian races; and neither Greeks nor Romans surveyed the neighbourhood of their colonies beyond the high roads which led to their principal havens on the Red Sea.

The western portion of Aethiopia, owing to its generally arid character, was much more scantily peopled, and the tribes that shifted over rather than occupied its scanty pastures were mostly of Libyan origin, a mixed Negro and Barabra race. Parallel with the Astapus and the Nile after their confluence, stretched a limestone range of hills, denominated by Ptolemy the Aethiopian mountains (Tà Albionikà opn, iv. 8). They separated Aethiopia from the Garamantes. West of the elbow land which lay between Meroë and Napata was a district called Tergedum. North of Tergedum the Nubae came down to the Nile-bank between the towns of Primis Parva and Phturi; and northward of these were the above-mentioned Euonymitae, who extended to Pselcis in lat. 23°.

The architectural remains of Nubia belong to Meroë and are briefly described under that head. To Meroë also, as the centre and perhaps the creature of the inland trade of Aethiopia, we refer for an account of the natural and artificial productions of the land above Egypt.

The principal modern travellers who have explored or described the country above Egypt are Bruce, Burckhardt, Belzoni, Minutoli, Gau and Rosellini. Lord Valentia and Mr. Salt's Travels, Waddington and Hanbury's Journals, Rüppel's and Cailleaud's Travels, &c., " Heeren's Historical Researches," vol. i. pp. 285 -473, and the geographical work of Ritter have been consulted for the preceding article. [W. B. D.]

AETNA (AĬTvn: Eth. Airvaio, Aetnensis), a city of Sicily, situated at the foot of the mountain of the same name, on its southern declivity. It was originally a Sicelian city, and was called INESSA or INESSUM (Ivnoσa, Thuc. Strab.; Ivnoσov, Steph. Byz. v. Alτvn; Diodorus has the corrupt form 'Ernoía): but after the death of Hieron I. and the expulsion of the colonists whom he had established at Catana, the latter withdrew to Inessa, a place of great natural strength, which they occupied, and transferred to it the name of Aetna, previously given by Hieron to his new colony at Catana. [CATANA.] In consequence of this they continued to regard Hieron as their oekist or founder. (Diod. xi. 76; Strab. vi. p. 268.) The new name, however, appears not to have been universally adopted, and we find Thucydides at a later period still employing the old appellation of Inessa. It seems to have fallen into the power of the Syracusans, and was occupied by them with a strong garrison; and in B. C. 426 we find the Athenians under Laches in vain attempting to wrest it from their hands. (Thuc.iii. 103.) During the great Athenian expedition, Inessa, as well as the neighbouring city of Hybla, continued steadfast in the alliance of Syracuse, on which account their lands were ravaged by the Athenians. (Id. vi. 96.) At a subsequent period the strength of its position as a fortress, rendered it a place of importance in the civil dissensions of Sicily, and it became the refuge of the Syracusan knights who had opposed the elevation of Dionysius. But in B. c. 403, that despot made himself master of Aetna, where he soon after established a body of Campanian mercenaries, who had previously been settled at Catana. These continued faithful to Dionysius, notwithstanding the general defection of his allies, during the Carthaginian invasion in B. C. 396, and retained possession of the city till B.C. 339, when it was taken by Timoleon, and its Campanian occupants put to the sword. (Diod. xiii. 113, xiv. 7, 8, 9, 14, 58, 61, xvi. 67, 82.) We find no mention of it from this time till the days of Cicero, who re

In the region Dodecaschoenus or Aethiopia above Egypt were the following towns: HIERA SYCAMINUS ('Iepà Zukáμivos: Ptol.; Plin. vi. 29. s. 32; Itin. Anton. p. 162: Zukávov, Philostrat. Apoll. Tyan. iv. 2), the southernmost town of the district (Wady Maharrakah, Burckhardt's Travels, p. 100); CORTE (Kopria рwrn, Agartharcides, p. 22; It. Anton. p.162), Korti, four miles north of Hiera Sycaminos; and on the right bank of the Nile TACHOMPSO (Taxoμ: Herod. ii. 29; Mela, i. 9. § 2: MeraKoμ, Ptol. iv. 5; Tacompsos, Plin. vi. 29. s. 35) was situated upon an island (probably Deraz) upon the eastern side of the river, and was occupied by Aethiopians and Egyptians. Upon the opposite bank was PSELCIS (YEλrís, Strab. p. 820; Aristid. Aegin. i. p. 512). It was built in the era of the Ptolemies, and its erection was so injurious to Tachompso, that the latter came to be denominated Contra Pselcis, and lost its proper appellation. Pselcis was eight miles from Hiera Sycaminos, and the head-quarters of a cohort of German horse (Not. Imp.) in the Roman period. On the left bank of the Nile was TUTZIS (Dschirdscheh), where some remarkable monuments still exist: and TAPHIS (Tanís, Olympiad. ap. Photium, 80, p. 194; Talis, Ptol. iv. 5), opposite to which was Contra-Taphis (Teffah), where ruins have been discovered, and in the neighbourhood of which are large stone-quarries. Finally, PAREMBOLE, the frontier-garrison of Egypt, where even so late as the 4th century A. D. a Roman legion was stationed. Pliny, in his account of the war with Candace (B. C. 22), has preserved a brief record of the route of Petronius in his second invasion of Meroë, which contains the names of some places of importance.peatedly speaks of it as a municipal town of consiThe Roman general passed by the valley of the Nile through Dongola and Nubia, and occupied or halted at the following stations: Pselcis, Primis Magna, or Premnis (Ibrim) on the right bank of the river,

derable importance; its territory being one of the most fertile in corn of all Sicily. Its citizens suffered severely from the exactions of Verres and his agents. (Cic. Verr. iii. 23, 44, 45, iv. 51.) The Aetnenses