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 that they merely, "settled the faith;" Cosmas expressly stating, that in his time "there were churches, priests, and many Christian people throughout Ethiopia, Axum, and all the adjacent country;" now Cosmas was at Adule, as he himself mentions, early in the reign of the Emperor Justin, and consequently several years before the arrival of the holy men from Egypt. The foregoing remarks, therefore, fix the death of Aretás to 522, or the 5th year of the Emperor Justin; Cosmas's visit to Adule to about 525; the expedition against Arabia to about 530, and the arrival of the holy men and settling of the faith to between the last period and 542.

Procopius also gives a full account of the expedition against Arabia, calling the sovereign of the Axomites, Hellesthæus. It is singular, that it should have escaped the attention of his commentators, that the mere alteration of a single letter would restore this word to its proper form, Hell'esbæus or El esbaas, nothing being more likely to have occurred in Greek than the mistake of the for. His "Abramus" is also clearly the Abreha of the Arabian authors, who afterwards conducted the war of the Elephant, and the Hesimaphæus may be, in all probability, the Aryat Abu Sehem, who was placed by the Abyssinian monarch as his Viceroy over Yemen. It appears, also, that the embassy of Julianus sent by Justinian to persuade the Emperor Ameda to make war against the Persians, and to take the silk trade into his own hands, occurred immediately after this conquest of Yemen, during the time that Angane, the Emperor of Abyssinia's nephew, remained on the throne; and on his being displaced by Abreha (or Abram, who is said to