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 to cross at Bab-el-Mandeb and, marching through Yemen, divert the strength of Dhu Nowas's forces from the main body of the Ethiopians, which Elesbaan intended to send by sea to some place on the S. coast of Arabia. For the transport of these latter he appropriated 60 merchant vessels then anchored in his ports, adding ten more, built after the native fashion, the planks being held together by ropes. On the eve of the enterprise he went in procession to the great church of Axum, and there, laying aside his royalty, sued in formâ pauperis for the favour of Him Whose war he dared to wage; praying that his sins might be visited on himself, and not on his people. Then he sought the blessing, counsel, and prayers of St. Pantaleon; and received from within the doorless and windowless tower, where the hermit had lived for 45 years, the answer: "Ἔστω σὺν σοι ὁ συμβασιλεύων σοι." Thus the army was sent on its twofold route.

For the 15,000 Bab-el-Mandeb was indeed a gate of tears: they died of hunger, wandering in the desert. The main body was safely embarked, and sailed S. down the Gulf of Arabia towards the straits; which Dhu Nowas had barred by a huge chain, stretched across the space of two furlongs from side to side. Over this, however, first ten ships and then seven more, including that of the Ethiopian admiral, were lifted by the waves; the rest were driven back by stress of weather, but presently, the chain being, according to one account, broken, forced the passage, and passing the other seventeen, cast anchor farther along the coast. Meanwhile Dhu Nowas, having first encamped on the W. shore, where he thought his chain would force the Ethiopians to land, hurried from his position, and leaving but a few men to resist the smaller fleet, watched with his main army the movements of the rest. Those on the 17 ships under the Ethiopian admiral easily effected a landing near Aden, and defeating the troops opposed to them, pressed on to the chief city, Taphar, or Taphran, which surrendered immediately (cf. Wright, op. cit. 58-60). Discouraged by this disaster, the main body of the Arabians offered a feeble resistance; and Dhu Nowas saw that his downfall was very near. According to the Arabian historians, he threw himself from the cliff and died in the waves; according to the Acta S. Arethae, he bound his seven kinsmen in chains, and fastened them to his throne, lest they should fail to share his fate; and so awaited death at Elesbaan's own hand. The Arabic writers are unsupported in their story of the useless resistance of a successor Dhu Giadan; it was probably at the death of Dhu Nowas that the kingdom of the Homeritae ended, and Yemen became a province of Ethiopia. At Taphar Elesbaan is said to have built a church, digging the foundations for seven days with his own hands; and from Taphar he wrote of his victory to the patriarch of Alexandria. A bishop was sent from Alexandria and appointed to the see of Negran, but there are doubts as to both the orthodoxy and identity of this bishop. The king restored Negran, entrusting it to Arethas's son, rebuilding and endowing the great church, and granting perpetual right of asylum to the place where the bodies of the martyrs had lain, and then returned to Ethiopia (Boll. Acta SS. Oct. xii. 322), leaving a Christian Arab named Esimiphaeus or Ariathus, to be his viceroy over the conquered people. A part of Elesbaan's army, however, refused to leave the luxury of Arabia Felix, and not long after set up as rival to Esimiphaeus one Abrahah or Abraham, the Christian slave of a Roman merchant, who was strong enough to shut up the viceroy in a fort and seize the throne of Yemen. A force of 3,000 men was sent by Elesbaan, under a prince of his house, whom some call Aryates or Arethas, to depose the usurper; and it seems that Abrahah, like Dhu Nowas, sought safety among the mountains. But he soon (c. 540) came down and confronted the representative of Elesbaan; and at the critical moment the Ethiopian troops deserted and murdered their general. To maintain his supremacy and avenge his kinsman, Elesbaan sent a second army; but this, loyally fighting with Abrahah, was utterly defeated, and only a handful of men returned to Ethiopia. The Arabic historians record that Elesbaan swore to yet lay hold of the land of the Homeritae, both mountain and plain, pluck the forelock from the rebel's head, and take his blood as the price of Aryates's death; and they tell of the mixed cunning and cowardice by which Abrahah satisfied the Ethiopian's oath, and evaded his anger, winning at last a recognition of his dignity. Procopius adds that Abrahah paid tribute to Elesbaan's successor; and the Homeritae remained in free subjection to Ethiopia almost to the end of the century.

Records are extant, almost in the very words of the ambassadors, of two embassies from Justinian to Elesbaan. Joannes Malala, in writing of the first, had the autograph of the envoy whom Procopius (de Bello Persico, i. 20) calls Julian; Photius has preserved, in the third codex of his Bibliotheca, Nonnosus's story of his experience in the second mission. Julian must have been sent before 531, for Cabades was still living, and, according to Procopius, Esimiphaeus was viceroy of Homeritis. He was received by Elesbaan, according to his own account, with the silence of an intense joy; for the alliance of Rome had long been the great desire of the Ethiopians. The king was seated on a high chariot, drawn by four elephants caparisoned with gold; he wore a loose robe studded with pearls, and round his loins a covering of linen embroidered with gold. He received Justinian's letter with every sign of respect, and began to prepare his forces to take part in the Persian war even before Julian was dismissed from his court with the kiss of peace (Johannis Malalae, Chronographia, xviii. Bonn. ed. pp. 457, 458). Malala records no sequel of these preparations; Procopius complains that none occurred.

The second embassy was sent primarily to Kaisus or Imrulcays, the prince of the Chindini and Maaddeni, and only secondarily to the Homeritae and Ethiopians, probably in the last years of Elesbaan's reign. Nonnosus the envoy belonged to a family of diplomatists. But Photius does not state the purpose or result of this journey; only telling of the great herd