Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/74

 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 pastoral tribe; the Chelenophagi, whose food was shell-fish caught in the saline estuaries; the Acridophagi or locust- eaters; the Struthophagi and Elephantophagi, who 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.

(1.) The, and , who dwelt between the Arabian hills and the Tacazzé were according to Quatremère de Quincy (Mémoires sur l'Egypte, ii. p. 127), the ancestors of the modern Bischaries, whom earlier writers denominate Bejas or Bedjas. They practised a rude kind of agriculture; but the greater part were herdsmen, hunters, and caravan guides. [.] (2) or fisheaters, dwelt on the sea coast between the Sinus Adulicus and the Regio Troglodytica, and of all these savage races were probably the least civilised. According to Diodorus, the Icthyophagi were a degraded branch of the Troglodytae. Their dwellings were clefts and holes in the rocks, and they did not even possess any fishing implements, gut fed on the fish which the ebb left behind. Yet Herodotus informs us (iii. 20) that Cambyses employed Icthyophagi from Elephantine in Upper Egypt, as spies previous to his expedition into the interior — an additional proof of the uncertain site and wide dispersion of the Aethiopian tribes. (3) The or long-lived Aethiopians. — Of this nation, if it were not the people of Meroë, it is impossible to discover the site. From the account of Herodotus (iii. 17) it appears that they were advanced in civilisation, since they possessed a king, laws, a prison, and a market; understood the working of metals, had gold in abundance, and had made some progress in the arts. Yet of agriculture they knew nothing, for they were unacquainted with bread. Herodotus places them on the shore of the Indian Ocean "at the furthest comer of the earth." But the Persians did not approach their abode, and the Greeks spoke of the Macrobii only from report. Bruce (ii. p. 654) places them to the north of Fazukla, in the lower part of the gold countries, Cuba and Nuba, on both sides of the Nile, and regards them as Shangallas. (4) The 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 are more easy to determine. To the south indeed they are uncertain, but probably com-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 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. 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 degree of civilisation. Whether religion and the arts descended or ascended the Nile has long been a subject of discussion. From Herodotus (ii. 29) it would appear that the worship of Ammon and Osiris (Zeus and Dionysus) was imparted by Meroë to Egypt. The annual procession of the Holy Ship, with the shrine of the Ram-headed god, from Thebes to the Libyan side of the Nile, as depicted on the temple of Karnak and on several Nubian monuments, probably commemorates the migration of Ammon-worship from Meroë to Upper Egypt. Diodorus also says (iii. 3) that the people above Meroë worship Isis, Pan, Heracles, and Zeus: and his assertion would be confirmed by monuments in Upper Nubia bearing the head of Isis, &c, could we be certain of the date of their erection. The Aethiopian monarchy was even more strictly sacerdotal than that of Egypt, at least the power of the priesthood was longer undisputed. "In Aethiopia," says Diodorus (iii. 6), "the priests send a sentence of death to the king, when they think he has lived long enough. The order to die is a mandate of the gods." In the age of Ptolemy Philadelphus (B.C. 284 — 246) however an important revolution took place. Ergamenes, a monarch who had some tincture of Greek arts and philosophy, put all the priests to death (Diod. iii. 6. § 3), and plundered their golden temple at (Barkal ?). If Herodotus (ii. 100) were not misinformed by the priests of Memphis, 18 Aethiopian kings were among the predecessors of Sesortasen. The monuments however do not record this earlier dynasty. Sesortasen is said by the same historian to have conquered Aethiopia (Herod, ii. 106); but his occupation must have been merely transient, since he also affirms that the country above Egypt had never been conquered (iii 21). But in the latter part of the 8th century B.C. an Aethiopian dynasty, the 25th of Egypt, reigned in Lower 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 [sic] pious and merciful. Herodotus (ii. 137) represents Sabaco as substituting for criminals coin