1. Another possibility would be a derivation from the old Egyptian toponym WDLTT, cf. G. Fiaccadori, La parola del passato 335 (2004), 108 and J.-C. Goyon, Topoi 6. 2 (1996), 654. For Littmann’s suggestion see the following note.
2. E. Littmann provides a brief summary of the ancient and modern work on Adulis in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, Supplementband VII (1940), cols. 1–2, but the best review of the evidence and bibliography is the article on Adulis in the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol. 1 (2003), pp. 104–105. See also R. Paribeni, “Richerche sul luogo dell’antica Adulis,” Monumenti Antichi 17 (1907), 437–572. For an informative account of the short-lived British survey, see David Peacock, Lucy Blue, and Darren Glazier, The Ancient Red Sea Port of Adulis, Eritrea: Results of the Eritro-British Expedition 2004–2005 (Oxbow Oxford, 2007).
3. Periplus 19: a land route from northwest Arabia “to Petra, to Malichus, king of the Nabataeans.” On the king’s reign, see G. W. Bowersock, Roman Arabia (Harvard, 1983), pp. 69–72.
4. Periplus 4 in the translation of L. Casson, The Periplus Maris Erythraei (Princeton, 1989). On pp. 100–106 and 271 Casson provides a commentary on this passage, with discussion of the claims of Massawa, as well as remarks on the city Ptolemaïs (Ptolemaïs Thêrôn) and the phrase “legal emporium,” on which more in the next chapter. I have altered Casson’s renderings of “innermost” and “outermost” to reflect the ancient usage of “inner” and “outer” to designate remoteness from a geographical point of reference, here the southern end of the Gulf of Zula. For this usage see chapter 2 below.
5. Casson (preceding note), p. 103, prefers the small islands directly off the coast of Massawa. Yet this identification is hardly necessary.
6. Mart. Areth. §29 (MarAr p. 263): “a harbor called Gabaza, which is in the territory of the coastal city Adulis.” Gabaza appears once more in the martyrium (§31, MarAr p. 269), on traveling from Adulis to Gabaza.
7. See the report by Peacock and others cited above in note 2. Unfortunately, the name Didôros for the island is consistently misspelled in that report as Diodôros. The British team makes a good case for identifying the otherwise unknown site of Samidi, which appears in Cosmas’ drawing, with two mounds north of Adulis that have architectural fragments and large upright stones.
8. CAC, p. 42.
9. RIE vol. 1, no. 191, 1. 36 (p. 273): gbzh.
10. Cosmas Indic., Topogr. Christ. 2. 54–63.
11. DAE vol. 2, pp. 45–69, with RIE vol. 1, p. 22.
12. J. Aliquot, Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, vol. 11, Mt. Hermon (Beirut, 2008), p. 32.
13. Details may be found in vol. 1 of Wolska-Conus’ 1968 edition of the Topography in the Sources chrétiennes series: p. 366 for the Adulis drawing and pp. 45–50 on the three manuscripts. I am informed that Maja Kominko will soon publish with the Cambridge University Press a substantial book on Cosmas’ work, with a new discussion of the manuscripts and reproduction of the illustrations, which all appear in Wolska-Conus’ edition.
14. DAE vol. 2, p. 45. See also chapter 5 below for further comment on the remains of Axumite thrones.
15. For stêlê in the sense of “statue” in late antiquity see D. Feissel, Chroniques d’épigraphie byzantine 1987–2004 (Paris, 2006), p. 146 [no. 452] and 360 [no. 1185].
16. Cf. RIE vol. 3 A. pp. 26–45, nos. 276 and 277, and FHN vol. 3, pp. 948–953, no. 234. English translations of the text of these inscriptions appear in chapters 3 and 4 below.
17. Cosmas Indic., Topgr. Christ. 2 56.
1. Cosmas Indic., Topogr. Christ. 2. 54.
2. W. Wolska-Conus, La topographie chrétienne de Cosmas Indicopleustès (Paris, 1962, published under the name Wanda Wolska), pp. 1–11, and her introduction to the edition of the Topogr. Christ. in the series Sources chrétiennes, no. 141, vol. 1 (Paris, 1968), pp. 16–17.
3. Cosmas Indic., Topogr. Christ. 2. 30 (Horn of Africa [Barbaria]) and 49 (Ḥimyar).
4. Cosmas Indic., Topogr. Christ. 3. 65, “in Taprobanê, an island in inner India.”
5. Cf. G. W. Bowersock, with reference to the Syriac life of Rabbula, in Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity, ed. T. Hägg and P. Rousseau (Berkeley, 2000), p. 266.
6. “Palladius,” De gentibus Indiae et Brahmanibus 1.
7. Periplus 30, “an island … called Dioscourides, very big, deserted, and damp, with rivers, crocodiles, many vipers, and enormous lizards.” The name Socotra is presumed to be derived from the—scourid— element of Dioscourides. Cf. Cosmas Indic., Topogr. Christ. 3. 65.
8. See Getzel M. Cohen, The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin, and North Africa (Berkeley, 2006), pp. 325–326. Cosmas Indic., Topogr. Christ. 2. 65.
9. Christian Julien Robin and Maria Gorea, “Les vestiges antiques de la grotte de Ḥôq (Suqutra, Yémen),” CRAI 2002, pp. 409–445. Other graffiti that appear to be in an Indian language have been entrusted to Mikhail Bukharin, who has also published the first Indian inscription from South Arabia itself: Qāni’ Le port antique du Ḥaḍramawt, ed. J.-F. Salles and A. Sedov (Turnhout, 2010), pp. 399–401.
10. Cosmas Indic., Topogr. Christ. 2. 56 (twenty-five years earlier), 6. 3 (two eclipses).
11. Periplus 5, “Zoskales, fussy about his possessions and always enlarging them, but in other respects an excellent person and well acquainted with Greek letters.”
12. Pliny, Nat. Hist. 6. 34, 174.
13. Pliny, Nat. Hist. 6. 31, 141. Cf. D. W. Roller, The World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene (London, 2003), ch. 10 (“On Arabia”), pp. 227–243.
14. Cosmas Indic., Topogr. Christ. Prol. 1. Who the Christ-loving Constantine might have been is unknowable, conceivably the Praetorian Prefect of the Orient with that name in the early sixth century (Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol. 2 [Cambridge, 1980], p. 315).
15. Cosmas Indic., Topogr. Christ. 2. 35–36. Cf. 5. 20–49. Cf. Epist. Hebr. 8. 5.
16. Wolska-Conus 1962 (n. 2 above), pp.129–133, “Cosmas n’abonde pas en précisions géométriques” (p. 133). Cf. Job 38. 37–38. The cube is invoked at Cosmas, Topogr. Christ. 2. 18, with a citation of the Septuagint text of Job.
17. Lionel Casson, The Periplus Maris Erythraei (Princeton, 1989), pp. 274–276.
18. Periplus 4. Cf. H. H. Scullard, The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World (London, 1974).
1. Getzel M. Cohen, The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin, and North Africa (Berkeley, 2006), pp. 338–343 on Philotera and Ptolemaïs. It is suggested that the former was located at Marsa Gawasis and the latter at Aqiq on the coast. M. Bukharin has recently proposed Anfile Bay as the endpoint, mentioned in the Periplus 3, from which ships returned to Ptolemaïs of the Hunts to board elephants after sailing southwards along the coast of Eritrea to pick up obsidian: “The Notion τὸ πέρας τῆς ἀνακομιδῆς and the Location of Ptolemaïs of the Hunts in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea,” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 22 (2011), 219–231. See also the survey of Ptolemaic ports on the Red Sea in the introduction to Timothy Power, The Red Sea from Byzantium to the Caliphate, AD 500–1000 (Cairo, 2012).
2. For the ivory trade under Augustus, see chapter 2 above. On documentation for the elephant industry in the Ptolemaic period, see the important papers by Lionel Casson, “Ptolemy II and the Hunting of African Elephants,” TAPA 123 (1993), 247–260, and Stanley Burstein, “Elephants for Ptolemy II: Ptolemaic Policy in Nubia in the Third Century BC,” in Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his World, ed. P. McKechnie and P. Guillaume, Mnemosyne Supplement 300 (Leiden, 2008), pp. 135–147. See the two papyrus documents presented in FHN vol. 2, nos. 120 and 121, pp. 572–577, on the organization and payment of elephant hunters.
3. The literature on this bizarre practice is immense and by no means concordant. Cf. Keith Hopkins, “Brother-Sister Marriage in Roman Egypt,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 22 (1980), 303–354, and Sabine R. Huebner, “Brother-Sister Marriage in Roman Egypt: a Curiosity of Humankind or a Widespread Family Strategy?” JRS 97 (2007), 21–49.
4. Cosmas Indic., Topogr. Christ. 2. 57: “We found, sculpted on the back of the throne, Heracles and Hermes. My companion, the blessed Menas, said that Heracles was a symbol of power and Hermes of wealth. But I, recalling the Acts of the Apostles, objected on one point, saying that it is preferable to consider Hermes a symbol of the logos.” Cosmas cites Acts 14. 12 in support of his view.
5. See the commentary on this inscription in RIE vol. 3 A, pp. 26–32, especially p. 30.
6. Herod. 4. 183. 4; Strabo, 16. 4. 17 (p. 776 C).
7. Pliny, Nat. Hist. 8. 26.
8. FHN II. Nos. 120 (P. Petrie II. 40 a, III 53 g) and 121 (P. Eleph. 28) from 224 and 223 BC respectively. See P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford, 1972), I, pp. 177, with II, pp. 298–299, note 346.
9. RIE III, p. 29 and Fraser, op. cit.
10. Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, 3rd ed., no. 502.
11. Bert van der Speck and Irving Finkel have placed an invaluable account of the chronicle and related texts in their preliminary study posted on the Internet at http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/bchp-ptolemy_iii/bchp_ptolemy_iii_02.html. The papyrus on Ptolemy’s reception at Seleuceia is from Gurob in the Fayyum (FGH 160). The cuneiform tablet is BM 34428. For these events, see, above all, H. Hauben, “L’expédition de Ptolémée III en Orient et la sédition domestique de 245 av: J.-C.,” Archiv für Papyrologie 36 (1990), 29–37.
12. G. W. Bowersock, Roman Arabia (Cambridge MA, 1983), pp. 48–49.
1. RIE vol. 1, nos. 269, 270, 270 bis, 286, 286 A (pp. 362, 365, 369, 385, 387).
3. For the coinage, CAC.
4. For opinions on the various toponyms and ethnonyms, see the commentaries in FHN vol. 3, pp. 952–953 and in RIE vol. 3 A, pp. 35–43.
5. For Nonnosus’ narrative see the Appendix to the present work.
6. Herod. 2. 29 (Meroë as a great metropolis of Ethiopians).
7. Ibn Khaldûn, The Muqaddimah, trans. F. Rosenthal, 2nd ed. (Princeton, 1967), vol. 1, pp. 21–22: “He [an early Yemeni king] gave them the name Berbers when he heard their jargon and asked what that ‘barbarah’ was.”
8. Periplus 5.
9. Philostr., Vit. Apoll. 6. 1 (Meroë in Ethiopia), 6. 4 (for the etymology).
10. For Syriac apocalyptic, particularly with reference to Psalms 68. 31, see G. W. Bowersock, “Helena’s Bridle, Ethiopian Christianity, and Syriac Apocalyptic,” in Studia Patristica vol. 45 (2010), pp. 211–220.
11. Ael. Arist., To Rome, Orat. 26 (Keil). 70.
12. Cf. F. Fontanella, Elio Aristide: A Roma, traduzione e commento (Pisa, 2007), p. 130.
13. C. Phillips, W. Facey, and F. Villeneuve, “Une inscription latine de l’archipel Farasân (sud de la mer Rouge) et son contexte archéologique et historique,” Arabia 2 (2004), 143–190, with figs. 63–67, and F. Villeneuve, “Une inscription latine sur l’archipel Farasân, Arabie Séoudite, sud de la mer Rouge,” CRAI 2004, 419–429.
14. Christian Robin, “La première intervention abyssine en Arabie méridionale,” Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (Addis Ababa, 1989), pp. 157–162.
15. See Robin, note above, p. 152–154 for Gadara as malik and comparable Arabian inscriptions with references to ḥabashat. For Gadara in Ethiopia (Addi Gelemo in Tigray), RIE no. 180, pp. 219–220: gdr / ngśy / ’ksm.
16. Cf. J. Desanges, “Toujours Afrique apporte fait nouveau,” Scripta Minora (Paris, 1999), p. 355: “Une datation à la fin du IIe siècle serait historiquement plus facile à admettre, tout en ménageant la priorité dans ces conquêtes hautement revendiquée par le roi d’Axoum anonyme.”
17. Hélène Cuvigny and Christian Robin, “Des Kinaidokolpites dans un ostracon grec du désert oriental (Égypte),” Topoi 6 1996), 697–720.
18. Steph. Byz., Ethnika s.v. Zadramē. The capital of the Kinaidocolpitai is said to have been called Zadramē. Stephanus claims to be excerpting the Periplus of Marcianus of Heraclea, whose date as well as the date of the source he was using are both unknown. Cf. Stefano Belfiore (ed.), Il Geografo e l’Editore: Marciano di Eraclea e I Peripli Antichi (Rome, 2011) with citation on p. 111.
19. Gianfranco Fiaccadori, “Sembrouthes ‘Gran Re’ (DAE IV 3 = RIÉth 275): Per la storia del primo ellenismo aksumita,” La Parola del Passato 335 (2004), 103–157.
20. M. Bukharin has suggested that Romans may have been involved if it was Gadara who went to Leukê Kômê: Vestinik Drevneii Istorii 258 (2006), 3–13, on which see SEG 56. 2020.
21. RIE vol. 1, no. 269, p. 362.
22. RIE vol. 1, no. 286, p. 385, and no. 286 A, p. 387.
23. William Y. Adams, Nubia. Corridor to Africa (Princeton, 1984), p. 383.
24. Heliodorus, Aethiop. 10. 26.
25. For a discussion of this material, with an argument for the date of the composition of the Aethiopica, see G. W. Bowersock, Fiction as History (Berkeley, 1994), pp. 149–160.
26. CAC, pp. 28–29.
27. CAC, pp. 29–30, with plates 3–5 [plate 3 for the gold coin with the crown on obverse].
28. RIE vol. 1, nos. 185 and 185 bis (pp. 241–250), no. 186 (pp. 250–254), no. 187 (pp. 255–258), no. 188 (pp. 258–261), no. 270 (pp. 363–367), 270. bis (pp. 367–370).
1. For the emergence of Ḥimyar in South Arabia see Iwona Gajda, Le royaume de Ḥimyar à l’époque monothéiste (Paris, 2009), pp. 35–38.
2. See many references in the epigraphy of the Bosporan kingdoms: Corpus Inscriptionum Regni Bosporani (Moscow, 1965), nos. 28. Pharnaces), 31 (Mithridates), 1048 (Sauromates I). Rhescuporis II and III show “king from ancestor kings, ek progonôn basileôn” (nos. 1047 and 53). At Palmyra Herodianus and Odainathus adopted the “king of kings,” as discussed by M. Gawlikowski, “Odainat et Hérodien, rois des rois,” Mélanges de l’Université St. Joseph 60 (2007), 289–311, with presumed imitation of Persian titulature.
3. For the pagan texts with Ares and Maḥrem, see the documents cited in n. 28 at the end of the previous chapter.
4. Rufinus, Hist. Eccles. 2. 5. 14, on which see A. Dihle, Umstrittene Daten (Cologne, 1965), pp. 36–64 (“Frumentios und Ezana”), and also A. Muravyov, “Pervaya volna khristianizatsii,” Vestnik Drevneii Istorii 261 (2009), pp. 182–185.
5. Athanas., Apol. 29. 31.
6. CAC, p. 32. An excellent summary account of the Christianization of Axum may be found in Garth Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Princeton, 1993), pp. 109–116, although this came too soon after RIE vol. 1 to take account of it and antedates RIE vol. 3.
7. DAE vol. 2, pp. 45–69.
8. RIE vol. 1, no. 185, pp. 241–245 (the two Ethiopic texts), no. 270, pp. 363–367 (Greek), with full bibliography, from Salt onwards, in both places. The sumptuous presentation in DAE vol 4., nos. 4, 6, and 7 is still invaluable and incorporates German translations of the three texts in parallel columns.
9. RIE. vol. 1, no. 185 bis, pp. 246–250 (Ethiopic), no. 270 bis (Greek), pp. 367–370. Fig. 3 shows the upper text in Ge‘ez.
10. RIE vol. 1, no. 189, pp. 263–267 (vocalized Ethiopic but untranslated; for a German translation and commentary, DAE no. 11, with a corrected reading at the end of line 1 in RIE, loc. cit.). The Greek inscription is RIE vol 1., no. 271, pp. 370–372. For an English rendering of the Greek, FHN vol. 3, no. 299, pp. 1100–1103.
11. Procop., Wars I. 19. 27–33. Procopius says that before their resettlement on the Nile in lower Nubia the Nobatai were living “in the vicinity of the city Oasis” (amphi polin Oasin) but a few lines after that he refers to their being “in the vicinity of the Oasis” (amphi tên Oasin). Since there was no city named Oasis, the reference must be to the region of the greater and lesser oases of the Thebaid (Khargeh and Dakhleh). I suspect that the word polin in the first reference is intrusive and should be deleted.
12. RIE vol. 1, no. 190, pp. 268–271.
13. See RIE vol. 2, plate 125 for the top of the Ethiopic inscription, and plate 128 for the cross at the bottom of the very short lines on the side of the block.
14. RIE vol. 1, no. 192, pp. 274–278.
15. S. Munro-Hay, “A New Gold Coin of King MḤDYS of Aksum,” Numismatic Chronicle 155 (1995), 275–277.
16. See G. W. Bowersock, Studia Patristica 45 (2010), 218–219.
1. See the excellent overview of the historical record in Christian Robin’s chapter, “L’antiquité” and, for the epigraphical testimony, his chapter “Langues et écritures” in the catalogue of the 2010 Louvre exhibition, RdA, pp. 81–99 and 119–131.
2. RIE vol. 1, nos. 269 (pp. 362–363), 286 (pp. 385–386).
3. Christian Robin, “Les Arabes de Ḥimyar, ‘des Romains’ et des Perses (IIIe—VIe siècles de l’ère chrétienne),” Semitica et Classica 1 (2008), 167–202, especially p. 171, and Iwona Gajda, Le royaume de Ḥimyar à l’époque monothéiste (Paris, 2009), pp. 47–58.
4. G. W. Bowersock, “The New Greek Inscription from South Yemen,” in Qāni’ Le port antique du Ḥaḍramawt entre la Méditerranée, l’Afrique et l’Inde, Preliminary Reports of the Russian Archaeological Mission to the Republic of Yemen, vol. IV (Turnhout, 2010), pp. 393–396. Cf. the remarks of the excavator, A. Sedov, on p. 380 of the same volume.
5. Gianfranco Fiaccadori, Teofilo Indiano (Ravenna, 1992).
6. On Yathrib’s Jewish population, Fred M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers at the Origins of Islam (Cambridge MA, 2010), p. 35. For the tradition about exiles from the Vespasianic capture of Jerusalem, see A. Bausi and A. Gori, Tradizioni orientali del Martirio di Areta (Florence, 2006), p. 121, with the note on the Ethiopic version of the Martyrium.
7. Toufic Fahd, Le Panthéon de l’Arabie centrale à la veille de l’Hégire (Paris, 1968).
8. The best edition of this fundamental work remains that of Carl Bezold, Kebra Nagast: die Herrlichkeit der Könige, Abhandlungen der I Kl. der Kön. Akad. d. Wissensch. 23, Bd. I (Munich, 1905), with accompanying German translation. The French translation of G. Colin (Geneva, 2002) is serviceable, but the English version by E. A. Wallis Budge (London, 1922) should be avoided.
9. For a summary account see A. H. M. Jones and Elizabeth Munroe, A History of Ethiopia (Oxford, 1966), pp. 14–18.
10. For the Queen of Sheba’s visit to Solomon, I Kings 10. 1–13, and for the Queen of the South’s identical visit to him, Matth. 12. 42 and Luke 11. 31. See also Josephus., Ant. 2. 249 and Acta Apost. 8. 27. Cf. G. W. Bowersock, “Helena’s Bridle, Ethiopian Christianity, and Syriac Apocalyptic,” Studia Patristica 45 (2010), 211–220, esp. note 8 on Kandake.
11. Christian Robin, RdA, p. 88: “Ce rejet du polythéisme est radical et définitif.”
12. For the Jewish inscriptions of South Arabia, see the detailed analysis by Christian Robin, “Ḥimyar et Israël,” CRAI 2004, pp. 831–908.
13. For the seal see Robin (previous note), pp. 891–892, and for Beth She‘arim p. 836.
14. G. W. Nebe and A. Sima, “Die aramäisch / hebräisch / sabäische Grabin-schrift der Lea,” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 15 (2004), 76–83.
15. C. Conti-Rossini, “Un documento sul cristianesimo nello Yemen ai tempi del re Ṣarāḥbīl Yakkuf,” Rendiconti dell’ Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, ser. 5, 19 (1910), pp. 705–750, with the Ethiopic text followed by an Italian translation on pp. 747–750. Cf. A. F. L. Beeston, “The Martyrdom of Azqir,” Proc. Seminar for Arabian Studies 16 (1985), 5–10, reprinted in A. F. L. Beeston at The Arabian Seminar and Other Papers, ed. M. C. A. Macdonald and C. S. Philips (Oxford, 2005), pp. 113–118.
16. Christian Robin, “Joseph, dernier roi de Ḥimyar (de 522 à 525, ou une des années suivantes),” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 34 (2008), 1–124. See the many papers on Najrān in Juifs et chrétiens en Arabie aux Ve et VIe siècles: Regards croisés sur les sources, ed. J. Beaucamp et al. (Paris 2010).
17. See Th. Noeldeke, Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden, aus der arabischen Chronik des Tabari (Leiden, 1879), pp. 174–175 with n. 1 for the Arabic, with MarAr for the Greek, A. Moberg, The Book of the Ḥimyarites (Lund, 1924) for the Syriac, and A. Bausi with A. Gori, Tradizioni orientali del Martirio di Areta (Florence, 2006), for the Ethiopic.
18. Fergus Millar, “Rome’s Arab Allies in Late Antiquity. Conceptions and Representations from within the Frontiers of the Empire,” in Commutatio et contentio. Studies in the Late Roman, Sasanian, and Early Islamic Near East in Memory of Zeev Rubin, ed. H. Börm and J. Wiesehöfer (Düsseldorf 2010), pp. 199–226.
19. See the work by Gajda cited above in n. 3.
20. RIE vol. 1, no. 195, stone II., l. 24, p. 287.
21. A. Moberg, The Book of the Ḥimyarites (Lund, 1924).
22. Marina Detoraki has meticulously reviewed and documented these sources MarAr, pp. 13–43. See also I. Shahîd, The Martyrs of Najrān (Brussels, 1971).
23. David G. K. Taylor, “A Stylistic Comparison of the Syriac Ḥimyarite Martyr Texts Attributed to Simeon of Beth Arsham,” in Juifs et chrétiens en Arabie (cited in n. 16 above), pp. 143–176.
24. See the Appendix to this volume on “Nonnosus,” as well as my article, “Nonnosus and Byzantine Diplomacy in Arabia,” for the Festschrift in honor of Emilio Gabba, Rivista Storica Italiana 124 (2012), 282–290.
25. John of Ephesus included a life of Symeon in his Lives of the Eastern Saints: Patrologia Orientalis 17, fasc. 1, ed. E. W. Brooks (1923), pp. 137–158. The quotation is on p. 140, which also reveals that Symeon went often to al Ḥīra, converted many of the Arabs there, and persuaded them to build a church.
1. Cf. Iwona Gajda, Le royaume de Ḥimyar à l’époque monothéiste (Paris, 2009), pp. 73–81, with Theod. Anagnost., Kirchengeschichte (ed. Hansen 1995), p. 157, with which cf. p. 152.
2. A. Moberg, The Book of the Ḥimyarites (Lund, 1924), p. 3b. G. Hatke, in his doctoral thesis, suggests a connection with Jacob of Serūg’s reference to persecution of Christians in his letter to the Christians of Ḥimyar: Africans in Arabia Felix: Axumite Relations with Ḥimyar in the Sixth Century C.E. (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton, January 2011) p. 113. Cf. Jacob Sarugensis, Epistulae, ed. Olinder (Louvain, 1952), pp. 87–88.
3. RIE vol. 1, no. 191, pp. 271–274.
4. Lines 34–35 of the inscription mentioned in the previous note give the commander’s name as Ḥayyān (hyn), and the surviving summary of the relevant chapter (now lost) in the Book of the Ḥimyarites names the commander of the first expedition as Ḥyōnā (ḥywn’): A. Moberg, The Book of the Himyarites (Lund, 1924), pp. 3 and ci. Cf. Iwona Gajda, Le royaume de Ḥimyar à l’époque monothéiste (Paris, 2009), p. 80.
5. A. Dillmann, Lexicon Linguae Aethiopicae (Leipzig, 1865), col. 1174.
6. MarAr ch. 27, with Detoraki’s note 164 on p. 256. Justin’s words about the enemy were kata tou musarou kai paranomou Hebraiou, and for their annihilation he uses the phrase eis teleion aphanismon kai anathema. This was strong language to arouse the Ethiopians to do what they were inclined to do anyway. But they doubtless welcomed military support even from Chalcedonian Christians.
7. MarAr § 32.
8. In her book cited in n. 1 above, p. 92, Gajda quotes and discusses the South Arabian inscriptions that mention the chain, and she considers the Arabic testimony on p. 94. Fundamental for modern discussions of the chain of Maddabān is A. F. L. Beeston, “The Chain of al Mandab,” in On Both sides of al Mandab. Ethiopian, South Arabic and Islamic studies presented to Oscar Löfgren on His 90th birthday (Stockholm, 1989), pp. 1–6.
9. RIE vol. 1, no. 195, pp. 284–288. See Fig. 4, for the upper fragment. For a South Arabian inscription also mentioning the death of the king of Ḥimyar, see Gajda (n. 1 above), pp. 107–108.
10. I am much indebted to George Hatke, for his meticulous analysis of the biblical allusions in this inscription: Africans in Arabia Felix: Axumite Relations with Ḥimyar in the Sixth Century C.E. (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton, January 2011), pp. 378–382.
11. MarAr § 28.
12. On this king, see Gajda (n. 1 above), pp. 112–115. Procopius, Wars 1. 20. 3.
13. I. Shahîd, “Byzantium in South Arabia,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 33 (1979), pp. 25–94. G. Fiaccadori, “Gregentios in the Land of the Homerites,” in A. Berger (ed.), Life and Works of Saint Gregentios, Archbishop of Taphar (Berlin, 2006), pp. 48–82.
14. I. Guidi, “La lettera di Simeone vescovo di Beth Arsam,” Rendic. Accad. Lincei (Ser. 3) 7 (1881), 2 [Syriac].
15. I. Shahîd, The Martyrs of Najrân (Brussels, 1971), pp. iii-1v [Syriac].
16. G Ryckmans, Le Muséon 66 (1953), nos. 507 and 508, pp. 285–287 and 296–297. A. Jamme, Sabaean and Hasaean Inscriptions from Saudi Arabia (Rome, 1966), no. 1028, p. 39.
17. Cf. Philostorgius, Kirchengeschichte (ed. Bidez-Winkelmann), 3. 4.
18. MarAr § 38.
19. P. Yule, “Ẓaphār. Capital of Himyar,” Archäologische Berichte aus dem Yemen 11 (2007), 477–548. See also the context provided in P. Yule, Ḥimyar. Spätantike im Jemen / Late Antique Yemen (Aichwald, 2007).
1. Procop., Wars I. 19. 1,
2. Procop., Wars I. 20. 9, on Justinian’s desire to involve the Ethiopians in the silk trade in order to disadvantage the Persians who were profiting from it. Justinian recruited the Ethiopians against the Persians because of their shared religion (dia to tês doxês homognômon). Iotabê (Procop., Wars I. 19. 3–4) was most probably Tiran, although no ancient remains have been discovered there and amphibious landings would have been difficult. On the history and location of the island, P. Mayerson, “The Island of Iotabê in the Byzantine Sources: a Reprise,” BASOR 287 (1992), 1–4.
3. Julianus’ embassy: Procop., Wars I. 20. 9. For a full account of the family and diplomatic activity of Nonnosus, see the Appendix to the present volume as well as G. W. Bowersock, “Nonnosus and Byzantine Diplomacy in Arabia,” Rivista Storica Italiana 124 (2012), 282–290. The basic Greek text of Nonnosus may be found in FHG IV, pp. 178–180.
4. Cf. I. Shahîd, “Byzantium and Kinda,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 53 (1960), 57–73, and the Appendix below.
5. FHG IV, p. 178–180, with the elephants in excerpts preserved in Photius and the meeting with the negus in Malalas.
6. L. Oeconomos, “Remarques sur trois passages de trois historiens grecs du Moyen Age,” Byzantion 20 (1950), 177–183, on Malalas’ account of Nonnosus in Axum, 177–178 with plate 1.
7. Procop., Wars I. 19. 10–13. Procopius says that Abū Karib was appointed “phylarch of the Saracens in Palestine,” by comparison with Nonnosus’ description of Qays as receiving “the hegemony of the Palestines [plural]” (FHG IV, p. 179).
8. CIH no. 541. A good photograph of this impressive stone appears in RdA, p. 90.
9. For a comprehensive analysis of Abraha’s career in the half century before Muḥammad’s birth, see Lawrence Conrad, “Abraha and Muḥammad: Some Observations Apropos of Chronology and Literary topoi in the Early Arabic Historical Tradition,”BSOAS 50 (1987), 225–240.
10. This is the inscription from Bir Mureyghān known as Ryckmans 506, for which see J. Ryckmans, in his article “Inscriptions historiques sabéennes de l’Arabie centrale: Inscription de Muraighān,” Le Muséon 56 (1953), 339–342, with comment by A. F. L. Beeston, in BSOAS 16 (1954), 391–392. A new Murayghān inscription was discovered in 2009 and is still unpublished: cf. Christian Julien Robin in his entry on Arabia and Ethiopia in the Handbook of Late Antiquity edited by Scott Johnson (Oxford, 2012), p. 287. It apparently claims that Abraha extended his authority over new territories in northeastern, northern, and northwestern Arabia and asserts that he had expelled the son of the Naşrid king of al Ḥīra.
11. Procop., Wars I. 20. 13.
12. One might also consider another year than 570 for the Prophet’s birth: cf. L. Conrad, “Abraha and Muḥammad: Some Observations Apropos of Literary ‘Topoi’ in the Early Arabic Historical Tradition,” BSOAS 50 (1987), 225–240, with reflections on the number 40 as a topos to explain the interval between 570 for Muḥammad’s birth and 610 for the mab‘ath.
13. Axum appears on an inscription as the king’s son ’[k]sm, CIH 541, ll. 82–83. In Ṯabari he is called Yaksum: Th. Noeldeke, Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden (Leiden, 1879), p. 219, where a coin with a Greek legend Iaxômi is adduced in n. 3.
14. Contemporary or near-contemporary sources for this period are lacking, particularly after the termination of Procopius’ Wars. For a review of the Arabic tradition and Theophanes, see I. Gajda, Le royaume de Ḥimyar à l’époque monothéiste (Paris, 2009), pp. 150–156.
15. For Arab paganism as mentioned in the Qu’rān, see the incisive, but controversial, analysis by Patricia Crone, “The Religion of the Qur’ānic Pagans: God and the Lesser Deities,” Arabica 57 (2010), 151–200. Her paper is indebted to the equally controversial thesis of G. R. Hawting’s The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam (Cambridge, 1999), which considers the kuffār (non-believers) and mushrikūn (sharers) as aberrant monotheists, although they have long been understood to be pagans or polytheists. Both Hawting and Crone believe that these terms express condemnation of certain monotheists by other ones. Crone explicitly examines the Quranic mushrikūn without reference to the subsequent tradition—an interesting experiment but arguably not the most fruitful way to handle surviving testimony. Memory, even if corrupted or invented, is important for writing history. Both the Qur’ān and the subsequent tradition clearly acknowledge the existence of many gods before and during the time of Muḥammad. Current debate concentrates, not without circularity, on whether these gods were ranked in a hierarchy with Allāh on top. Even if they were this would be a strange kind of monotheism.
16. On all this see my Jerusalem lectures in memory of Menachem Stern, Empires in Collision in Late Antiquity (Hanover, 2012).
1. Iwona Gajda, Le Royaume de Ḥimyar à l’époque monothéiste (Paris, 2009), p. 152.
2. Sophronius, Anacreont., no. 14, ll. 61–64.
3. See F. M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers. At the Origins of Islam (Harvard, 2010).
4. Wim Raven, “Some Early Islamic Texts on the Negus of Abyssinia,” Journal of Semitic Studies 33 / 2 (1988), 197–218. Irfan Shahîd, “The Hijra (Emigration) of the Early Muslims to Abyssinia: The Byzantine Dimension,” in To Hellinikon: Studies in Honor of Speros Vryonis, Jr., ed. J. S. Allen et al., vol. 2 (New Rochelle, 1993), pp. 203–213.
5. Irfan Shahîd, The Arabs in Late Antiquity: Their Role, Achievement, and Legacy, American University of Beirut, Jewett Chair of Arabic: Occasional Papers (Beirut, 2008), ed. R. Baalbaki, pp. 27–28.
6. For this suggestion, see M. Lecker, “Were the Ghassānids and the Byzantines behind Muḥammad’s hijra?” in the forthcoming publication, ed. Christian Robin, of the proceedings of a conference on “Cross Perspectives of History and Archaeology on the Jafnid Dynasty” (Paris, 12–13 November 2008).
7. Gerald Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam. From Polemic to History (Cambridge, 1999). Patricia Crone, “The Religion of the Qur’ānic Pagans: God and the Lesser Deities,” Arabica 57 (2010), 151–200.
8. Uri Rubin, “Ḥanīfiyya and Ka‘ba,” JSAI 13 (1990), 85–112.
9. But in her paper “Angels versus Humans as Messengers of God,” in Revelation, Literature, and community in Late Antiquity, ed. P. Townsend and M. Vidas (Tübingen, 2011), pp. 315–336, she regularly refers to the mushrikūn as polytheists.
10. For the Persians in this period see now Greg Fisher, Between Empires: Arabs, Romans, and Sasanians in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2011).
11. Cf. Antti Arjava, “The Mystery Cloud of 536 CE in the Mediterranean Sources,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 59 (2009), 73–93, and Christian Julien Robin in Handbook of Late Antiquity, ed. Scott Johnson (Oxford, 2012), p. 305.
1. The surviving texts in Greek, as summarized and paraphrased by Photius, are still most conveniently examined in C. Müller, FHG IV, pp. 178–180. The present appendix, is an abbreviated and revised version of a paper in honor of Emilio Gabba in Rivista Storica Italiana 124 (2012), 282–290.
2. PLRE II. Abramius 2, p. 3.
3. Procop., Wars I. 20.
4. Ps. Zacharias, Hist. Eccles. VIII. 3.
5. For early pre-Islamic Arabic, see the rich dossier assembled in ed. M. C. A. Macdonald, The Development of Arabic as a Written Language, Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 40 (Oxford, 2010).
6. Müller, FGH IV, p. 178. For a picture of a comparable ceremony, L. Oeconomos, “Remarques sur trois passages de trois historiens grecs du Moyen Age,” Byzantion 20 (1950), 177–183. See Fig. 6 in this volume.
7. This must be the devastation by eastern nomads that Procopius of Gaza mentions in his Panegyric of Anastasius 7 (pp. 9–10 Chauvot), written between 498 and 502.
8. Cf. I. Kawar (Shahīd), “Byzantium and Kinda,” Byz. Zeitschr. 53 (1960), 57–73. Id., Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fifth Century (Washington DC, 1989), pp. 127–129. Ogaros’ Semitic name was Ḥujr, Badicharmos’ name was Ma‘dīkarib: C. J. Robin, “Les Arabes de Ḥimyar, des ‘Romains’ et des Perses (IIIe–VIe siècles de l’ère chrétienne),” Semitica et Classica 1 (2008), 167–202, particularly 178. It is hard to accept Robin’s view (p. 178) that the father of Ḥujr was not Ḥārith, the phylarch of Ḥujrid Kinda, but a hypothetical homonym of the Ghassān.
9. PLRE II. Euphrasius 3, p. 425. The name in Greek could, it may be suggested, be analogous to the name Firatli in Turkish.
10. Procop., Wars I. 17. 44, reprised in Evagr., HE IV. 12. Cf. PLRE II, p. 1120 (Timostratus), p. 611 (Ioannes 70).
11. David G. K. Taylor, “A Stylistic Comparison of the Syriac Himyarite Martyr Texts,” in ed. J. Beaucamp, F. Briquel-Chatonnet, and C. J. Robin, Juifs et chrétiens en Arabie aux Ve et VIe siècles: Regards croisés sur les sources (Paris, 2010), pp. 143–176, particularly p. 144. For Ramla, I. Kawar (Shahīd), “The Conference of Ramla,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 23 (1964), 115–131.
12. Procop., Wars I. 17. 40 (Alamoundaros, Πέρσαις … πιστός, plundered the lands from the boundaries of Egypt to Mesopotamia), 46 (neither δοῦκεζ nor φύλαρχοι could resist).
13. Malalas, Chron. 18. 16 (Bonn pp. 434–435).
14. MarAr §25 confirms Nonnosus on this treaty.
15. The name of the son is Mαυíαζ, not Mavia (as in Müller’s Latin translation), which would be a woman’s name (Arabic Māwiyya), but Mu‘awiyya.
16. Robin (n. 8 above) shows that he must have been a grandson.
17. The Greek formulation of the hegemony of Qays is carefully phrased: αὐτὸς τὴν Παλαιστινῶν ἡγεμονίαν παρὰ βασιλέως ἐδέξατο, πλῆθος πολὺ τῶν ὑποτεταγμένων αὑτῷ σὺν αὑτ ῷ ἐπαγόμενος (FHG IV, p. 179).
18. For Abūkarib, Procop., Wars I. 19. 10–13, and P. Petra IV. 39, l. 165 [ὁ] φύλαρχ[ο]ς Ἄβου Xήρηβος.
19. Procop. Wars I. 20. (Hellestheaios). MarAr §1, 2, 27, 29, 32, 34 35, 37–39 (Elesbaas).
20. E.g. RIE vol. 1., no. 191, pp. 272–273, ll. 7–8, ’n klb ’l ṣbḥ.
21. This date, like others in this article, reflects 110 BC, which is now agreed to have been the era of Ḥimyar in dated south Arabian inscriptions. See C. J. Robin in n. 8 above.
22. Procop., Bella I. 20. 4–7.
23. For Procopius see Wars I. 19. 17. Already in the Periplus of the Red Sea, from the middle of the first century AD, the Greek form of the city name was Axōmis, Peripl. Maris Eryth. 4.
25. Procop., Wars I. 19. 1: “The emperor Justinian had the idea of allying himself with the Ethiopians and the Homerites (Ḥimyarites) in order to work against the Persians.” Cf. Wars I. 20. 9 on the envoy Julian, whom Justinian sent to Ethiopia and Christian Ḥimyar to join the Byzantines, because of their common religion, to war against the Persians.
26. J. Beaucamp, “Le rôle de Byzance en Mer Rouge sous le règne de Justin: mythe ou réalité?” in Beaucamp et al., eds. Juifs et chrétiens en Arabie (n. 11 above), pp. 197–218.