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Blameless Ethiopians and Others

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

J. W. Gardner
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Extract

There is general agreement that from Homer onwards references in Classical writers to Ethiopia and the Ethiopians are almost never to modern Ethiopia or to the highland peoples who were the ancestors or predecessors of present-day inhabitants of the Ethiopian plateau. Homer's Ethiopians are indeed almost in the realm of Märchen; gods visit them, or are reported among them when they absent themselves from Olympus; they are ἔσχατοι ἀνδρν, and without fault or blame; and their only human visitor is Mene-laus. But they are not perhaps wholly fairy-tale. Some Ethiopians fought on the Trojan side in die war (under their king Memnon, son of Tithonus and Eos), and the lost Aethiopis, from the Epic Cycle, will have dealt with this. The notorious disjunction of Eastern and Western Ethiopians has a factual ring about it; and Ethiopians might be found in West Africa as well as in East, as Hanno discovered in his voyage in the early fifth century B.c., and in India as well as Africa; for the name, it seems, may be applied to dark-skinned people generally.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , October 1977, pp. 185 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1977

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References

NOTES

1. The Homer references are: Il. 1. 423–4, 23. 205–7Google Scholar; Od. 1. 22–4 (Eastern and Western), 4.84, 5.282–3.Google Scholar

2. Hanno: see Geographi Graeci Minores, ed. Müller, G. (Paris, 1855) 1. 1–14.Google Scholar

3. Aesch. Suppl. 284–6Google Scholar; frs. 192, 300 (O.C.T.).

4. Diodorus (3.9) has some notion of a part of Ethiopia south of Meroe.

5. Shinnie, P. L., Meroe (London, 1967), pp. 43–8Google Scholar, gives the ancient sources, and discusses the question of the destruction of Napata and the start of the Meroitic period.

6. Meiggs, R. and Lewis, D. M., Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford, 1969), no. 7.Google Scholar

7. Cf. Ps. 68:31, Isa.43:3; for doubt concerning the exact area denoted by Cush, see Ullendorf, E., Ethiopia and the Bible (Oxford, 1968), pp. 5–15.Google Scholar

8. Cf. Luc. Phars. 10. 272–5Google Scholar; the statements appear to come first from Ps.-Arist. Inundatio Nili (see Thomson, J. O., History of Ancient Geography (Cambridge, 1948), p. 136).Google Scholar

9. Strabo 17.1.2, 2.3; for Ptolemy see reff. in Cary, M. and Warmington, E. H., The Ancient Explorers (Harmondsworth, 1963), p. 287 n. 42.Google Scholar

10. O.G.I. 86Google Scholar; cf. CR 12 (1898), 275 ff.Google Scholar

11. C.I.G. 3.5127Google Scholar; discussion in Cosmas, Χριστιανικὴ Τοπογραøία, ed. Wolska-Conus, W. (Paris, 1962), pp. 371–2.Google Scholar

12. Excerpts in Photius; cf. Diod. 3.11.2.

13. The date of the Periplus is discussed in Schoff, 's edition (New York, 1912), pp. 7–15Google Scholar, and CQ 41 (1947), 136–40Google Scholar; for further reff. see Sellassie, Sergew Hable, Ancient and Medieval Ethiopian History to 1270 (Addis Ababa, 1972), pp. 16Google Scholar n.95 and 70 n.55. Zoscales, Periplus 4. 14Google Scholar (Schoff, pp. 21–3).Google Scholar

14. P.S. Bibl. Arch. 31 (1909), plate XXIV (p. 190)Google Scholar; Sergew, H. S., op. cit., pp. 91–2 (text, translation, and commentary).Google Scholar

15. First Cosmas inscr.: n. 11. Second inscr.: C.I.G. 3.5127; Wolska, , op. cit. 1. 364–78Google Scholar for discussion of both inscrr.

16. Reff. for other inscrr.: C.I.G. 3.5128 (Salt trilingual; cf. Kammerer, A., Essai sur l'histoire antique d'Abyssinie (Paris, 1926), pl.IX and pp. 97–8)Google Scholar; Schoff, , op.cit., p. 9 (Sembruthes)Google Scholar; Deutsche Aksum Expedition (Berlin, 1913), 4 p. 2 (Abba Pantaleon)Google Scholar; Sergew, H. S., op. cit., p. 96 (Adulis fr.)Google Scholar; Anfray, F. and others, Journal des Savants (1970), 260–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar (new Ezana inscr.; quoted in Sergew, H. S., op.cit., p. 103).Google Scholar

17. Cf. Buxton, D. R., The Abyssinians (London, 1970), p. 39 and fig. 4. The inspiration of the coin series is Roman.Google Scholar

18. Ullendorf, E., The Ethiopians (Oxford, 1973), pp. 115, 128.Google Scholar

19. Sen. N.Q. 6.8.3Google Scholar; Plin. H.N. 6.29 and 181Google Scholar. Cf. CAH 10.778–9, 880.Google Scholar

20. Vopiscus, , Aurelian 33.4Google Scholar (in S.H.A., ed. Holm, E. (Leipzig, 1927), vol.2.)Google Scholar

21. Heliodorus, , Aethiopica, tr. Hadas, N. (Michigan, 1957), p. 265Google Scholar, quoted in Sergew, H. S., op.cit., p. 87 n. 133.Google Scholar

22. Censer: Gerster, E., Churches in Rock (London, 1970), p. 34Google Scholar, fig. 14. Coin hoard: ibid.

23. Annales d'Éthiopie, 2.45–7Google Scholar. Recent excavations at Aksum yielded little imported pottery, but Roman glass (third to fifth centuries A.d.) has been noted: Azania 9 (1974), 194, 198, 202.Google Scholar

24. Cary, and Warmington, , op.cit., p. 213.Google Scholar

25. Annales d'Éthiopie, 1. 16–26.Google Scholar

26. Haoulti statue: Annales, 3, pl. xlvi and p. 103Google Scholar (see also 5, pi. xxxi and p. 42, and 7 pi. liii and pp. 125–33). Note however that the hair has been described as ‘typically Ethiopian’ and the collar as showing Meroitic relations. Bull: Annales, 4, pl. xxii and p. 22Google Scholar. Azbi-Dera statue: Doresse, J., Ethiopia (London, 1959), pl. 14 and p. 49Google Scholar. Haoulti throne: Gerster, , op.cit., pl. vii and fig. 7, p. 15.Google Scholar

27. Yeha temple: Buxton, , op.cit., pp. 36–7, 86, 88Google Scholar. Aksum stelae: cf. Ferguson, J., History of Architecture, 1. 142–3Google Scholar; Gerster, , op.cit., p. 33 (South Arabia)Google Scholar; Bent, J. T., The Sacred City of the Ethiopians (London, 1893), pp. 188–9Google Scholar. Offering-tables: Doresse, J., op.cit., p. 57Google Scholar. Coloe, : P.M.E. (ed. Schoff), pp. 60–1.Google Scholar