ETHIOPIA EUONYMUS
ETHNOLOGY and ETHNOGRAPHY EUPALINUS
ETHYL EUPATORIA
ETHYL CHLORIDE EUPATRIDAE
ETHYLENE EUPEN
ETIENNE, CHARLES GUILLAUME EUPHEMISM
ETIQUETTE EUPHONIUM
ETNA (volcano) EUPHORBIA
ETNA (Pennsylvania, U.S.A.) EUPHORBIACEAE
ETON EUPHORBIUM
ETRETAT EUPHORBUS
ETRURIA EUPHORION
ETTENHEIM EUPHRANOR
ETTINGSHAUSEN, CONSTANTIN EUPHRATES
ETTLINGEN EUPHRONIUS
ETTMUeLLER, ERNST MORITZ LUDWIG EUPHROSYNE
ETTMUeLLER, MICHAEL EUPHUISM
ETTRICK EUPION
ETTY, WILLIAM EUPOLIS
ETYMOLOGY EUPOMPUS
EU EURASIAN
EUBOEA EURE
EUBULIDES EURE-ET-LOIR
EUBULUS (of Anaphlystus) EUREKA
EUBULUS (Athenian poet) EUREKA SPRINGS
EUCALYPTUS EURIPIDES
EUCHARIS EUROCLYDON
EUCHARIST EUROPA
EUCHRE EUROPE
EUCKEN, RUDOLF CHRISTOPH EUROPIUM
EUCLASE EURYDICE
EUCLID (of Megara) EURYMEDON
EUCLID (Greek mathematician) EUSDEN, LAURENCE
EUCRATIDES EUSEBIUS (many bishops)
EUDAEMONISM EUSEBIUS (bishop of Rome)
EUDOCIA AUGUSTA EUSEBIUS (of Caesarea)
EUDOCIA MACREMBOLITISSA EUSEBIUS (of Emesa)
EUDOXIA LOPUKHINA EUSEBIUS (of Myndus)
EUDOXUS (of Cnidus) EUSEBIUS (of Nicomedia)
EUDOXUS (of Cyzicus) EUSKIRCHEN
EUGENE OF SAVOY EUSTACE
EUGENE EUSTATHIUS (of Antioch)
EUGENICS EUSTATHIUS (Macrembolites)
EUGENIE EUSTATHIUS (of Thessalonica)
EUGENIUS EUSTYLE
EUGENOL EUTAWVILLE
EUHEMERUS EUTHYDEMUS
EULENSPIEGEL, TILL EUTIN
EULER, LEONHARD EUTROPIUS
EUMENES (rulers of Pergamum) EUTYCHES
EUMENES (Macedonian general) EUTYCHIANUS
EUMENIDES EUTYCHIDES
EUMENIUS EUYUK
EUMOLPUS EVAGORAS
EUNAPIUS EVAGRIUS
EUNOMIUS EVANDER
EUNUCH EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE
EUNUCH FLUTE EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION
ETHIOPIA, or AETHIOPIA (Gr. [Greek: Aithiopia]), the ancient classical
name of a district of north-eastern Africa, bounded on the N. by Egypt
and on the E. by the Red Sea.[1] The application of the name has varied
considerably at different times. In the Homeric poems the _Aethiopes_
are the furthest of mankind both eastward and westward; the gods go to
their banquets and probably the Sun sets in their country. With the
growth of scientific geography they came to be located somewhat less
vaguely, and indeed their name was employed as the equivalent of the
Assyrian and Hebrew Cush (q.v.), the Kesh or Ekosh of the Hieroglyphics
(first found in Stele of Senwosri I.), i.e. a country extending from
about the 24th to the 10th degree of N. lat., while its limits to the E.
and W. were doubtful. The etymology of the name, which to a Greek ear
meant "swarthy-faced," is unknown, nor can we say why in official
inscriptions of the Axumite dynasty the word is used as the equivalent
of Habashat (whence the modern Abyssinia), which, from the context
would appear to denote a tribe located in S. Arabia, whose name was
rendered by the Greek geographers as _Abaseni_ and _Abissa_.
The inhabitants of Ethiopia, partly perhaps owing to their honourable
mention in the Homeric poems, attracted the attention of many Greek
researchers, from Democritus onwards. Herodotus divides them into two
main groups, a straight-haired race and a woolly-haired race, dwelling
respectively to the East and West, and this distinction is confirmed by
the Egyptian monuments. From his time onwards various names of tribes
are enumerated, and to some extent geographically located, most of these
appellations being Greek words, applied to the tribes by strangers in
virtue of what seemed to be their leading characteristics, e.g.
"Long-lived," "Fish-eaters," "Troglodytes," &c. The bulk of our
information is derived from Egyptian monuments, whence it appears that,
originally occupied by independent tribes, who were raided (first by
Seneferu or Snefru, first king of the IVth or last of the IIIrd Dynasty)
and gradually subjected by Egyptian kings (the steps in this process are
traced by E.W. Budge, _The Egyptian Sudan_, 1907, i. 505 sqq.), under
the XVIIIth Dynasty it became an Egyptian province, administered by a
viceroy (at first the Egyptian king's son), called prince of Kesh, and
paying tributes in negroes, oxen, gold, ivory, rare beads, hides and
household utensils. The inhabitants frequently rebelled and were as
often subdued; records of these repeated conquests were set up by the
Egyptian kings in the shape of steles and temples; of the latter the
temple of Amenhotep (Amenophis) III. at Soleb or Sulb seems to have been
the most magnificent. Ethiopia became independent towards the 11th
century B.C., when the XXIst Dynasty was reigning in Egypt. A state was
founded, having for its capital Napata (mod. _Merawi_) at the foot of
Jebel Barkal, "the sacred mountain," which in time became formidable,
and in the middle of the 8th century conquered Egypt; an Egyptian
campaign is recorded in the famous stele of King Pankhi. The fortunes of
the Ethiopian (XXVth) Dynasty belong to the history of Egypt (q.v.).
After the Ethiopian yoke had been shaken off by Egypt, about 660 B.C.,
Ethiopia continued independent, under kings of whom not a few are known
from inscriptions. Besides a number whose names have been discovered in
cartouches at Jebel Barkal, the following, of whom all but the third
have left important steles, can be roughly dated: Tandamane, son of
Tirhaka (667-650), Asperta (630-600), Pankharer (600-560), Harsiotf
(560-525), Nastasen (525-500). From the evidence of the stele of the
second (the Coronation Stele) and that of the fifth it has been inferred
that the sovereignty early in this period became elective, a deputation
of the various orders in the realm being (as Diodorus states), when a
vacancy occurred, sent to Napata, where the chief god Amen selected out
of the members of the royal family the person who was to succeed, and
who became officially the god's son; and it seems certain that the
priestly caste was more influential in Ethiopia than in Egypt both
before and after this period. Another stele (called the Stele of
Excommunication) records the expulsion of a priestly family guilty of
murder (H. Schaefer, _Klio_, vi. 287): the name of the sovereign who
expelled them has been obliterated. The stele of Harsiotf contains the
record of nine expeditions, in the course of which the king subdued
various tribes south of Meroe and built a number of temples. The stele
of the last of these sovereigns, now in the Berlin Museum, and edited by
H. Schaefer (Leipzig, 1901), contains valuable information concerning the
state of the Ethiopian kingdom in its author's time. Shortly after his
accession he was threatened with invasion by Cambyses, the Persian
conqueror of Egypt, but (according to his own account) destroyed the
fleet sent by the invader up the Nile, while (as we learn from
Herodotus) the land-force succumbed to famine (see CAMBYSES). It further
appears that in his time and that of his immediate predecessors the
capital of the kingdom had been removed from Napata, where in the time
of Harsiotf the temples and palaces were already in ruins, to Merce at a
distance of 60 camel-hours to the south-east. But Napata retained its
importance as the religious metropolis; it was thither that the king
went to be crowned, and there too the chief god delivered his oracles,
which were (it is said) implicitly obeyed. The local names in Nastasen's
inscription, describing his royal circuit, are in many cases obscure. A
city named Pnups (Hierogl. Pa-Nebes) appears to have constituted the
most northerly point in the empire. These Ethiopian kings seem to have
made no attempt to reconquer Egypt, though they were often engaged in
wars with the wild tribes of the Sudan. For the 5th and 4th centuries
B.C. the history of the country is a blank. A fresh epoch was, however,
inaugurated by Ergamenes, a contemporary of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who is
said to have massacred the priests at Napata, and destroyed sacerdotal
influence, till then so great that the king might at the priests' order
be compelled to destroy himself; Diodorus attributes this measure to
Ergamenes' acquaintance with Greek culture, which he introduced into his
country. A temple was built by this king at Pselcis (Dakka) to Thoth.
Probably the sovereignty again became hereditary. Occasional notices of
Ethiopia occur from this time onwards in Greek and Latin authors, though
the special treatises by Agatharchides and others are lost. According to
these the country came to be ruled by queens named Candace. One of them
was involved in war with the Romans in 24 and 23 B.C.; the land was
invaded by C. Petronius, who took the fortress Premis or Ibrim, and
sacked the capital (then Napata); the emperor Augustus, however, ordered
the evacuation of the country without even demanding tribute. The
stretch of land between Assuan (Syene) and Maharraka (Hiera Sycaminus)
was, however, regarded as belonging to the Roman empire, and Roman
cohorts were stationed at the latter place. To judge by the monuments it
is possible that there were queens who reigned alone. Pyramids were
erected for queens as well as for kings, and the position of the queens
was little inferior to that of their consorts, though, so far as
monumental representations go, they always yielded precedence to the
latter. Candace appears to be found as the name of a queen for whom a
pyramid was built at Meroe. A great builder was Netekamane, who is
represented with his queen Amanetari on temples of Egyptian style at
many points up the Nile--at Amara just above the second cataract, and at
Napata, as well as at Meroe, Benaga and Naga in the distant Isle of
Meroe. He belongs, probably, to the Ptolemaic age. Later, in the Roman
period, the type in sculpture changed from the Egyptian. The figures are
obese, especially the women, and have pronounced negro features, and the
royal person is loaded with bulging gold ornaments. Of this period also
there is a royal pair, Netekamane and Amanetari, imitating the names of
their conspicuous predecessors. In the 4th century A.D. the state of
Meroe was ravaged by the Nubas(?) and the Abyssinians, and in the 6th
century its place was taken by the Christian state of Nubia (see
DONGOLA).
Contrary to the opinion of the Greeks, the Ethiopians appear to have
derived their religion and civilization from the Egyptians. The royal
inscriptions are written in the hieroglyphic character and the Egyptian
language, which, however, in the opinion of experts, steadily
deteriorate after the separation of Ethiopia from Egypt. About the time
of Ergamenes, or (according to some authorities) before, a vernacular
came to be employed in inscriptions, written in a special alphabet of 23
signs in parallel hieroglyphic and cursive forms. The cursive is to be
read from right to left, the hieroglyphic, contrary to the Egyptian
method, in the direction in which the figures face. The Egyptian
equivalents of six characters have been made out by the aid of bilingual
cartouches. Words are divided from each other by pairs of dots, and it
is clear that the forms and values of the signs are largely based on
Egyptian writing; but as yet decipherment has not been attained, nor can
it yet be stated to what group the language should be assigned (F. Ll.
Griffith in D.R. MacIver's _Areika_, Oxford, 1909, and later
researches).
Notices in Greek authors are collected by P. Paulitschke, _Die
geographische Erforschung des afrikanischen Continents_ (Vienna,
1880); the inscriptions were edited and interpreted by G. Maspero,
_Revue archeol_. xxii., xxv.; _Melanges d'Assyriologie et
d'Egyptologie_, ii., iii.; _Records of the Past_, vi.; T.S.B.A. iv.;
Schaefer, l.c., and _Zeitschrift fuer aegyptische Sprache_, xxxiii. See
also J.H. Breasted, "The Monuments of Sudanese Nubia," in _American
Journal of Semitic Languages_ (October 1908), and the work of E.W.
Budge cited above. A description of the chief ruins and the results of
Dr D.R. MacIver's researches in northern Nubia, begun in 1907, will be
found under SUDAN: _Anglo-Egyptian_.
_The Axumite Kingdom_.--About the 1st century of the Christian era a new
kingdom grew up at Axum (q.v.), of which a king Zoscales is mentioned in
the _Periplus Maris Erythraei_. Fragments of the history of this
kingdom, of which there is no authentic chronicle, have been made out
chiefly by the aid of inscriptions, of which the following is a
list:--(1) Greek inscription of Adulis, copied by Cosmas Indicopleustes
in 545, the beginning, with the king's name, lost. (2) Sabaean
inscription of Ela Amida in two halves, discovered by J. Theodore Bent
at Axum in 1893, and completed by E. Littmann in 1906. (3) Ethiopic
inscription probably of the same king, imperfect (Littmann). (4)
Trilingual inscription of Aeizanes, the Greek version discovered by
Henry Salt in 1805, the Sabaean by Bent, and the Ethiopic (Geez) by
Littmann. (5) Ethiopic inscription of Aeizanes (so Littmann), son of Ela
Amida, discovered by Eduard Rueppell in 1833. (6) Ethiopic inscriptions
of Hetana-Dan'el, son of Dabra Efrem. These are all long inscriptions
giving details of wars, &c. The sixth is later than the rest, which are
to be attributed to the most flourishing period of the kingdom, the 4th
and 5th centuries A.D. The fourth is pagan, the fifth Christian,
Aeizanes having in the interval embraced Christianity. It was to this
king that the emperor Constantius addressed a letter in 356 A.D.
Aeizanes and his successors style themselves kings of the Axumites,
Homerites (Himyar), Raidan, the Ethiopians (Habasat), the Sabaeans,
Silee, Tiamo, the Bugaites (Bega) and Kasu. This style implies
considerable conquests in South Arabia, which, however, must have been
lost to the Axumites by A.D. 378. They claim to rule the Kasu or
Meroitic Ethiopians; and the fifth inscription records an expedition
along the Atbara and the Nile to punish the Nuba and Kasu, and a
fragment of a Greek inscription from Meroe was recognized by Sayce as
commemorating a king of Axum. Except for these inscriptions Axumite
history is a blank until in the 6th century we find the Axumite king
sending an expedition to wreck the Jewish state then existing in S.
Arabia, and reducing that country to a state of vassalage: the king is
styled in Ethiopian chronicles Caleb (Kaleb), in Greek and Arabic
documents El-Esbaha. In the 7th century a successor to this king, named
Abraha or Abraham, gave refuge to the persecuted followers of Mahomet at
the beginning of his career (see ARABIA: _History, ad init_.). A few
more names of kings occur on coins, which were struck in Greek
characters till about A.D. 700, after which time that language seems
definitely to have been displaced in favour of Ethiopic or Geez: the
condition of the script and the coins renders them all difficult to
identify with the names preserved in the native lists, which are too
fanciful and mutually contradictory to furnish of themselves even a
vestige of history. For the period between the rise of Islam and the
beginning of the modern history of Abyssinia there are a few notices in
Arabic writers; so we have a notice of a war between Ethiopia and Nubia
about 687 (C.C. Rossini in _Giorn. Soc. Asiat. Ital_. x. 141), and of a
letter to George king of Nubia from the king of Abyssinia some time
between 978 and 1003, when a Jewish queen Judith was oppressing the
Christian population (I. Guidi, _ibid_. iii. 176, 7).
The Abyssinian chronicles, it may be noted, attribute the foundation of
the kingdom to Menelek (or Ibn el-Hakim), son of Solomon and the queen
of Sheba. The Axumite or Menelek dynasty was driven from northern
Abyssinia by Judith, but soon after another Christian dynasty, that of
the Zagues, obtained power. In 1268 the reigning prince abdicated in
favour of Yekuno Amlak. king of Shoa, a descendant of the monarch
overthrown by Judith (see ABYSSINIA).
See A. Dillman, _Die Anfaenge des axumitischen Reiches_ (Berlin, 1879);
E. Drouin, _Revue archeol_. xliv. (1882); T. Mommsen, _Geschichte der
roemischen Provinzen_, chap. xiii.; W. Dittenberger, _Orientis Graeci
Inscriptiones selectae_, Nos. 199, 200; Littmann u. Kroncker,
_Vorbericht der deutschen Aksum-Expedition_ (Berlin, 1906), and
Littman's subsequent researches.