1. 2. xxvir. AND THE LIBYAN ELEMENT 25 Diocletian (284-305 a.d.) as well as paying to both tribes a sort of Dane-geld, gave the Nobatae a tract on the Nile banks and entrusted to them the care of the Dodekaschoinos, the district south of Aswan.

XXVI In The Egyptian Sudan Budge speaks of these Nobatae or Nuba as "a powerful tribe of nomads who lived in the Western Desert" and adds "The Nobatae appear to have come originally from Dar Fur and Kordofan and in Diocletian's time their settlements extended to the oasis of Kharga." Again he says "The people who lived in the deserts on the west of the Nile...were known to classical writers as 'Nubae,' or Nubians, and 'Nobadae' or 'Nobatae.' In Roman times the Nubians consisted of a league of the great tribes of the Western Desert*."

The statement that the settlements of the Nuba extended to the oases of Kharga rests on the remark of Procopius to the effect that the Nobatae who were settled by Diocletian between Egypt and the Blemyes had originally lived "about the city oasis" {i.e. Kharga).

It has been objected that the inhabitants of the oases were undoubtedly of a Libyan stock, and that the Nobatae were essentially a Nilotic race and could not have been so far north, and that therefore Procopius was at fault. But this is a very risky line of argument: there is no proof that the Nobatae were essentially Nilotic, and there is a quite definite probability that the Libyan races, the ancient Temehu, and the Nobatae, whether on the river or west of it, had commingled. Throughout history the nomads of the west, Libyans or Berbers, have maintained an intimate connection with the dwellers in the Nile valley; and there may have been both Libyans and Nobatae at Kharga, or a mixture of the two.

XXVII As regards the religion of these Nubians the evidence is very slight. In 452 A.D., Priscus tells us, a peace was made between Maximin, the Roman general, and the Blemyes and Nubians, and one clause of it stipulated that the Romans should allow the others, according to their ancient custom, to make a journey to Philae and visit the temple of Isis and take thence the statue of the goddess and bring it back after a certain time.

But Christianity had by now begun to find converts in Nubia.

See Evetts, p. 260. -11, 176.

11,417-* In these quotations Budfe' seems to press somewhat ahead of the evidence. To what extent I agree with him will appear later.

hoc. cit. * Hall, Review in Man of May 191 2.

' Fragm. 21 (ed. Miiller) ap. Letronne, Materiaux..., Ii, 205 ff. Priscus is a good authority as he was in Egypt at the time and a friend of the general.