26 THE NUBIANS, THE NUBA i. 2. xxvii.

The statement of Eusebius that so early as the reign of Constantine (313-337) Christianity had penetrated to the Ethiopians and Blemyes refers to the Abyssinians and Troglodytes converted by Frumentius in the east-, but it is none the less probable that there were Christians in Nubia at the same period, and the record of Cosmus Indicopleustes prove that there were some there in the fifth century.

XXVIII In the sixth century conversion took place on a larger scale. A certain priest named Julianus "...was greatly concerned for the black people of the Nobades, who lived on the southern border of the Thebaid, and as they were heathen he wished to convert them...." He accordingly persuaded Theodora, the Empress of Justinian, to send him on a mission to Nubia, There he "taught and baptized the king and the nobles, and... thus were all the people of Kushites converted to the orthodox faith, and they became subjects of the throne of Alexandria."

By the latter half of the century northern Nubia had been formed into a Christian kingdom under Silko, the king whose Greek inscription was found in the temple of Talmis (Kalabsha). It is not unlikely that he was the actual convert of Julianus, and he was almost certainly the founder of Dongola, which was to remain the capital of Nubia for the seven centuries during which that country barred the progress of the Arabs and their religion from the upper valley of the Nile.

XXIX But when all is said we know very little of the state of affairs in Nubia in Silko's time or of the people over whom he ruled, their racial characteristics, their customs, or their polity.

They were it seems almost continuously at war with the still pagan Blemyes' who occupied the lower valley of the Nile from Primis (Ibrim) to the frontiers of Egypt; and Silko also speaks of his raids against "the others, above [i.e. south of] the Nobadae."

Vit. Constantini, i, 8, ap. Letronne, loc. cit. - See I, i, xx above.

See Butler, note to Abu Salih, pp. 265, 266.

* I.e. the monophysite beliefs. The narrator was a Jacobite or monophysite Christian.

Translated by Budge (il, 295) from the Syriac of Barhebraeus's Ecclesiastical History. Barhebraeus, or Abu el Farag, drew upon the earlier work of John of Ephesus. Letronne quotes Pococke's Latin translation. Budge places Julianus's date between 540 and 548. Barhebraeus elsewhere, speaking inaccurately and in contradiction to the passage quoted, says that in the reign of Constantine were converted "all the negroes, such as Ethiopians, Nubians and others" (see Letronne, loc. cit.).

* So Letronne dates the inscription of Silko.

' The inscription of Silko says: iTroirfaa eip-qvriv fxer' avrwv Kal uifioaav not to. ftSuXa avTwv, " I made peace with them and they swore to me by their idols." They were converted shortly afterwards.

* The Greek is oi d\\"i }i onfidduiv dcwrpw. Budge (ii, 292-3) wrongly translates "the other Nobades": Letronne is correct. These others, "the other kings"