I. 3. VIII. AND THE NUBA OF MERGE 37

eastern desert they met in the interior a race of Proto-Egyptian origin

which was more modified in the north by Negro and Armenoid

influences than in the south and which was distinctly akin to the

riverain peoples. It may be added, and further justification will

appear later for the statement, that if there are not traces of Him-

yaritic infusion to be found among the more southernly of these Bega tribes, it is a very remarkable fact.

VII Now in the classical period there are frequent allusions to

a people called the Blemyes on the east bank of the Nile. These

Blemyes have commonly been assumed to represent the same people

as the Bega, but hitherto this has remained "a mere theory, at

present undemonstrated^."

VIII Claudian^ (born c. 365 a.d.), Ammianus Marcellinus^ (c. 320-

390 A.D.), Sulpicius Severus^, Palladius^ and Olympiodorus^ refer to

the Blemyes as close to Syene (Aswan) and the cataracts.

Olympiodorus actually visited their country bet^veen 407 and

425 A.D.: he specifies Primis (Ibrim, 60 to 70 miles below Haifa) as

their last city on the Nile; and the inscription of Silko, who warred

with them in the sixth century, corroborates this^. It is also clear

that they were a race of invaders holding in subjection the older Nubian and negro population^, and practically dominating the whole

of the Thebaid^.

The name of Blemyes was, however, also applied to the desert

nomads, presumably Bega, near the Red Sea, for we read in the Acts

of the Martyrs of Raithe^" of some three hundred Blemyes embarking

about 378 A.D. on a vessel of Aila which they had taken near the

Ethiopian coast and saiHng along the Red Sea to attack Raithe. But

it would not be legitimate to insist for this reason that the nomads of

^ Crowfoot, "The Island of Meroe," Arch. Surv. Nubia, xix, 35.

^ Carmen de Nilo, v, 19:

" Inde vago lapsu Libyam dispersus in omnem

Aethiopum per mille ruit nigrantia regna, Et loca continuo Solis damnata vapore

Inrorat, populisque salus sitientibus errat, Per Meroen, Blemyasque feros, atramque Syenen."

' Bk. XIV, Ch. IV, sect. 3. (Also quoted by Quatremere, 11 {Mem. sur les Blemmyes), from Etymologicon Magnum, p. 13.)

* Vitae Patrum, p. 542 {ap. Quatremere, loc. cit., and Letronne).

* Hist. Lausiac. (ap. Quatremere, loc. cit., and Letronne).

« Ap. Photium, Bibliothec. Cod. Lxxx, p. 194 {ap. Quatremere, loc. cit.).

' See Chap. i.

8 H. R. Hall, Review of the Publications of the E. B. Coxe, Jnr. Expedition

to Nubia, Man, May 1912.

» See Milne, p. 81.

1" Illustrium Christi Martyrum lecti triumphi, pp. 107-109, quoted by Letronne

(loc. cit.) and Quatremere, II, 130 and 133. Raithe is near Sinai.