I. 3. XX. AND THE NUBA OF MERGE 43

("Acr/xa;)^), the descendants of the "240,000" mercenaries^ who, having been sent by Psammetichus I (663-609 B.C.) to garrison Upper Egypt against the Ethiopians, deserted to the south and were

granted lands there by the ruler of Ethiopia^. Of these Automoloi Herodotus says: "their acquaintance with Egyptian manners has

tended to civilize the Ethiopians."

XVIII Eratosthenes in the third century B.C. also speaks of the Automoloi, or "Sembritae" as he calls them, and says that their

sovereign was a queen but they recognized the overlordship of Meroe^.

XIX Artemidorus, more than a hundred years later ^, tells of a dis-

trict, probably the country between the present sites of Kassala and

Kallabat, inhabited by the Sembritae, and describes them as ruled by a queen "to whom Meroe also is subject," a statement which, if

true, implies a revolution between the third and the first century B.C. and the overthrow by the southern colonists of the suzerain power

at Meroe^. Conceivably the drastic measures of Ergamenes had not been well received by the people and had proved the cause of the

downfall of his house.

XX Now Ptolemy I came to the throne of Egypt in 323 and his

accession introduced a period of prosperity there. Some portion of

this was reflected in Meroe and Hellenistic ideas began to pervade

that capital and to supplant the older Egyptian influences. This

tendency is apparent in various ohjets d'art that have been unearthed and in the altered style of architecture. Direct evidence of it is also

provided by Diodorus in his story of Ergamenes.

Diodorus®, writing in the time of Julius Caesar and Augustus,

speaks of the Ethiopians of Meroe as the earliest of mankind and

indigenous to the country, and he mentions the Ethiopian custom whereby the king at Meroe used to be ordered by the priests to commit suicide when they became tired of him'. This custom, he

states, continued until the time of the enlightened Ergamenes, Arq Amen, that is^, who was a contemporary of Ptolemy H (284-247 B.C.)

^ They are generally called Egyptians: Maspero thought they were Libyans (Budge, II, 55). ^ Herodotus, ii, 30.

^ Ap. Strabo, p. 786. * Artemidorus wrote about 100 B.C.

* Cp. Crowfoot, Island of Meroe, p. 33. It is conceivable, though purely hypo-

thetical, that it was these southern colonists who transplanted to Meroe the matri- archal system which gave to Ethiopia the line of Candaces. The xmtnlinear system was certainly earlier, as is proved, e.g. by the stele of Aspelut (q.v. Budge, 11, 65), and " mother kin very rarely carries with it ' matriarchy' or the power of the female "

(Farnell, in Quarterly Revieiu, April 1915, p. 482).

* He depends for his facts to a large extent on Agatharcides and Artemidorus.

' Diodorus, ed. Wesselingius, Bk. in, 177.

* See Budge, 11, 109, 112, 115. Apparently Ergamenes survived the second third and fourth Ptolemies also. The last died in 205 B.C.