46 THE BEGA, THE BLEMYES 1. 3. xxv.
XXV But about 340-350 A.D., as we learn from one of the Axumite
inscriptions^ an expedition was made by Aeizanes or Aizana, the
powerful king of Axum, against the ruler of the Nuba in the Island
of Meroe on account of his aggressions on the frontier
:
-I took the field against him, and arose in the strength of the Lord of the World, and I smote them at the Takaze^ beyond Kamalke. And then when they withdrew themselves to a distance, then followed I [during]
three and twenty days, during which I smote him, and took from him
prisoners and booty, and took away from where the prisoners dwelt, booty, and during which my people returned who had gone to the war, and during which I burnt their towns of mason work and of straw, and they plundered his crops and his iron and his ore and his copper, and destroyed
the pictures (or statues) in his temple, and the provisions of heaped up
corn, and threw them into the river Seda *.... There were of leaders who perished five, and one priest, and I reached to the Kasu and smote them and annihilated them at the confluence of the rivers Seda and Takaze. And the day after I had arrived I sent out a marauding party... and they
laid waste up the Seda the towns of masonwork and of straw^...and came
was rather heavier 2000 years ago, there would still have been no great surplus. Again, as regards pastoral wealth, the steppes of the Island of Meroe could have supported large herds for most of the year, as they do to-day, but the savagery of the roaming tribes must have made it impossible for flocks from Meroe to be driven for grazing as far afield as they are now, and though " hafirs" were dug to preserve the rain-water supply as long as possible the grass supply would have
failed if large flocks were concentrated all the year on a limited area. See also Reisner in Sudan Notes and Records, Jan. 1919, pp. 50 ff.
^ I follow Bent, pp. 263 et seq. where Dr D. H. Miiller's translation and notes are given. The translation followed by Crowfoot (loc. cit. pp. 36-3S) is that of Littman and Krencker (1906) and diflfers in several particulars. For instance, Crowfoot says the expedition was against the Nuba "zvho had recently conquered the Island of Meroe. It seems that a wave of Negro aggression had lately surged up from the south and overwhelmed the
' Red ' races on the Island and even north of it. The Blacks had captured towns of masonry belonging to the Kasu, occupied them and built towns of grass huts near them, such as the negroes still use; they had harried their neighbours without a cause, and three tim.es they had broken
their word and insulted the envoys of the King of Kings, confident that he would never cross the Atbara. The King recounts how in revenge he had sacked both towns of masonry and towns of grass huts, and sent expeditions up and down the Nile from the point of its junction with the Atbara " Miiller's translation gives no warrant for any recent conquest of the Kasu by newly immigrant Nuba.
^ The following quotation omits several unimportant lines of the original as given by Bent.
^ /.e. the Atbara.
* I.e. the Nile.
* Of the towns of masonwork 'Aloa (i.e. Soba) is mentioned. The first mention of 'Aloa, I believe, is in the stele of Nastasenen, who, according to Reisner's
calculation, ruled from 298 to 278 B.C.: "Amen of Napata...came forth from the Great House, and he made me to be King over Ta-Kenset and Alut and the Nine Tribes who fight with bows and the country on both sides of the river and the Four Quarters of the World" (Budge, n, 98). See Para, xxvni. Crowfoot thinks that by 'Aloa in the inscription of Aeizanes is possibly meant Meroe (see following note); but whenever 'Aloa is mentioned in any context that defines the locality the region round S6ba is always clearly intended. The name