Volume 1

A dictionary of Greek and Roman geography / by various writers ; edited by William Smith.

Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dictionary of Greek and Roman geography / by various writers ; edited by William Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    79/1140 (page 57)
    AESYME. should be found of it; it is therefure probable that we should read Asculum. [E. H. B.] AESYME. [Oesymb.] AETHAEA (Ai0aia: Eth. Aldaievs), a town of Messenia of unknown site, the inhabitants of which revolted from Sparta with the Thuriatae in B. c. 464. (Thuc. i. 101; Steph. B. s. w.) AETHI'CES, a barbarous Epirot clan, who lived by robbery, are placed by Strabo on the Thessalian side of Pindus. They are mentioned by Homer, who relates that the Centaurs, expelled by Peirithous from Mt. Pelion, took refuge among the Aethices. (Horn. II. ii. 744; Strab. pp. 327, 434; Steph. B. s. V. Aidma.) AETHIO'PIA (•^ aIOiottIu, Herod, iii. 114; Dion Cass. liv. 5; Strab. pp. 2, 31, 38, &c.; Plin. H. N. V. 8. § 8, vi. 30. § 35; Seneca, Q,. N. iv. 2, &c.; Steph. B.: Eth. AidioiJ/, Aldioireis, Aethiops, fern. AWiottis: Adj. AidioTTiKos, Aethiopicus: the Kush of the Hebrews, Ezech. xxxix. 10; Job. xxviii. 19; Amos ix. 7), corresponds, in its more extended ac- ceptation, to the modem regions of Nubia, Sennaar, Kordofan and northern Abyssinia. In describing Aethiopia however, we must distinguish between the employment of the name as an ethnic or generic designation on the one hand, and, on the other, as restricted to the province or kuigdom of Meroe, or the civilised Aethiopia (ji AlQioma virep Aiyvirrov, or inrb Atyvnrov, Herod, ii. 146; Ptol. iv. 7.) Aethiopia, as a generic or ethnic designation, comprises the inhabitants of Africa who dwelt be- tween the equator, the Eed Sea, and the Atlantic, for Strabo speaks of Hesperian Aethiopians S. of the Pharusii and Mauri, and Herodotus (iv. 197) de- scribes them as occupying the whole of South Libya. The name Aethiopians is probably Semitic, and if indigenous, certainly so, since the Aethiopic language is pure Semitic. Mr. Salt says that to this day the Abyssinians call themselves Itiopjawan. The Greek geographers however derived the name from — &\l/, and applied it to all the sun-burnt dark-com- plexioned races above Egypt. Herodotus (iii. 94, vii. 70) indeed speaks of Aethiopians of Asia, whom he probably so designated from their being of a darker hue than their immediate neighbours. Like the Aethiopians of the Nile, they were tributary to Persia in the reign of Darius. They were a straight-haired race, while their Libyan namesakes were, according to the historian, woolly-haired. But the expression (ovASraroy rpixccpa) must not be constmed too literally, as neither the ancient Aethiopians, as de- pictured on the monuments, nor their modern repre- sentatives, the Bishfiries and Shangallas, have, strictly speaking, the negro-hair. The Asiatic Aethiopians were an equestrian people, wearing crests and head armour made of the hide and manes of horses. From Herodotus (1. c.) we infer that they were a Mongolic race, isolated in the steppes of Kurdistan. The boundaries of the African Aethiopians are ne- cessarily indefinite. If they were, as seems probable, the ancestors of the Shangallas, Bishdries, and Nu ■ bians, their frontiers may be loosely stated as to the S. the Abyssinian Highlands, to the W. the Libyan desert, to the N. Egypt and Marmarica, and to the E. the Indian Ocean and the Eed Sea. The boun- daries of Aethiopia Proper, or Meroe, will admit of more particular detinition. Their Eastern frontier however being a coast line may be described. It extended from lat. 9 to lat. 24 N. Beginning at the headland of Prasum {Cape del Gardo), where Africa Barbaria commences, we AETHIOPIA. 57 come successively upon the promontory of Ehaptum {'PaTcrdv opos'). Noli Cornu (Notok Kepas'), Point Zingis {Ziyyis), Aromata {apufxaTcoy aupov: Cape Quardafui), the easternmost point of Africa; tlie headland of Elephas (’EAetpas: Djebel Feeh or Cape Felix)', Mnemium {Mvr]p.e7ov: Cape Calmez), the extreme spur of Mt. Isium (IfTioi^ tiiially, the headland of Bazium, a little to the south of the Sinus Immundus, or Foul Bay, nearly in the parallel of Syene. The coast line was much indented, ami contained some good harbours, Avaliticus Sinu,*:', Aduliticus Sinus, &c., which in the Macedonian era, if not earlier, were the emporia of an active commerce both with Arabia and Libya. (Ptol.; Strabo; Plin.) From the headland of Bazium to Mount Zingis, a barrier of primitive rocks intermingled with basalt and limestone extends and rises to a height of 8000 feet in some parts. In the north of this range wei-e the gold mines, from which the Aethiopians derived an abundance of that metal. Aethiopia was thus se- parated from its coast and harbours, which were ac- cessible from the interior only by certain gorges, the caravan roads. The western slope of this range was also steep, and the streams were rapid and often dried up in summer. A tract, called the eastern desert, accordingly intervened between the Arabian hills and the Nile and its tributary the Astaboras. The river system of Aethiopia difiered indeed consi- derably from that of Egypt. The Nile from its junction with the Astaboras or Tacazze presented, during a com*se of nearly 700 miles, alternate rapids and cataracts, so that it was scarcely available for inland navigation. Its fertilising overflow was also much restricted by high escarped banks of limestone, and its alluvial deposit rarely extended two miles on either side of the stream, and more frequently covered only a narrow strip. Near the river dliourra or millet was rudely cultivated, and canals now choked up with sand, show that the Aethiopians practised the art of irrigation. Further from the Nile were pastures and thick jmigle-forests, where, in the rainy seasons, the gadfly prevailed, and drove the herdsmen and their cattle into the Arabian hills. The jungle and swamps abounded vidth wild beasts, and elephants were both caught for sale and used as food by the natives. As rain falls scantily in the north, Aethiopia must have contained a considerable portion of waste land beside its eastern and western deserts. In the south the Abyssinian highlands are the cause of greater hu- midity, and consequently of more general fertility. The whole of this region has at present been very imperfectly explored. The natives who have been for centuries carried off by their northern neigh- bours to the slave-markets are hostile to strangers. Bruce and Burckhardt skirted only the northern and southern borders of Aethiopia above Meroe: jungle fever and wild beasts exclude the traveller from the valleys of the Astapus and Astaboras: and the sands have buried most of the cultivable soil of ancient Aethiopia. Yet it is probable that two thousand yeai's have made few changes in the general aspect of its inhabitants. The population of this vague region was a mixture of Arabian and Libyan races in combination with the genuine Aethiopians. The latter were distinguished by well formed and supple limbs, and by a facial outline resembhng the Caucasian in all but its in- clination to prominent lips and a somewhat sloping forehead. The elongated Nubian eye, depictured on the monuments, is still seen in the Shangallas. As neither Greeks nor Eoinans penetrated beyond Napata,