Note 251 — Chapter XII · EGYPT.

Our best information as to the kingdom of Axomis is obtained from a stone erected by one of its kings, beyond doubt in the better period of the empire, at Adulis (C. I. Gr. 5127 b), a sort of writing commemorative of the deeds of this apparent empire-founder in the style of that of Darius at Persepolis, or that of Augustus at Ancyra, and fixed on the king’s throne, before which down to the sixth century criminals were executed. The skilful disquisition of Dillmann (Abh. der Berliner Akademie, 1877, p. 195 f.), explains as much of it as is explicable. From the Roman standpoint it is to be noted that the king does not name the Romans, but clearly has in view their imperial frontiers when he subdues the Tangaites μέχρι τῶν τῆς Αἰγύπτου ὁρίων, and constructs a road ἀπὸ τῶν τῆς ἐμῆς βασιλείας τόπων μέχρι Αἰγύπτου, and further, names as the northern limit of his Arabian expedition Leuce Come, the last Roman station on the Arabian west coast. Hence it follows further, that this inscription is more recent than the Periplus of the Red Sea written under Vespasian; for according to this (c. 5) the king of Axomis rules ἀπὸ τῶν Μοσχοφάγων μέχρι τῆς ἄλλης Βαρβαρίας, and this is to be understood exclusively, since he names in c. 2 the τύραννοι of the Moscophages, and likewise remarks in c. 14, that beyond the Straits of Bab el Mandeb there is no “king,” but only “tyrants.” Thus at that time the Axomitic kingdom did not reach to the Roman frontier, but only to somewhere about Ptolemais “of the chase,” just as in the other direction not to Cape Guardafui, but only as far as the Straits of Bab el Mandeb. Nor does the Periplus speak of possessions of the king of Axomis on the Arabian coast, although he on several occasions mentions the dynasts there.