ETHIOPIA or AETHIOPIA (Gr. AiOtoiria), the ancient name for a district of north-eastern Africa, bordering Egypt and the Red Sea ; also the official name for modern Abyssinia (for topography and history see ABYSSINIA). In the Homeric poems, the Aethiopes are the furthest of mankind; the gods go to their ban quets and probably the Sun sets in their country. With the growth of scientific geography, they came to be located less vaguely, and their name was employed as the equivalent of the Hebrew Cush (q.v.), the Kesh or Ekosh of the Hieroglyphics, i.e., a country extending from about the 24th to the loth degree of N. lat. The etymology of the name, which to a Greek ear meant "Swarthy faced," is unknown. In official inscriptions of the Axumite dynasty the word is used as the equivalent of Habashat (whence Abys sinia), rendered by the Greek geographers Abaseni and Abissa.
The inhabitants of Ethiopia attracted the attention of many Greek researchers. Herodotus (vii. 7o) divides them into two main groups, a straight-haired race and a woolly-haired race, dwelling respectively to the east and west, and this distinction is confirmed by the Egyptian monuments. The bulk of our in formation is derived from Egyptian monuments, whence it appears that, originally occupied by independent tribes, who were raided and gradually subjected qy Egyptian kings (see E. W. Budge, The Egyptian Sudan, 1907, i.
et seq.), under the 18th Dynasty it became an Egyptian province, administered by a viceroy, called prince of Kesh, and paying tributes in negroes, oxen, gold, ivory, rare beads, hides and household utensils. The inhabitants fre quently rebelled and were as often subdued ; records of these repeated conquests were set up by the Egyptian kings in the shape of columns and temples.
I 1 th century B.C. ; a state was founded, having for its capital Napata which in time became formidable, and in the middle of the 8th century con quered Egypt ; an Egyptian campaign is recorded in the famous stele of King Pankhi. The fortunes of the Ethiopian (25th) Dynasty belong to the history of Egypt (q.v.). After the Ethio pian yoke had been shaken off by Egypt, about 66o B.C., Ethiopia continued independent, under kings of whom not a few are known from inscriptions. From the evidence of these it has been inferred that the sovereignty became elective; a deputation was sent to Napata, where the chief god Amen selected out of members of the royal family the person who was to succeed, and who became offi cially the god's son. It seems certain that the priestly caste was more influential in Ethiopia than in Egypt both before and after this period. The stele of Harsiotf contains the record of nine expeditions, in the course of which the king subdued various tribes south of Meroe. The stele of Nastasen now in the Berlin Museum, edited by H. Schafer (Leipzig, 1901), contains infor mation concerning the state of the Ethiopian kingdom. Shortly after his accession he was threatened with invasion by Cambyses, the Persian conqueror of Egypt, but destroyed the fleet sent by the invader up the Nile, while (as we learn from Herodotus, iii. 25) the land-force succumbed to famine (see CAMBYSES). The capital was removed from Nanata to Meroe at a distance of 6o camel-hours to the south-east. But Napata retained its importance as the religious metropolis; thither the king went to be crowned, and there too the chief god delivered his oracles. These Ethiopian kings seem to have made no attempt to reconquer Egypt, but were often engaged in wars with the wild tribes of the Sudan. A fresh epoch was inaugurated by Ergamenes, a contemporary of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who massacred the priests at Napata, and destroyed sacerdotal influence, till then so great that the king might at the priests' order be compelled to destroy himself. Prob ably the sovereignty again became hereditary. Occasional notices of Ethiopia occur in Greek and Latin authors, according to which the country came to be ruled by queens named Candace. One of them was involved in war with the Romans in 24 and 23 B.c. ; the land was invaded by C. Petronius, who took the fortress Premis or Ibrim, and sacked the capital (then Napata) ; Augustus, however, ordered the evacuation of the country without even demanding tribute. The stretch of land between Aswan (Syene) and Maharraka (Hiera Sycaminus) was, however, regarded as belonging to the Roman empire, and Roman cohorts were stationed at the latter place. Candace appears to be found as the name of a queen for whom a pyramid was built at Meroe. A great builder was Netekamane, who is represented with his queen Amanetari on temples of Egyptian style at many points up the Nile. In the Roman period the type in sculpture changed from the Egyptian. The figures are obese, especially the women, and have pronounced negro features, and the royal person is loaded with bulging gold ornaments. In the 4th century A.D. the state of Meroe was ravaged by the Abyssinians, and in the 6th century its place was taken by the Christian state of Nubia (see DONGOLA).
The Ethiopians appear to have derived their religion and civili zation from the Egyptians. The royal inscriptions are written in the hieroglyphic character and the Egyptian language. About the time of Ergamenes, a vernacular came to be employed in in scriptions written in a special alphabet of 23 signs in parallel hieroglyphic and cursive forms. The cursive is to be read from right to left, the hieroglyphic, contrary to the Egyptian method, in the direction in which the figures face. It is clear that the forms and values of the signs are largely based on Egyptian writing; but decipherment has not been attained, nor can it be stated to what group the language should be assigned (F. LI. Griffith in MacIver's Areika, 1909, and later researches) .
in Greek authors are collected by P. PaulBibliography.-Notices in Greek authors are collected by P. Paul- itschke, Die geographische Er f orschung des afrikanischen Continents (Vienna, 188o) . See also J. H. Breasted, "The Monuments of Sudanese Nubia," in American Journal of Semitic Languages (Oct. 1908), and the work of E. W. Budge. A description of the chief ruins and the results of Dr. D. R. Maclver's researches in northern Nubia, begun in i9o7, will be found under SUDAN: History.
