North African Peoples in the 6th Century #1

Knowledge of anything south of the Sahara was practically non-existent in the Roman empire, or at least in Greco-Roman writings. Nevertheless, a large portion of the empire lay in Africa, and the Romans were very familiar with, among others, the Mauri or Libyans (the later Berbers), the Egyptians (or Copts), the Blemmyes (the ancestors of today's Beja people, as I gather) and the Nobatae or Nubians. Although these were all literate peoples, time has been unkind to their textual productions, except in the case of the Egyptians/Copts. But even without their own histories to counter the Roman ones, it is worthwhile to read the partial accounts that we have, and possible to read them critically. The same is true in the case of a certan East African people described by Nonnosos which cannot be related, as far as I am aware, to any other evidence at all.

Excerpts from the historian Procopius

(All citations from the Loeb translation by H. B. Dewing, published between 1914 and 1940.)

Wars of Justinian 4.10: The origins of the Maurusians

In the context of the war of the Byzantine emperor Justian against the Germanic Vandals ruling North Africa, Procopius naturally comes to speak about the Maurusians (also Mauri, but here translated as "Moors"), an indigenous people who sometimes allied themselves with the Vandals against the Romans. His explanation of their origin is a departure from his more usual classicizing tendencies and lines up more with trends of overtly Christian writings. As a Christian himself, he was of course familiar with the Bible (here called "the history of the Hebrews") and felt that the most reasonable explanation of the presence of a people speaking the Punic or Phoenician language in Africa ("Libya") was that they had fled the Levant when the Hebrews entered the land from Egypt. (Why he thought that the Maurusians, ancestors of today's Berber people, spoke Punic, I will explain shortly.)

And now, since the narration of the history has brought me to this point, it is necessary to tell from the beginning whence the nations of the Moors came to Libya and how they settled there. When the Hebrews had withdrawn from Egypt and had come near the boundaries of Palestine, Moses, a wise man, who was their leader on the journey, died, and the leadership was passed on to Joshua, the son of Nun, who led this people into Palestine, and, by displaying a valour in war greater than that natural to a man, gained possession of the land. And after overthrowing all the nations he easily won the cities, and he seemed to be altogether invincible.

Now at that time the whole country along the sea from Sidon as far as the boundaries of Egypt was called Phoenicia. And one king in ancient times held sway over it, as is agreed by all who have written the earliest accounts of the Phoenicians. In that country there dwelt very populous tribes, the Gergesites and the Jebusites and some others with other names by which they are called in the history of the Hebrews. Now when these nations saw that the invading general was an irresistible prodigy, they emigrated from their ancestral homes and made their way to Egypt, which adjoined their country. And finding there no place sufficient for them to dwell in, since there has been a great population in Aegypt from ancient times, they proceeded to Libya. And they established numerous cities and took possession of the whole of Libya as far as the Pillars of Heracles, and there they have lived even up to my time, using the Phoenician tongue. They also built a fortress in Numidia, where now is the city called Tigisis. In that place are two columns made of white stone near by the great spring, having Phoenician letters cut in them which say in the Phoenician tongue: “We are they who fled from before the face of Joshua, the robber, the son of Nun.”

There were also other nations settled in Libya before the Moors, who on account of having been established there from of old were said to be children of the soil. And because of this they said that Antaeus, their king, who wrestled with Heracles in Clipea, was a son of the earth.

This last paragraph is spun out of nothing other than the myth of Antaeus, unless he is implying a distinction between the ancient Libyans and the later Maurusians (who are really the same people, or a part of the same people).

And in later times those who removed from Phoenicia with Dido came to the inhabitants of Libya as to kinsmen. And they willingly allowed them to found and hold Carthage. But as time went on Carthage became a powerful and populous city. And a battle took place between them and their neighbours, who, as has been said, had come from Palestine before them and are called Moors at the present time, and the Carthaginians defeated them and compelled them to live a very great distance away from Carthage. Later on the Romans gained the supremacy over all of them in war, and settled the Moors at the extremity of the inhabited land of Libya, and made the Carthaginians and the other Libyans subject and tributary to themselves. And after this the Moors won many victories over the Vandals and gained possession of the land now called Mauretania, extending from Gadira as far as the boundaries of Caesarea, as well as the most of Libya which remained. Such, then, is the story of the settlement of the Moors in Libya.

The myth of Dido, the Phoenician queen who founded Carthage, is really sufficient for explaining the presence of Punic-speakers in Africa, insofar as it stands for the colonization of the North African coast by Phoenician settlers. The Maurusians were not primarily speakers of Punic at all, although they adopted the language to communicate with Punic populations, a large portion of which was culturally Phoenician but Maurusian or Libyan by ancestry.

Wars of Justinian 4.8: Stereotypes about deceitful barbarians

But the Moors who dwelt in Byzacium and in Numidia turned to revolt for no good reason, and they decided to break the treaty and to rise suddenly against the Romans. And this was not out of keeping with their peculiar character. For there is among the Moors neither fear of God nor respect for men. For they care not either for oaths or for hostages, even though the hostages chance to be the children or brothers of their leaders. Nor is peace maintained among the Moors by anyother means than by fear of the enemies opposing them.

Wars of Justinian 4.8: Divination

When it came to be expected that the emperor’s expedition would arrive in Libya, the Moors, fearing lest they should receive some harm from it, consulted the oracles of their women. For it is not lawful in this nation for a man to utter oracles, but the women among them as a result of some sacred rites become possessed and foretell the future, no less than any of the ancient oracles. So on that occasion, when they made enquiry, as has been said, the women gave the response: “There shall be a host from the waters, the overthrow of the Vandals, destruction and defeat of the Moors, when the general of the Romans shall come unbearded.” When the Moors heard this, since they saw that the emperor’s army had come from the sea, they began to be in great fear and were quite unwilling to fight in alliance with the Vandals, but they sent to Belisarius and established peace, as has been stated previously, and then remained quiet and waited for the future, to see how it would fall out. And when the power of the Vandals had now come to an end, they sent to the Roman army, investigating whether there was anyone unbearded among them holding an office. And when they saw all wearing full beards, they thought that the oracle did not indicate the present time to them, but one many generations later, interpreting the saying in that way which they themselves wished.

Wars of Justinian 4.6: The Maurusians contrasted with the Germanic Vandals

[O]f all the nations which we know that of the Vandals is the most luxurious, and that of the Moors the most hardy. For the Vandals, since the time when they gained possession of Libya, used to indulge in baths, all of them, every day, and enjoyed a table abounding in all things, the sweetest and best that the earth and sea produce. And they wore gold very generally, and clothed themselves in the Medic garments, which now they call “seric,” and passed their time, thus dressed, in theatres and hippodromes and in other pleasureable pursuits, and above all else in hunting. And they had dancers and mimes and all other things to hear and see which are of a musical nature or otherwise merit attention among men. And the most of them dwelt in parks, which were well supplied with water and trees; and they had great numbers of banquets, and all manner of sexual pleasures were in great vogue among them. But the Moors live in stuffy huts both in winter and in summer and at every other time, never removing from them either because of snow or the heat of the sun or any other discomfort whatever due to nature. And they sleep on the ground, the prosperous among them, if it should so happen, spreading a fleece under themselves. Moreover, it is not customary among them to change their clothing with the seasons, but they wear a thick cloak and a rough shirt at all times. And they have neither bread nor wine nor any other good thing, but they take grain, either wheat or barley, and, without boiling it or grinding it to flour or barley-meal, they eat it in a manner not a whit different from that of animals. 

Since the Moors, then, were of a such a sort, the [Vandal] followers of Gelimer, after living with them for a long time and changing their accustomed manner of life to such a miserable existence, when at last even the necessities of life had failed, held out no longer, but death was thought by them most sweet and slavery by no means disgraceful. 

Buildings of Justinian 6.4: The Leuathae, Eastern Maurusians

When the Emperor Justinian had already taken over the imperial authority, but had not yet undertaken the Vandalic War, the barbarian Moors, those called Leuathae, overpowered the Vandals, who were then masters of Libya, and made Leptis Magna entirely empty of inhabitants. While they were tarrying for a time with their leaders on hilly ground not far from Leptis Magna, they suddenly saw a flame of fire in the middle of the city. Supposing that local enemies had got in there, they ran to the rescue with great speed. Finding no one there, they took the matter to the soothsayers, who, by an inkling of what has since happened, predicted that Leptis Magna would soon be inhabited again. Not long after that the Emperor’s army came and occupied both Tripolis and the rest of Libya, gaining ascendancy over both the Vandals and the Moors in the war.

However, I shall return to the point at which I digressed from my account. In this city the Emperor Justinian also built public baths, and he erected the circuit-wall of the city from its lowest foundations, and by means both of the baths and of all the other improvements gave it the character of a city. The barbarians who live close by, those called Gadabitani, who up to that time were exceedingly addicted to what is called the Greek form of atheism, he has now made zealous Christians.

"Atheism" here means godlessness in a moral sense, not 'belief that there are zero gods'. The Gadabitani, I suppose, are another proto-Berber people.

Wars of Justinian 10.21: The Leuathae

And [the Roman general] Solomon, [...] fearing the multitude of the barbarians, [...] sent to the leaders of the Leuathae, reproaching them because, while at peace with the Romans, they had taken up arms and come against them, and demanding that they should confirm the peace existing between the two peoples, and he promised to swear the most dread oaths, that he would hold no remembrance of what they had done. But the barbarians, mocking his words, said that he would of course swear by the sacred writings of the Christians, which they are accustomed to call Gospels. Now since [the Roman official] Sergius had once taken these oaths and then had slain those who trusted in them, it was their desire to go into battle and make a test of these same sacred writings, to see what sort of power they had against the perjurers, in order that they might first have absolute confidence in them before they finally entered into the agreement. When Solomon heard this, he made his preparations for the combat.

Buildings of Justinian 6.1-2: Egypt and Cyrene

If I had to name one topic that fascinated Greco-Roman litterati more than any other, it would be the question of the source of the Nile. It is no wonder then that Procopius begins his description of Egypt with a wonderfully speculative explanation of this:

The Nile River, flowing out of India into Egypt, divides that land into two parts as far as the sea. The land, thus divided by the stream, is thenceforth designated by two separate names: the region on the right of the river is called Asia as far as Colchian Phasis, which divides Asia from the continent of Europe, or even all the way to the Cimmerian Strait and the River Tanaïs. [...] And the land on the left of the Nile bears the name of Libya as far as the Ocean, which on the west marks the boundary between the two continents by sending out a certain arm which opens out into this sea of ours. All the rest of Libya has received several different names, each region being designated, presumably, by the name of the people who dwell there. However, the territory extending from the confines of Alexandria as far as the cities of Cyrenê, comprising the Pentapolis, is now the only region which is called by the name of Libya. In that territory is a city one day’s journey distant from Alexandria, Taphosiris by name, where they say that the god of the Egyptians, Osiris, was buried. In this city the Emperor Justinian built many things, and in particular the residences of the magistrates and baths.

Unlike in Herodotus' usage, where Libya includes all of Egypt, Procopius only calls the land to the West of the Nile by this name, and then further limits it to Cyrene, a coastal region just to the west of Egypt where Greek colonialization had produced powerful cities that depended on hinterland populated by Libyans (proto-Berbers) and trade links with Egypt. These Eastern Libyans had formed a hybrid culture with the Egyptians long before Greeks arrived, and their god Ammon had long become a popular god in all of Egypt, as he also became among the Greeks (who assimilated him to Zeus):

There from ancient times there have been shrines dedicated to Ammon and to Alexander the Macedonian. The natives actually used to make sacrifices to them even up to the reign of Justinian. In this place there was a great throng of those called temple-slaves. But now the Emperor has made provision, not alone for the safety of the persons of his subjects, but he has also made it his concern to save their souls, be thus he has cared in every way for the people living there. Indeed he by no means neglected to take thought for their material interests in an exceptional way, and also he has taught them the doctrine of the true faith, making the whole population Christians and bringing about a transformation of their polluted ancestral customs. Moreover he built for them a Church of the Mother of God to be a guardian of the safety of the cities and of the true faith. So much, then, for this. 

The city of Boreium, which lies near the barbarian Moors, has never been subject to tribute up to the present time, nor have any collectors of tribute or taxes come to it since the creation of man. The Jews had lived close by from ancient times, and they had an ancient temple there also, which they revered and honoured especially, since it was built, as they say, by Solomon, while he was ruling over the Hebrew nation. But the Emperor Justinian brought it about that all these too changed their ancestral worship and have become Christians, and he transformed their temple into a church.

The distinction of the Libyans from the Maurusians, whom Procopius (as we saw) considered Phoenician, is not entirely unfounded, as there were no doubt great regional differences, but they were certainly not as radical as he believed, or had only become so in the more recent past.

Here are the boundaries of Tripolis, as it is called. It is inhabited by the barbarian Moors, a Phoenician race. Here too is a city, Cidamê by name; and in it live Moors who have been at peace with the Romans from ancient times. All these were won over by the Emperor Justinian and voluntarily adopted the Christian doctrine. These Moors are now called pacati, because they have a permanent treaty with the Romans; for peace they call pacem in the Latin tongue.

Wars of Justinian 10.19: The Blem(m)yes

Although best known in the Middle Ages and today as fantastic headless quasi-humans, as described by Pliny the Elder, in antiquity, the Blemmyes were generally known as an ordinary people, living, like the Nobatae, in the south or to the south of Egypt. In the vaguest terms, they were Aethiopians, i.e. black-skinned, and inhabitants of Aethiopia, which represented another division of Africa alongside Libya (or Africa proper, roughly the modern Maghreb), Egypt. In a narrower secondary sense, however, Aethiopia could also mean the predecessor state of modern Ethiopia, on which see below. Procopius describes the relations of the Blemyes with the Roman empire in the following terms:

From the city of Auxomis to the Aegyptian boundaries of the Roman domain, where the city called Elephantine is situated, is a journey of thirty days for an unencumbered traveller. Within that space many nations are settled, and among them the Blemyes and the Nobatae, who are very large nations. But the Blemyes dwell in the central portion of the country, while the Nobatae possess the territory about the River Nile. Formerly this was not the limit of the Roman empire, but it lay beyond there as far as one would advance in a seven days’ journey; but the Roman Emperor Diocletian came there, and observed that the tribute from these places was of the smallest possible account, since the land is at that point extremely narrow (for rocks rise to an exceedingly great height at no great distance from the Nile and spread over the rest of the country), while a very large body of soldiers had been stationed there from of old, the maintenance of which was an excessive burden upon the public; and at the same time the Nobatae who formerly dwelt about the city of Oasis used to plunder the whole region; so he persuaded these barbarians to move from their own habitations, and to settle along the River Nile, promising to bestow upon them great cities and land both extensive and incomparably better than that which they had previously occupied. For in this way he thought that they would no longer harass the country about Oasis at least, and that they would possess themselves of the land given them, as being their own, and would probably beat off the Blemyes and the other barbarians. And since this pleased the Nobatae, they made the migration immediately, just as Diocletian directed them, and took possession of all the Roman cities and the land on both sides of the river beyond the city of Elephantine. Then it was that this emperor decreed that to them and to the Blemyes a fixed sum of gold should be given every year with the stipulation that they should no longer plunder the land of the Romans. And they receive this gold even up to my time, but none the less they overrun the country there. Thus it seems that with all barbarians there is no means of compelling them to keep faith with the Romans except through the fear of soldiers to hold them in check.

And yet this emperor went so far as to select a certain island in the River Nile close to the city of Elephantine and there construct a very strong fortress in which he established certain temples and altars for the Romans and these barbarians in common, and he settled priests of both nations in this fortress, thinking that the friendship between them would be secure by reason of their sharing the things sacred to them. And for this reason he named the place Philae. Now both these nations, the Blemyes and the Nobatae, believe in all the gods in which the Greeks believe, and they also reverence Isis and Osiris, and not least of all Priapus. But the Blemyes are accustomed also to sacrifice human beings to the sun. These sanctuaries in Philae were kept by these barbarians even up to my time, but the Emperor Justinian decided to tear them down. Accordingly Narses, a Persarmenian by birth, whom I have mentioned before as having deserted to the Romans, being commander of the troops there, tore down the sanctuaries at the emperor’s order, and put the priests under guard and sent the statues to Byzantium. But I shall return to the previous narrative.

Procopius seems to impugn human sacrifice on almost every "barbarian" people, so this detail is not necessarily accurate. On the other hand, it is important to avoid a moralistic view, as if it were absolutely imperative to defend the Blemyes from a barbaric charge like this - the Romans, too, had institutionalized the killing of human beings in various circumstances, and just because they distinguished this sharply from practices of sacrifice, we do not need to universalize this stance.

Whether there was really worship of Priapus at Philae, or whether this was originally intended as a gloss on Osiris by Procopius' source, I do not know. At any rate, the peoples to the south of Egypt had long shared gods and customs with the Egyptians, and there is no reason why centuries of Hellenization in Egypt should have stopped short of them. That Philae was both where the use of Egyptian hieroglyphs lasted the longest (into the 4th century CE) and where some of the latest pagan Greek-language inscriptions are found rather implies the opposite. So the claim that they "believe[d] in all the gods in which the Greeks believe[d]" is reasonably accurate. Or is Procopius just making an off-hand generalization: "They believe in all the gods in which pagans believe"?

(A book on the temple at Philae which I have not yet read but which looks fascinating is Jitse H. F. Dijkstra's Philae and the End of Ancient Egyptian Religion: A Regional Study of Religious Transformation, 298-642 CE, published in 2008.)

Wars of Justinian 1.20: Aethiopia and Western Arabia

Although the history of Judaism and Christianity during the Roman period is often seen as being centered on the empire, Aethiopia was an independent regional power that played an important role in the fortunes of both religions on the Arabian peninsula. The most important sources for this are written in Semitic languages, but Procopius is not to be neglected, either:

At about the time of this war Hellestheaeus, the king of the Aethiopians, who was a Christian and a most devoted adherent of this faith, discovered that a number of the Homeritae on the opposite [Arabian] mainland were oppressing the Christians there outrageously; many of these rascals were Jews, and many of them held in reverence the old faith [gr. doxa] which men of the present day call Hellenic. He therefore collected a fleet of ships and an army and came against them, and he conquered them in battle and slew both the king and many of the Homeritae. He then set up in his stead a Christian king, a Homerite by birth, by name Esimiphaeus, and, after ordaining that he should pay a tribute to the Aethiopians every year, he returned to his home. In this Aethiopian army many slaves and all who were readily disposed to crime were quite unwilling to follow the king back, but were left behind and remained there because of their desire for the land of the Homeritae; for it is an extremely goodly land. These fellows at a time not long after this, in company with certain others, rose against the king Esimiphaeus and put him in confinement in one of the fortresses there, and established another king over the Homeritae, Abramus by name. Now this Abramus was a Christian, but a slave of a Roman citizen who was engaged in the business of shipping in the city of Adulis in Aethiopia. When Hellestheaeus learned this, he was eager to punish Abramus together with those who had revolted with him for their injustice to Esimiphaeus, and he sent against them an army of three thousand men with one of his relatives as commander. This army, once there, was no longer willing to return home, but they wished to remain where they were in a goodly land, and so without the knowledge of their commander they opened negotiations with Abramus; then when they came to an engagement with their opponents, just as the fighting began, they killed their commander and joined the ranks of the enemy, and so remained there. But Hellestheaeus was greatly moved with anger and sent still another army against them; this force engaged with Abramus and his men, and, after suffering a severe defeat in the battle, straightway returned home. Thereafter the king of the Aethiopians became afraid, and sent no further expeditions against Abramus. After the death of Hellestheaeus, Abramus agreed to pay tribute to the king of the Aethiopians who succeeded him, and in this way he strengthened his rule. But this happened at a later time.

What is especially interesting here from the perspective of European intellectual history is that he applies the name "Hellenic", as a contrary to Christian (or Jewish), to an Arab people that had been relatively lightly touched by Greek influence. As Christianity was universal, so its Other, paganism (in Latin terms) or Hellenism, was the foe it had to overcome in all places. One note, however: doxa generally means something more like 'opinion, philosophical teaching' than 'faith'.

The account continues:

At that time, when Hellestheaeus was reigning over the Aethiopians, and Esimiphaeus over the Homeritae, the Emperor Justinian sent an ambassador, Julianus, demanding that both nations on account of their community of religion [gr. doxa] should make common cause with the Romans in the war against the Persians; for he purposed that the Aethiopians, by purchasing silk from India and selling it among the Romans, might themselves gain much money, while causing the Romans to profit in only one way, namely, that they be no longer compelled to pay over their money to their enemy. (This is the silk of which they are accustomed to make the garments which of old the Greeks called Medic, but which at the present time they name “seric”). [...] Later on Abramus too, when at length he had established his power most securely, promised the Emperor Justinian many times to invade the land of Persia, but only once began the journey and then straightway turned back. Such then were the relations which the Romans had with the Aethiopians and the Homeritae. 

Olympiodorus on the Blemmyes (early 5th century)

The historian Olympiodorus' work is lost, except for a short selection of paraphrased and quoted passages preserved in the Bibliotheca of the Byzantine Photius. What remains of his account of the Blemmyes gives a concentrated impression of the way that different cultures overlapped in antiquity:

Our historian says that while he was conducting inquiries in [Egyptian] Thebes and Syene the chieftains and diviners of the barbarians around Talmis [Kalabsha in modern Egypt], the Blemmyes, expressed a desire to meet him, because his reputation attracted them. 'They took me,' he says, 'to Talmis itself, so that I could investigate that region as well, five days journey from Philae, as far as the town called Prima, which in antiquity was the first city of the Thebaid as one arrived from barbarian territory. Hence the Romans called it in Latin Prima, meaning "first", and it is still so called despite having been in barbarian hands for a long time, as have four other towns, Phoinikon, Khiris, Thapis, Talmis.'

He says he learned of emerald mines in this region, which gave the Egyptian kings an abundant supply. 'These', he says, 'the barbarian diviners invited me to visit; but this was impossible without an imperial permit.'

This translation (N. G. Wilson's The Bibliotheca: A Selection, 1994) can serve as an example of the subtle ways in which English translations racialize originally neutral language. The term phylarkhos, here translated as "chieftain", does mean 'ruler of a tribe', but only if one takes tribe in a very general sense. For example, the citizens of Rome were divided into three tribes. The word translated as "diviner", prophêtês, means a prestigious priest, such as the highest office of a great Egyptian temple. In other words, the connotations of primitivity are a result of translation choices and the coloniality of the English language, not of ancient chauvinism.

Nonnosos on an East African People (6th century)

While the Romans often had simplistic, even offensive views of the "barbarians" they knew, accounts of more distant peoples are much more likely to contain the sort of language that would be taken up in European racism from the Early Modern period. The following passage, again extant only in the paraphrase by Photius, shows how difference could be translated into inferiority when translation (literally and metaphorically) was unavailable:

While Nonnosos was sailing away from Pharsan [an Aethiopian town] and had reached the last of the islands, he had an experience which is remarkable even when reported. He met some people of human shape and appearance, very short in stature and of black skin, their bodies entirely covered by hair. The men were followed by similar women and children, even smaller than the men. They were all naked, except that the adults, men and women alike, covered their private parts with a small piece of hide. They did not behave at all fiercely or savagely; they had human voices, but their language was unknown to all their neighbours and even more so to Nonnosos. They lived off shell-fish and other fish cast up on the island by the sea. They had no courage, and at the mere sight of men like us they cowered as we do when confronted by the larger wild animals. (transl. N. G. Wilson)