ABSTRACT
WAD! ~ALFAH TO KHARTUM. branch of the same race as they themselves. who were indigenous to the province. The princes of Meroe built temples with ante· chapels, pylons, courts, hypostyle halls, sanctuary chambers, etc., taking as their models the temples of Napata, which in turn were copied from the temples of Egypt, and they decorated them with bas-reliefs and scenes, and inscriptions, chiefly in the hieroglyphic character. Their buildings lack the beauty and finish of the temples of Egypt, but many of them must have been grand and impressive. In the time of the Romans, and probably long before, the rule of the kingdom of Meroe seems to have been in the hands of a series of queens, or queen· mothers, each of whom bore the title" Candace." Thus certain legends say that Alexander the Great was entertained in Ethiopia by a queen called Candace; we have also a Candace mentioned in Acts viii. 27; Strabo (Bk. XVII., chap. I, § 54) speaks of the" officers of Candace"; and mentioning Meroe, Pliny says (Bk. VI., 30), "a female, whose name was Candace, ruled over the district, that name having passed from queen to queen for many years." In B.C. 22 the Romans made war upon one Candace who had seized Philre, the Island of Elephantine, and Syene, and enslaved the inhabitants. The Roman general attacked her forces with 10,000 infantry and 800 horse, and, having captured one city after another, advanced as far as Napata, at the foot of the Fourth Cataract, i.e., nearly 700 miles from Syene. Both Strabo (XVII., I, § 54) and Pliny (VI., 35) say that he destroyed Napata, but the former declares that he then returned to Alexandria, whilst the latter tells us that the extreme distance to which he penetrated beyond Syene was" DCCCLXX. mil. passulllll," or about 970 miles. If Petroni us marched so far, he nlllst have reached the Island of Meroe. Napata having been laid waste, it se('ms that the Nubian princes withdrew further south, and either consolidated an old kingdom or founded a new one at Meroe. The Romans appear to have main.
