ANXIENT KINGS OF ARABIA. 113 



One of the few Christians that escaped applied 

 for revenge to the Nayash or King- of Abyssinia, 

 who was a Christian, urging him to undertake the 

 invasion of Yemen. An army of 70,000 men was 

 accordingly despatched, under the command of his 

 son Aryat, with injunctions to put to death every 

 Jew, to pillage a third part of the country, and take 

 captive a third part of the women and children. On 

 landing at Aden, Aryat burnt his ships, — a signal to 

 his troops that they must conquer or perish. Weak- 

 ened by dissensions, and taken unawares, the Arabs 

 were routed with great slaughter. Dunowas fled, 

 and finding himself pursued, he spurred his horse to 

 a rocky precipice, and threw himself into the sea ; 

 preferring a Avatery grave to the chains of the 

 Ethiopian victor. The vengeance of the Christians 

 thus proved fatal to the independence of Yemen. 

 Two princes of the Hamyarite line, Dujadan and 

 Dujazen, made an unsuccessful struggle to regain 

 the sovereignty ; but that ancient dynasty had lost 

 the sceptre for ever, which was now transferred to 

 the hand of an Abyssinian conqueror. Such is the 

 accoimt which the Arabian authors give of this 

 famous invasion. The chronicles of Abyssinia, 

 however, distinctly mention an earlier expedition 

 across the Red Sea. The inscription at Axum, dis- 

 covered by Mr. Salt, records that the reigning mon- 

 arch there, Aizanas, had sent his two brothers into 

 Arabia prior to the year 327, who subdued the 

 Homerites, with several other tribes, and carried 

 away a great number of captives, with their sheep, 

 oxen, and beasts of burden ; and these he established 

 as a colony, at a place called Matara, in his new 

 dominions. The final subjugation of Yemen is that 

 referred to in our narrative, and is placed by the 

 chronology' of both countries in the time of Anas- 

 tasius andhis successor Justin. Cosmas, who \is- 

 ited Adulis in the reign of the latter emperor, states 

 that Elesbaan or Caleb Negus (the navash of the 



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