AXUM 
187 
clearly made out; for though Baronius* says, that Aizana and Sa- 
zana were " tunc Chris tianos," he had no authority for the assertion, 
except the single circumstance of the emperor's having addressed 
them as such, which is no proof of the fact; and, certainly, the 
very existence of this inscription, leads to great doubt on the ques- 
tion, as it is scarcely possible that on the king's copversion he would 
have permitted such a monument to remain. Besides that, if the 
Adulitic inscription were allowed to be erected by this king in his 
twenty-seventh year, which it appears to me there is good reason 
to suppose, it would be at once decisive against it. Therefore, 
though I venture to fix 330 to be about the period, it is impossible, 
I think, to ascertain the precise date. 
The word a|w/^/r&j/ is conformable to what we find these people 
were, w^ith little variation, styled by Greek and Latin authors, + 
and it is curious, that in their ancient books they called them- 
selves Axumians, which circumstance I had from the priests at 
Axum. 
After the first line, the inscription proceeds to enumerate Aiza- 
na's titles, Kxt rcav Of^vj^iTtav^X and of the Homerites. This is the first 
actual information that we have of the Abyssinians having, at so 
early a period, conquered any part of Arabia {ycut rov Pae;^av),§ and 
of Raeidan. This was a district in Arabia, as appears from an ob- 
scuie verse, extracted out of the poet Amriolkerius's works ; it is 
quoted in a book called " Historia imperii vetutissimi Joctanidarum 
* Vide Bar. Eccle. Annales ad annum 356, n. 23. 
f Vide Nonnosus, ProcopiuSj and the Periplus. 
% We have OjiAj^pirs in the Periplus. 
§ Another instance of f redundant. 
VOL. III. 
