The Archaeology of Late Antique Sudan: Aesthetics and Identity i ...

given by classical authors concerning the Blemmyes and Nobadae is presented in the following section (the spellings given in each translation are used throughout).

One of the earliest specific references to the Blemmyes and Noubai comes from Strabo's Geography, written in the early first century AD. Here it is stated that the Blemmyes and Noubai (and also the Trogodytes, Megabaroi, and Aithiopians) live to the south of Syene (Aswan) as nomads (FHN 1998, 828–830). The mid- to late third century AD saw some decline in Roman interests in Nubia, not least due to more pressing troubles in Egypt (Adams 2006) and in other areas of the Empire. According to Procopius, the Romans withdrew during the reign of Diocletian. Written accounts of the Blemmyes at this period indicate that they were involved in making repeated attacks on Roman Egypt. Blemmyes are named as captives after the victory of Aurelian in Nubia, but the Blemmyes managed to capture Coptos and Ptolemais before being subsequently expelled in AD 274 by the army of Probus (FHN 1998, 1065–1066).

For two or three decades, the sources are silent with regard to the Blemmyes. The Blemmyes then reappear in Eusebius’ De vita Constantini as people visiting the Emperor at the royal court (Ethiopians are also mentioned), in AD 336 (Schaff 1994–1996). The Blemmye ambassadors visited Constans I and Constantius II in the summer of that year under the protection of a Roman officer, Flavius Abinnaeus (Barnes 1985, 370). It can be argued that the presence of the Blemmyes in Constantinople suggests the existence of an official relationship between the Blemmyan peoples and the Roman court, which was, at this point, cordial. In AD 354 Ammianus Marcellinus enjoyed a peaceful encounter with the Blemmyes, which he recorded in his 31-volume Roman History His account suggests that the Blemmyes held land around the First Cataract (Ammianus Marcellinus, trans. Rolfe 1935, XIV. 4. 1–7).

But from the final quarter of the fourth century, the character of the Blemmyan tribes changed, and they appear in Christian texts as the perpetrators of violent raids in Egypt. In AD 373, the Blemmyes attacked the Western Oases and Sinai. From AD 425–450, the Blemmyes and