| Chapter 1: | Historical and Cultural Background |
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that mention the peoples of Nubia, in order to examine further details that were given—regarding the manners and customs of the indigenous peoples—which might sometimes have been overlooked.
Strabo described the Nobadae as a large tribe living on the left bank of the Nile which was subdivided into separate kingdoms. He referred to the Nobadae as “nomads and brigands”, a term which is later echoed by Ammianus Marcellinus, who called the Blemmyes a “dangerous tribe” and stated that all the members of the tribe were warriors (Ammianus Marcellinus, trans. Rolfe 1935, XIV. 4. 3–7). Pliny, however, writing in the last half of the first century AD, recorded that the Nubians inhabited a town on the Nile called Tenupsis. Ammianus Marcellinus, writing in the second half of the fourth century AD, offered an account of the subsistence, social organisation, and even the appearance of the Blemmyes. The tribe was described as being nomadic, with no permanent base, nor any inclination towards agriculture. Instead, the people were said to eat a large amount of game, plants, and fowl and drink lots of milk. Their nomadic existence was aided by the possession of both horses and camels. The people themselves were apparently naked, apart from the wearing of a dyed cloak worn down to the waist (Ammianus Marcellinus, trans. Rolfe 1935, XIV. 4. 3–7). The Greek poetic account known as The Blemmyan War, dating from the end of the third century to the middle of the fifth century AD, recorded that an unidentified victor named Germanus attacked the Blemmyes’ “tents and fences” (FHN 1998, 1183–1184).
Procopius wrote about the Blemmyes and Nobadae in book seventeen of his History of the Wars, which he undertook in his position as the