Category Archives: Ethiopians / Kushites / Nubians

Arabians, Trogodytes, and peoples around the Red Sea: Eratosthenes, Artemidoros, and Strabo on their locations and customs (early first century CE)

Arabians: Ammianus Marcellinus on the customs of Saracens (late fourth century CE)

Assyrian / Babylonian wisdom: Sibyl of Babylon on the superiority of the Judean people (second century BCE)

Axumite perspectives: Inscription by the king of Axum on the Ethiopian and Arabian peoples he conquered (late-second or early-third century CE)

Babylonian diasporas: Josephos and other Judeans on legends of migration from Babel (first-second centuries CE)

Barbaria’s inhabitants, Arabians, and Indians: Anonymous author on trade and peoples on the Erythraian sea all the way to eastern India (mid-first century CE)

Barbarian peoples: Hellanikos, Nymphodoros, Nikolaos, and others with collections of “barbarian customs” (fifth century BCE on)

Celts, Ethiopians and peoples in the middle: Polybios, Poseidonios, and Strabo on climate zones (mid-second century on)

Egyptian and Ethiopian diasporas: Diodoros on competing legends of migration and colonization (mid-first century BCE)

Egyptians, Ethiopians, Indians and others: Depictions of “pygmies” in Greek and Roman art (fifth century BCE-first century CE)

Egyptians: Herodotos on customs and legendary kings (fifth century BCE)

Ethiopians and Arabians: Nonnosos on Saracens and on a hairy people (sixth century CE)

Ethiopians and Thracians: Xenophon of Kolophon theorizes human representations of gods (sixth century BCE)

Ethiopians or Nubians: Athenian-style pottery depictions of darker-skinned subjects (sixth-fifth centuries BCE)

Ethiopians or Nubians: Pottery from Athens and Greek cities of Italy depicting a darker-skinned youth devoured by a crocodile (fifth-fourth centuries BCE)

Ethiopians, Nubians, and Egyptians: Christian authors picturing darker-skinned peoples as “demons” (second century CE on)

Ethiopians: Agatharchides and Diodoros on lifestyles and diets in the extreme south (second-first centuries BCE)

Ethiopians: Alexander Polyhistor on Memnonians as wild and war-like (mid-first century BCE)

Ethiopians: Aristokreon on a people ruled by a dog (mid-third century BCE)

Ethiopians: Artapanos and Josephos on Moses, intermarriage, and the Kushites (second century BCE-first century CE)

Ethiopians: Dalion on paradoxical peoples (mid-third century BCE)

Ethiopians: Diodoros on their claims, appearance, and customs (mid-first century BCE)

Ethiopians: Herodotos on southern peoples at the ends of the earth (mid-fifth century BCE)

Ethiopians: Origen on the blackness of Solomon’s and Moses’ Ethiopian wife and on the spiritual Ethiopian (early third century CE)

Ethiopians: Palladios and others on Abba Moses the former bandit with darker skin (fourth-fifth centuries CE)

Ethiopians: Philo of Alexandria on the supposed lowness of Ethiopians and self-control of Assyrians (early first century CE)

Ethiopians: Strabo on a hard lifestyle in a harsh environment (early first century CE)

Germans, Britons, and Indians: Strabo on travelers, soldiers and merchants as sources of information (early first century CE)

Ichthyophagians: Nearchos and Agatharchides on Fish-eaters around the Arabian Sea (fourth-first centuries BCE)

Indian wisdom: Philostratos on Apollonios of Tyana’s journeys to barbarian lands (early third century CE)

Indians, Ethiopians and others: Pliny the Elder on “unbelievable” peoples (first century CE)

Indians, Ethiopians, and Iberians: Poseidonios and Strabo on Eudoxos of Kyzikos’ expeditions (first centuries BCE and CE)

Indians, Ethiopians, Celts, and Scythians: Ephoros on a four-fold division of the known world (mid-fourth century BCE)

Indians: Herodotos on eastern peoples at the ends of the earth (mid-fifth century BCE)

Indians: Palladios and George on naked philosophers or Brahmans (fourth / ninth centuries CE)

Judean wisdom: Eupolemos on contributions by Abraham and Moses (before the mid-first century BCE)

Libyans: Hanno the Carthaginian (fourth century BCE or earlier)

Libyans: Herodotos on customs and colonization (fifth century BCE)

Medes, Assyrians, Baktrians, and others: Herodotos on the mixed composition of the Persian army under Xerxes (fifth century BCE)

Mediterranean peoples: Augustus on his own achievements, conquests and alliances with peoples (14 CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Claudius Ptolemy on astrological effects on peoples (second century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Pausanias, ethnographic interests, and local traditions (mid-second century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Pomponius Mela on peoples of the known world (mid-first century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Pseudo-Aristotle theorizes the meaning of physical features (third century BCE)

Persian and Babylonian wisdom: Pseudo-Demokritos and others on Demokritos’ training by Magians and Chaldeans (first century BCE on)

Phoenicians: Herodotos on customs and colonizing efforts (fifth century BCE)

Scythian wisdom: Plutarch on Anacharsis at the dinner of the seven sages (early second century CE)

Scythians and Ethiopians: Agatharchides and Diodoros theorize about the effects of climate (second-first centuries CE)