Sembrouthes

Sembrouthes was a king of Axum. He is known only from a single inscription in Greek that was found at Deqemhare or Deqqi Mehari in modern Eritrea, which is dated to his 24th regnal year. He is the first known ruler in the lands later ruled by the Emperor of Ethiopia to adopt the title "King of kings".

S. C. Munro-Hay places his reign in a gap between `DBH and DTWNS, or c.250.¹ However, W.R.O. Hahn, in a study published in 1983, assigns Sembrouthes to the 4th century, between Aphilas and Ezana, and identifies him with Ousanas or "Ella Amida".²

Munro-Hay also suggests that Sembrouthes may have been the ruler who erected the anonymous "Monumentum Adulitanum", an inscription at Adulis that Cosmas Indicopleustes made a copy of for king Kaleb of Axum.³

Notes

# S. C. Munro-Hay, "Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity" (Edinburgh: University Press, 1991), p. 73
# As cited in Munro-Hay, "Excavations at Axum" (London: British Institute in Eastern Africa, 1989), p. 22.
# Munro-Hay, "Aksum", p. 80.