- Amanirenas
Amanirenas(also spelled Amanirena) was a queen of
Kush . She reigned from about 40 BCE to 10 BCE. She is one of the most famouskandake s, because of her role leading Kushites armies against the Romans from in a war that lasted five years, from 27 BCE to 22 BCE. After an initial victory when she attacked RomanEgypt , Amanirenas was defeated and surrendered. http://www.jstor.org/pss/716999] [http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/XXVIII/CIX/55.pdf African Affairs - Sign In Page ] ] She succeeded in negotiating a peace treaty on favourable terms. Amanirenas was described as brave, and blind in one eye. [http://wysinger.homestead.com/amanirenas.html Candace Amanirenas ] ]Her husband was King Teriteqas, and she appears to have been a
queen consort until his death. Their son was the crown princeAkinidad . When Teriteqas died at the beginning of the war, either or both of Amanirenas and Akinidad succeeded to the throne. [cite book |title=The Cambridge History of Africa |last=Desmond J. Clark, Roland Anthony Oliver, J. D. Fage, G. N. Sanderson, A. D. Roberts, Richard Gray, John Flint, MichaelCrowder |first= |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1975 |publisher=Cambridge UniversityPress |location= |isbn= |pages= ]Roman Conflict
The First Battles
When Aelius Gallus, the chief magistrate of Egypt, was absent on a campaign in Arabia in 24 BC, the Kushites launched an attack on Egypt. Amanirenas, and her son the crown prince Akinidad, defeated Roman forces at Syene and Philae, and drove the Jews from Elephantine Island. [http://www.jstor.org/pss/716999?cookieSet=1] They and returned to Kush with prisoners and loot, including several statues of Emperor Augustus (Jameson 1986: 71-84).
Petronius Nubian Campaign
The Kushites were driven out of Syene later in the year by Gaius Petronius, who now held the office of Roman magistrate in Egypt. According to a detailed report made by Strabo (17: 53-54), the Roman troops advanced far into Kush, and finally reached Napata. Although they withdrew again to the north they left behind a garrison in Qasr Ibrim (Primis), which now became the border of the Roman Empire. The Kushites made a renewed attempt to seize Primis, but Petronius forestalled this attempt.
Following this event, negotiations began. The Meroites sent mediators to Augustus, who was then in Samos, and in the year 21/20 BC. a peace treaty was conducted. It was strikingly favorable to the Meroites in that the southern part of the Thirty-Mile Strip, including Primis, was evacuated by the Romans, and the Meroites were exempted from having to pay tribute to the Emperor. On the other hand, the Romans continued to occupy the Dodekashoinos as a military border zone, so the frontier now lay near Hiere Sycaminos (Maharraqa).
This arrangement continued until the end of the third century AD, the relations between Meroe and Roman Egypt remaining generally peaceful during this time (Hintze 1978 :100). However, the kingdom of Meroë had begun to fade as a power by the first or second century AD, partly as a result of the Roman war. [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/3chapter4.shtml The Story of Africa| BBC World Service ] ]
ee also
*
Kush
*Nubia
*Kandake
*List of monarchs of Kush References
Further reading
*Laszlo Török, in: "Fontes Historiae Nubiorum" Vol. II, p. 723-725 (Bergen, 1996). ISBN 82-91626-01-4
External links
*Snowden, Frank M. Jr., "Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience". The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London England. 1970
* [http://www.guide2womenleaders.com/womeninpower/Womeninpower00000.htm"Women in power 500-B.C. 1" at Guide2womenleaders.com]
* [http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/nubian102.html The treasure of the queen (English)]
* [http://www.muzarp.poznan.pl/muzeum/muz_eng/naga08.htm Stela found in Naqa]
* [http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/PA/EGYPT/BEES/IMAGES/MEROE/II1D3_4.html Chicago Oriental Institute Archive: picture of her destroyed pyramid]
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