Head of Augustus and a Kushite Queen

[guy]

We have had a few discussions before about the extent of the Roman Empire. (See below.)

This breathtaking head of a sculpture of Augustus (at the British Museum) is unusual in many ways. It was found in Meroë, Sudan below the steps of a Kushite temple. The still-intact insert of eyes is unique and stunning.

The background information is interesting, also: 

It is thought that after the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, the Roman Emperor Augustus tried to expand his control beyond Egypt to the neighboring Kushite Empire in modern Sudan. 
 

There, the Romans met fierce resistance and suffered some stunning setbacks. This sculpture head of Augustus is thought to be part of the war booty of a victorious Kushite raid. It was buried in front of a suspected Kushite temple of victory, possibly a symbolic reminder of the triumphant Kushite resistance to Roman incursions. (The head was found in 1912 by a British archaeological team and is currently housed in the British Museum.)

After the death of the Kushite King in battle, the resistance against Rome was then led by his wife Queen Amanirenas (reign 40-10 BCE) and their son. Their son was later also killed in battle, but Amanirenas continued the struggle for independence.

 

Sometime in battle Amanirenas lost her eye. She was, however, still able to lead a stout resistance, forcing Rome to come to a negotiated peace. Unlike Boudicca of the Celtic Iceni or Zenobia of Palmyra, Amanirenas was able to resist the might of Rome and force Rome to recognize the independence of her people.

 

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Queen Amanirenas is one of the most famous kandakes, because of her role leading Kushite armies against the Romans in a war that lasted three years, from 25 BC to 22 BC. After an initial victory when the Kushites attacked Roman Egypt, they were driven out of Egypt by Gaius Petronius, and the Romans established a new frontier at Hiere Sycaminos (Maharraqa). Amanirenas was described as brave, and blind in one eye.

Meroitic, the indigenous language of the kingdom of Kush, remains undeciphered; however, inscriptions giving Queen Amanirenas the title of qore as well as kandake suggest that she was a ruling queen. She is usually considered to be the queen referred to as "Candace" in Strabo's account of the Meroitic war against the Roman Empire. Her name is associated with those of Teriteqas and Akinidad, but the precise relationship between these three is not clear in the historical record.

 

 

Here is Strabo's account of the Roman-Meroitic War from "Geography: Book XVII 54." He refers to Amanirenas as Candacê.

 

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[Petronius] made an attack and forced them to come forth to battle; and he quickly turned them to flight, since they were badly marshalled and badly armed; for they had large oblong shields, and those too made of raw ox-hide, and as weapons some had only axes, others pikes, and others swords. Now some were driven together into the city, others fled into the desert, and others found refuge on a neighbouring island, having waded into the channel, for on account of the current the crocodiles were not numerous there. Among these fugitive were the generals of Queen Candacê [Amanirenas], who was ruler of the Aethiopians in my time — a masculine sort of woman, and blind in one eye. These, one and all, he captured alive, having sailed after them in both rafts and ships, and he sent them forthwith down to Alexandria; and he also attacked Pselchis and captured it; and if the multitude of those who fell in the battle be added to the number of the captives, those who escaped must have been altogether few in number. From Pselchis he went to Premnis, a fortified city, after passing through the sand-dunes, where the army of Cambyses was overwhelmed when a wind-storm struck them; and having made an attack, he took the fortress at the first onset. After this he set out for Napata. This was the royal residence of Candacê; and her son was there, and she herself was residing at a place nearby. But though she sent ambassadors to treat for friendship and offered to give back the captives and the statues brought from Syenê, Petronius attacked and captured Nabata too, from which her son had fled, and razed it to the ground; and having enslaved its inhabitants, he turned back again with the booty, having decided that the regions farther on would be hard to traverse. But he fortified Premnis better, threw in a garrison and food for four hundred men for two years, and set out for Alexandria. As for the captives, he sold some of them as booty, and sent one thousand to Caesar, who had recently returned from Cantabria; and the others died of diseases. Meantime Candacê marched against the garrison with many thousands of men, but Petronius set out to its assistance and arrived at the fortress first; and when he had made the place thoroughly secure by sundry devices, ambassadors came, but [Petronius] bade them go to Caesar; and when they asserted that they did not know who Caesar was or where they should have to go to find him, he gave them escorts; and they went to Samos, since Caesar was there and intended to proceed to Syria from there, after despatching Tiberius to Armenia. And when the ambassadors had obtained everything they pled for, he even remitted the tributes which he had imposed.

 

https://www.rejectedprincesses.com/princesses/amanirenas

Amanirenas - Wikipedia

Unpublished script for a video about the Roman-Meroitic war : Sudan (reddit.com)

https://smarthistory.org/head-of-augustus-at-meroe-kush/

LacusCurtius • Strabo's Geography — Book XVII Chapter 1 (§§ 25‑54) (uchicago.edu)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 16, 2022 by guy