Gadarat

Gadarat (r. end of the second–beginning of the third century CE) was a king of Aksum who formed an alliance with the Sabaean king ʿAlhān Nahfān. In keeping with the terms of this alliance, Gadarat provided military aid to Sabaʾ at a time when that kingdom went to war with Ḥimyar. In addition to aiding the Sabaeans, Gadarat seems to have engaged in military campaigns of his own along the Red Sea coast of Arabia to the north of Sabaʾ.

The name Gadarat is attested in a series of Sabaic inscriptions from Jabal Riyām, in addition to a Sabaic inscription from Maʾrib and one further Sabaic inscription of unknown provenance, as the name of a king of Aksum who reigned around the end of the second century and the beginning of the third century CE. In its original form, the king’s name can be hypothetically vocalized as Gǝdūrā on the basis of a similar name, Gǝdūr, which occurs in later Ethiopian king-lists, along with such variant forms as Za-Gǝdūr and ʾAgdūr. The vocalization Gadarat follows South Arabianist convention. There is a consensus among scholars that the king named gdrt in Sabaic inscriptions can be identified with an Aksumite mentioned in RIÉth 180 (Drewes 2019: 155–166). This is a short text in consonantal Gǝʿǝz, inscribed on a copper-alloy sickle-shaped object, probably of ritual significance, from ʿĀddī Galamō in northern Ethiopia.

Sabaic inscriptions mentioning Gadarat constitute our main source of information for his reign. Particularly significant is a series of no fewer than 30 inscriptions from the temple of the god Taʾlab Riyām at Jabal Riyām recording, among other events, an alliance between Gadarat and the Sabaean king ʿAlhān Nahfān (r. ca. 195–210 CE). From the extant inscriptions we learn that it was Gadarat, “King of the Ethiopians” (mlk ḥbs²tⁿ) who had initiated this alliance by sending a mission to ʿAlhān Nahfān, and that the two kings “took an oath they in war and peace would act as one against anyone who might rise up against them” (CIH 308/12–13). This pledge of mutual aid was not empty rhetoric, for Nāmī NAG 13–14 (Nami 1965: 60–63), a fragmentary Sabaic inscription of unknown provenance, speaks of a war that involved not only the Sabaean forces and Arab mercenaries of ʿAlhān Nahfān, but also “the qayls and military commanders and tribes of the king of the Ethiopians” (Nāmī NAG 13–14/2, Ryckmans 1969). Although Gadarat is nowhere mentioned by name in Nāmī NAG 13–14, there is no doubt that he is “the king of the Ethiopians” to which the inscription refers. Though there is a lacuna in the passage of Nāmī NAG 13–14 dealing with the target of the war, the reference to “the army of the lineage of Dhū-Raydān” (w-ḫmys¹ bny ḏ-rydn [Nāmī NAG 13–14/3]) indicates that the Himyarites were on the opposing side in the war.

RIÉth 180, the Gəʿəz inscription from ʿĀddī Galamō which is believed to mention the same king Gadarat known from Sabaic inscriptions, may be of relevance to the alliance between Aksum and Sabaʾ. The inscription reads in full gdr ngś ʾksm tbʿl mzlt l-ʾrg w-l-lmq, which can tentatively be translated “(To) Gadarat, King of Aksum, (this) sceptre was handed over by ʾRG/the elders(?) and by (A)lmaqa(h)” (cf. Nebes 2017: 363). Although ʾrg, which could be either a common noun or a proper name, remains obscure, there is reason to suppose that Almaqah, the tutelary god of Sabaʾ, is mentioned by name at the end of RIÉth 180. If this interpretation is correct, it might be hypothesized that Almaqah was invoked as a gesture of goodwill towards Sabaʾ. Such a scenario would, in turn, fit well with the alliance which Gadarat established with the Sabaean king ʿAlhān Nahfān. The alliance between the two rulers may shed light on another, far more extensive Aksumite inscription known as Monumentum Adulitanum II or by the siglum RIÉth 277 (Bukharin 2009–10; Bowersock 2013). Inscribed in Greek on the face of a monumental stone throne at the Aksumite trading centre of Adulis, Monumentum Adulitanum II records a series of military campaigns waged by a king on both sides of the Red Sea. Although the original inscription has never been found, the text was copied ca. 518 by the traveller Cosmas Indicopleustes, who included the text in his Christian Topography (Bernand 1991: 378–382). The opening lines of the text, including the name of the king who erected Monumentum Adulitanum II, are not preserved in Cosmas’ copy, though the fact that the inscription formed part of a symbolic throne is in line with Aksumite tradition, as are the invocations of Zeus, Ares, and Poseidon as Greek stand-ins for the Aksumite divine triad of ʿAstar, Maḥrəm, and Bāḥr/Bəḥēr respectively. Although Monumentum Adulitanum II is primarily concerned with campaigns in Northeast Africa, the inscription records a further campaign that targeted the Red Sea of the Arabian Peninsula, covering an area that stretched from the port of Leuke Kome (maybe ʿAynūna) in the north to the border of the Sabaean realm in the south. Although Sabaʾ lay within much easier reach of Aksum – and would have offered far more abundant spoils of war – than more northerly regions of Arabia, the fact that Monumentum Adulitanum II makes no mention of an attack on Sabaʾ is explicable if one assumes that Aksum was on good terms with the Sabaeans at the time. Gadarat’s alliance with ʿAlhān Nahfān again provides a suitable context for this state of affairs, in which case the case can be made for identifying Gadarat with the king who erected Monumentum Adulitanum II.

During the reign of ʿAlhān Nahfān’s son and successor Shaʿr Awtar (ca. 210-230), relations with Gadarat were initially amicable. In Ja 631 from Maʾrib, we read that Shaʿr Awtar sent one Quṭbān Awkān on a diplomatic mission to Gadarat, “King of the Ethiopians and the Aksumites”. Although we are not informed of the issues which Quṭbān Awkān discussed with Gadarat, the Sabaean diplomat is reported to have returned to Shaʿr Awtar bearing “a favourable response” (mṯbt ṣdq^m) from the Ethiopian king. At this point in the inscription, Gadarat is referred to as a nagāśī (Sabaic ngs²yⁿ), a Gəʿəz title for king attested in the variant form ngś (vocalized Gəʿəz nəgūś) in RIÉth 180. Though Quṭbān ʾAwkān relayed a response from Gadarat that Shaʿr Awtar viewed positively, relations between Aksum and Sabaʾ soon turned hostile. This was due primarily to the fact that Sabaʾ and Ḥimyar, which had been enemies during the reign of ʿAlhān Nahfān, had mended ties and re-established a long-defunct union, as signalled by the fact that, in a Sabaic inscription (Ja 631), the Himyarite king of the time, Liʿazīz Yuhanif Yuhaṣdiq (r. ca. 220–235 CE) is mentioned with the title “King of Sabaʾ and Dhū-Raydān”, signifying rulership over the Sabaean and Himyarite realms. This development was evidently not well received in Aksum for, before Shaʿr Awtar’s reign had ended, Quṭbān ʾAwkān led a Sabaean force against the Aksumites “when Baygat, son of the nagāśī, and the troops of the Ethiopians marched forth and advanced against the town of Ẓafār” (Ja 631/20–22). Ja 631 does not specify why the Aksumites targeted the Himyarite capital of Ẓafār, though it is likely that they wished to effect a regime change there. If so, their efforts were in vain, for once the army of Liʿazīz Yuhanif Yuhaṣdiq joined up with that commanded by Quṭbān ʾAwkān, the combined force caused the Aksumites to retreat.

George Hatke

References and suggested reading

Sources

• Bernand, É. 1991. Les inscriptions de la période axoumite: B. Les inscriptions grecques, in É. Bernand, A.J. Drewes & R. Schneider Recueil des inscriptions de l’Éthiopie des périodes pré-axoumite et axoumite. Tome I: Les documents: 359–393. Paris: De Boccard.
• Drewes, A.J. 2019. Recueil des inscriptions de lʼÉthiopie des périodes pré-axoumite et axoumite. Tome III - Traductions et commentaires. B. Les inscriptions sémitiques (Aethiopische Forschungen, 85). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
• Nami Kh.Y., 1965. Nuquš ʿarabiyya ǧanubiyya 4. Hawliyyat kulliyyat al-Adab, gamaʿat al-Qahira 22(2): 60–63.
• Ryckmans, J. 1969. L’Inscription Sud-Arabe Nami NAG 13-14. Eretz-Israel 9: 102–108.

Studies

• Bowersock, G.W. 2013. The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Bukharin, M.D. 2009-10. Roman Penetration into the Southern Red Sea and the Aksumite Campaign in West Arabia (Reconsideration of the Latin Dedicatory Inscription from the Farasān Archipelago). Part I. Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology 6 & 7: 86–132.
• Nebes, N. 2017. The Inscriptions of the Aksumite King Ḥafil and their Reference to Ethio-Sabaean Sources. ZOrA 10: 356–369.

_{Alternate spellings: Gadarat, Gdrt, Gdr, Gədūrā, Gadur, Gǝdūr}