Nonnosus () was an ambassador sent by the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

emperor

Justinian I Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...

to the ruler of Kinda in central Arabia and then to Aksumites and Himyarites in the year 530 CE. He wrote an account of that visit, now lost, that was read and summarized by Byzantine patriarch

Photius Photius I of Constantinople (, ''Phōtios''; 815 – 6 February 893), also spelled ''Photius''Fr. Justin Taylor, essay "Canon Law in the Age of the Fathers" (published in Jordan Hite, T.O.R., and Daniel J. Ward, O.S.B., "Readings, Cases, Mate ...

in Codex 3 of his Bibliotheca. According to Photius, the report emphasized the courage of Nonnosus in hazardous situations and contained information on the religion and language of the

Arabs Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...

. Nonnosus entered Ethiopia through the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

port city of

Adulis Adulis (Sabaic, Sabaean: 𐩱 𐩵 𐩡 𐩪, , ) was an ancient city along the Red Sea in the Gulf of Zula, about south of Massawa. Its ruins lie within the modern Eritrean list of cities in Eritrea, city of Zula. It was the emporium (antiquit ...

and journeyed overland to Axum. He described Aksum as a "very large city" and the capital of Aethiopia. He described seeing a herd of 5000 elephants in the vicinity of Aua, between Adulis and Axum. He also mentions meeting

pygmies In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a po ...

on the islands of Farasan. Nonnosus' father Abraham had been an ambassador to the Arabs, and his uncle, also named Nonnosus, had been sent on an embassy by the emperor Anastasius I. The mid-6th century Chronicle of Ioannis Malalas (Book 18.457) and the later chronicle of Theophanes include, without citing their source, a detailed description probably derived from Nonnosus' account of his meeting with the Axumite ruler. Malalas names him as Elesboas and calls him king of the Indians, while Theophanes names him as Arethas and identifies him as king of the Ethiopians. According to Malalas, the Byzantine ambassador performed

proskynesis Proskynesis (), also called proscynesis () or proskinesis (; ; ), was a solemn gesture of respect towards gods and people in many societies. Among the Persians, it referred to a man prostrating himself and kissing the land or the limbs of a r ...

and was warmly received by the king, who was mounted on a spectacular gilded platform atop four elephants yoked together. The Axumite ruler, eager for good relations with Justinian, kissed the imperial seal on the letter Nonnosus presented, and agreed to wage war on the Persians on Justinian's behalf (this is not found in the sources, instead it is Nonnosus who kisses Kaleb's ring). In practice, however, Nonnosus' embassy failed to generate any significant military contribution by the Axumites.Bowersock, G.W, ''The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam'' (Oxford University Press 2013), p. 109

Notes

References

*Karl Otfried Müller, Theodor Müller, Letronne (Antoine-Jean, M.) (eds.): Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, Volume 4. (Paris, 1860), preserves the original Greek text and gives a Latin translation. It may be accessed onlin
here
Freese's 1920 English translation of Photius's summary of Nonnosus is online a
ToposText
6th-century Byzantine historians Byzantine diplomats Justinian I 6th-century diplomats {{Byzantine-bio-stub