tocratic government than was the case in Numidia. However,
while Numidia was being united politically, in Mauretania
there seemed to have been far more regional autonomy, with
diff erent cities issuing their own coins inscribed in Neo-Pu-
nic, or Carthaginian, which seems to indicate a greater inde-
pendence exercised by regional governors.
SAHARAN AFRICA
Beyond the areas which became parts of the Roman Empire,
the system of government in the rest of Africa is much harder
to defi ne, owing to the lack of written records. A major source
that discusses the people who lived in what is now Saharan
Africa remains Herodotus, who described a number of the
tribes in detail. However, Herodotus is unreliable because he
has been shown to be wrong on other matters, and his de-
tail is more about their customs than how they ruled or were
ruled.
Herodotus begins his discussion of North and Saharan
Africa aft er describing Persian rule over Cyrenaica and Libya.
Th e fi rst place in his account is Adyrmachidae in modern-day
eastern Libya. It was ruled by a king whom Herodotus said
had a right to “any girl who catches his fancy.” Th e neighbor-
ing tribe, the Gilgamae, operated from a summer capital and
a winter headquarters. Other tribes in the area included the
Nasamones, the Psylli, the Garamantes, the Macae, the Gin-
danes, and the Machlydes. Herodotus gives no description
of the government of any of them except for a reference to
the Psylli’s calling of a council meeting to declare war on the
south wind (and whose army is alleged to have disappeared
in a sandstorm), obviously an apocryphal story, but showing
that some tribes had collective decision-making procedures.
For most of the other tribes Herodotus describes their use of
war chariots but nothing about their method of government.
Th e Egyptians and the Romans both tried to trade in the re-
gion but tended to like to deal with other governments rather
than nomadic tribes.
In the Nilotic Sudan and Ethiopia, descriptions from
the ancient Egyptians, a few Roman and Greek accounts,
and some archaeological work have allowed historians to
gain some idea of the style of rule in that area. Certainly the
governments in these regions were heavily infl uenced by de-
velopments in Egypt, a fi nding augmented by surviving in-
scriptions. Th ey were based on rule by kings, in a way similar
but on a less lavish scale than the Egyptian monarchy
In Kush the government centered on a king and his
royal court, who lived apart from the rest of the popula-
tion. Th ere were no fi xed rules on royal descent, so it was
not uncommon for older brothers and people in the mater-
nal line to ascend to the throne. Th is state of aff airs shows
that there was possibly a regency council or similar body
that made the fi nal decision on royal succession. Th ere were
certainly established roles for the Queen Mother, the Queen
Sister, various other royal personages, and many other titled
offi ce bearers. One surviving image in the Indian style of
a king of Kush riding an elephant indicates that the Royal
Court included at least one Indian sculptor. Th e role of the
government in Kush was clearly to defend the population
from attack by outsiders, which included the construction
of defensive walls as well as the raising of armies in time
of war. Th e government also maintained supplies of food,
which could be drawn upon in times of shortage. It was cer-
tainly an eff ective system, and it kept the kingdom together
for nearly a thousand years.
In ancient Ethiopia there have been strong links between
the kingdoms there and those in Egypt, with some evidence
that the two areas were ruled by the same kings in about 2500
b.c.e., with the capital located at Napata, north of modern-
day Sudan. Th is suggests that the governing structures that
came to be used in Ethiopia would have been largely mod-
eled on those of ancient Egypt, with hereditary rulers seen as
divine or semidivine, a ruling class, a middle class of scribes
and merchants, and the remainder of the “free” population
and the slaves.
Th e origins of the kingdom of Axum are believed either
to have come from or to have been very closely linked with
developments in South Arabia. Th e language of government
in Axum was Ge’ez, which used a modifi ed South Arabian
alphabet. Th e deities in Axum were also similar to those
in South Arabia. Axum certainly had a number of women
rulers, one of them perhaps being the legendary “Queen
of Sheba.” Although the names of some of the kings have
survived, there is little known about the nature of govern-
ment. Given the size of the kingdom, there would seem to
have been a number of regional governors responsible for
diff erent parts of the kingdom. Th is would certainly have
been necessary when Axum started to occupy the lands
of the Himyarites in South Arabia. Indeed, King Ezānā of
Axum (r. ca. 330–ca. 356 b.c.e.) used as a part of his title
“king of Saba and Salhen, Himyar and Dhu-Raydan” and
also “King of the Habshat,” later adopting the title negusa
nagast (“king of kings”). Th ese names tend to suggest that
the merger of a number of kingdoms or a merger or confed-
eration of smaller states had taken place. As the fi rst king
in Ethiopia to accept Christianity, Ezānā was also keen to
have a diplomatic alliance with Byzantium, sending a gov-
ernment embassy there.
Traditionally, one would expect that hereditary kings
ruled African tribes, but this is largely supposition, though
one based on folklore and work by early anthropologists. Th at
the tribes had rulers and that there was wealth inequality are
obvious. Archaeological work at some sites has resulted in the
unearthing of the remains of large houses and also smaller
ones. Objects of art with a high level of workmanship and the
use of precious (and rare) metals found at some sites suggest
that these were prized items of the wealthy, with the poorer
people probably having wooden objects that have not sur-
vived. Th is has led some scholars to suggest that there might
have been a small elite group that controlled the iron-making
process, using it to maintain their rule over their own and
even other nearby tribes.510 government organization: Africa