Queen Amanirenas, the brave one-eyed African queen who led an army against the Romans in 24BC, She beheaded the Roman King Agustus

 Amanirenas (also spelled Amanirena) was a queen of the Meroitic Kingdom of Kush. Her full name and title was Amnirense qore li kdwe li (“Ameniras, Qore and Kandake”

She reigned from about 40 BCE to 10 BCE. She is one of the most famous kandakes, because of her role leading Kushite armies against the Romans from in a war that lasted five years, from 27 BCE to 22 BCE. After an initial victory when

 The Kushites attacked Roman Egypt, they were driven out of Egypt by Publius Petronius and the Romans established a new frontier at Hiere Sycaminos (Maharraqa).^] Amanirenas was described as brave, and blind in one eye. Meroitic inscriptions give Amanirenas the title of qore as well as kandake suggesting 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. The scheme first proposed by Hintze suggests that King Teriteqas died shortly after the beginning of the war. He was succeeded by Akinidad (possibly the son of Teriteqas) who continued the campaign with his mother Amanirenas. Akinidad died at Dakka c.24BC.

The First BattlesEdit

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 Akinidad, defeated Roman forces at Syene and Philae, and drove the Jews from Elephantine Island.^[5] They returned to Kush with prisoners and loot, including several statues of Emperor Augustus(Jameson 1986: 71-84).

Petronius Nubian CampaignEdit

The Kushites were driven out of Syrene later in the year by Publius 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, with relations between Meroe and Roman Egypt remaining generally peaceful during this time (Hintze 1978 :100). However, the kingdom of Kush had begun to fade as a power by the first or second century AD, partly as a result of the Roman war.^[6]

In 25 BC, the Romans were planning a campaign against both Nubia (Meroe) and Arabia – Augustus bragged about this in his Res Gestae “two armies were led at about the same time into Aethiopia and into the Arabia called Felix”. Before the Romans had even tried anything, the Nubians attacked the Thebaid, and the Roman garrison at Syene. They enslaved inhabitants and pulled down Augustus’ statues. The prefect of Egypt, Petronius led 10,000 infantry against 30,000 Nubians, chasing them back to Nubia. He then sacked the seat of the Nubian queen – queen Candace (actually Queen Amanirenas, with title of “candace”) known from Nubian inscriptions. He enslaved the inhabitants (sending 1,000 to Augustus presumably for the games) and set up a Roman garrison nearby. However, after the change in imperial policy later in Octavian Augustus, the Romans gave up their ambitions to conquer Meroe. They instead treated it as a “client state”. Strabo talks about the Nubian ambassadors making a treaty with Augustus.

— Paul Clammer

Amanirenas, the brave one-eyed African queen who led an army Ade defeated the roman Army in 24 EC

Moreie the capital city of Kush.

There were several female rulers of Ethiopia, or Kush. (The ancient

Candace of Ethiopia, or Kandake of Kush

In his famous Church History, Eusebius mentions the biblical account of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch and notes, “Ethiopia even to the present day is ruled, according to ancestral custom, by a woman” (2.1.13 cf. Acts 8:27). I found this piece of information intriguing and so I went on a bit of a search to find out if there is some truth in his statement. As it turns out, there is.

There were several female rulers of Ethiopia, or Kush. (The ancient Kingdom of Kush, also known as Nubia, is often called Ethiopia in the Bible.)[1] The region that once belonged to the Kushite kingdom lies mostly in modern-day Sudan, which is situated directly south of Egypt. (Modern-day Ethiopia is still further south.)

Kandake (or kendake or kentake), which means “great woman”, was used as a royal title or dynastic name for the queens of Meroë, the capital of Kush.[2] Some kandakes ruled in their own right. Others ruled with their husbands and seem to have had equal power with the king. At least one kandake was the ruler while her husband was her consort. Furthermore, some of these kandakes were warrior queens who led their armies into battle.

There were so many ruling queens that, like Eusebius, several other ancient writers assumed that Meroë was ruled mainly by women. Strabo, a geographer and historian (d. 24 CE), Pliny the Elder, a renowned natural philosopher (23–79 CE), Dio Cassius, a Roman consul and historian (155–235 CE), and others refer to some ruling kandakes in their writings,[3] but today we know of several more.

Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban writes, “Meroë claims at least ten regnant queens during the 500-year period between 260 BC and 320 AD, and no fewer than six during the 140-year period between 60 BC and 80 AD.”[4] The Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts chapter 8 may have been in charge of the treasury of the kandake Amantitere who ruled in 25–41 CE.[5]

The Meroitic state flourished at around the same time as the Greek Ptolemies and then the Romans (300 BCE–350 CE). There is a legend that in 332 BCE one kandake pushed back Alexander the Great, who was intent on advancing into Kush, so that he and his army had to retreat to Egypt. A more credible story is that Meroitic forces, led by the kandake Amanirenas, clashed with Roman forces in the first century BCE. In his Roman History (54.5), Dio Cassius provides an account of Amanirenas who revolted and waged war against the Romans but was eventually overpowered in 22 BCE by Gaius Petronius, the Roman prefect (or, governor) of Egypt. Even though the Kushites were overpowered, Rome made a peace treaty in 22 BCE that benefited the Meroites. This treaty lasted for three centuries.

Timothy Kendall, an archaeologist and expert in Nubian studies, describes the appearance of Amanirenas and some other kandakes.

https://youtu.be/0ZH16dCGsFo

Curiously, in the Roman account [of the peace treaty] it was noted that the Meroitic queen [Amanirenas] was “a very masculine sort of woman and blind in one eye.” This strange description is given substance by the even stranger portrayals of these ladies that appear in reliefs in their tomb chapels and temples. The successive Candaces Amanishakheto and Amanitore, for example, . . . are depicted as massive, powerful figures, enormously fat, covered with jewels and ornaments and elaborate fringed and tasselled robes. Their huge frames tower over their diminutive enemies, whom they are shown grasping brutally by the hair with one hand and dealing the coup de grace with the other. The social and aesthetic implications expressed by these reliefs are very different from those of Egypt, where women preferred to be portrayed as lithe and slim. This attribute, together with the facial scars worn by both the kings and queens of the Meroitic period, were the marks of physical beauty, common to central Africa . . . [6]

Kush, and other African nations such as Egypt[7] and the “real” Ethiopia south of Kush,[8] were sometimes ruled by women. These women were formidable rulers and some were effective military leaders. In the Bible, we see a strong woman, Deborah, who led Israel and went into battle (Judges 4:6-9). Salome Alexandra was the reigning queen of Judea in the years 76–67 BCE. Both Deborah and Salome Alexandra were excellent leaders and the people of Israel prospered under their leadership. It seems that women in leadership, even as rulers of nations, is neither a modern invention nor just a recent phenomenon.

 

Forty generations of Kushite royalty are buried in pyramids at Meroë, the capital city of Kush.

 

Candace (Kandake) was the queen of Kush (Ethiopia)

(excerpts by deqebat.com)

The queen of Ethiopia (Kush) mentioned in Acts 8:27 was one of many women who ruled in antiquity.