Reign of Kaleb of Aksum

Kaleb, son of Tazena, is called Ella Asbeha (“he who brought the dawn”) in Ge’ez and Elesboas or Hellestheaios in Greek. An inscription of his at Aksum, written in the South Arabian script, styles him “king of Aksum and Himyar and Dhu-Raydan and Saba and Salhin…” and names the Beja, the Nubians and the Kushites among his vassals — a claim to both shores of the Red Sea. Through its port of Adulis the kingdom traded with Egypt, Arabia and India; Kaleb issued coins in his own name, and Cosmas Indicopleustes mentions his “governor of Agau”, who guarded the caravan routes from the south.

Kaleb’s reign was dominated by South Arabia. Around 518 his army set a Christian client on the throne of Himyar; when the Jewish noble Yusuf (Dhu Nuwas) seized power and massacred the Christians of Najran, Kaleb crossed the Red Sea himself (in 525 or, according to some specialists, in 529–530); Yusuf was killed, and Kaleb installed a tributary king. Byzantium courted him: the envoy Nonnosus met him in 530, and Justinian’s ambassador Julianus asked Aksum to buy Indian silk and sell it to the Romans, so that they need no longer pay the Persians — impossible, Procopius explains, because Persian merchants bought up whole cargoes in the ports where the Indian ships first put in. After Abraha, an officer of the Aksumite army, seized power in Himyar, two armies sent by Kaleb to depose him failed.

According to Ethiopian tradition, Kaleb abdicated, sent his crown to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and ended his days as a monk; George Hatke dates the abdication to about 540. Hatke identifies his successor with a king named Waʿzeb, while Ethiopian king lists name his son Gabra Masqal, and at Aksum a pair of ruined tombs is traditionally assigned to Kaleb and Gabra Masqal. The Catholic and Orthodox churches venerate Kaleb as Saint Elesbaan. The historian Stuart Munro-Hay judged that the Arabian wars overstretched Aksum. The reign is dated variously to about 510–540 or 514–542, and some works end it in 530 or 534.