Expansion Pack Civs Explained: Aksum/Ethiopia

[Locutus]

Since it looks like the Zulus will be replaced by the Ethiopians in the ExtraCivs pack and since noone has done it yet, I figured it's about time for me to devote a thread to Ethiopia (not in the last place because I'm probably one of only a handful of people on this forum who actually know something about Aksumite history). I'm afraid the history section is a wee bit long (1500 words), I might shorten it a bit some other time (suggestions welcome). If the focus seems a bit too much on the Aksumite period, that could be right 'cause I know far more about that period than about post-Aksumite Ethiopia. Feel free to suggest additions...


NAMES: Ethiopia, the Ethiopians, Ethiopian (alternative: Aksum, Aksumites, Aksumite)
TIME PERIOD: 50 AD - 600 AD, 1270 AD - 1478 AD (Golden Age: Ancient or late Medieval/early Renaissance)
LEADER: Haile Selassie (Modern), King Ezana (Ancient), Zara Yakob (Medieval), Queen Sheba of Saba (Legendary)
UNIQUE UNIT: Habash/Abyssinian Javelineer; Sarwe (plural: Sarawit); Oromo Warrior (in all cases probably a reused Impi)
ABILITIES: Commercial, Religious - alternatives: Militaristic, Agricultural, Industrious
GENERALS: Ezana, Kaleb, Wahsi, Yekuno Amlak, Zara Yakob, Amda Siyon, Iyasu I, Menelik II, Haile Selassie (in chronological order)

HISTORY:
Ethiopia and East Africa were the cradle of mankind. Anthropologists believe that East Africa's Great Rift Valley (which traverses Ethiopia from southwest to northeast) is the site of humankind's origins. From here, human beings spread out and populated the entire planet. The earliest natives of Ethiopia were quite industrious and developed metallurgy at a very early stage, possibly even before other peoples. Around 1400 BC, East Africans began producing steel in carbon furnaces (steel was invented in the west in the eighteenth century). The Iron Age itself came very early to Ethiopia, probably around the sixth century BC.

It was probably the people of Meroe (Nubia) who were the first to be called Aithiopiai ("burnt faces") by the ancient Greeks, thus giving rise to the term Ethiopia that considerably later was used to designate the northern highlands of the Horn of Africa. The Ethiopians developed when Sudanic people migrating from the Sahara and Semitic people from southern Arabia (the Sabaeans) settled in the area known as the Abyssinian Plateau around 500 BC and intermingled into one culture. This was a strategic position in the trade routes between Asia and Kush affording easy access to Arabic trade routes and the Mediterranean via the Red Sea. The area was agriculturally well suited, politically defensible, and allowed the possibility of undisturbed cultural development. They spoke a strongly Semitic language and wrote in Semitic characters.

We have little knowledge about the early Aksumite kingdom. Apparently following a feudal system, they had a single king (the "Negus"), who ruled over princes who paid him tribute. Later, in the first century CE, Roman and Greek sources indicate that a kingdom called Aksum was thriving; the city of Adulis (near present-day Massawa) is frequently mentioned because it had become one of the most important port cities in Africa. Aksum lay dead in the path of the growing commercial trade routes between Africa, Arabia, Rome, Persia and India. As a result, it became fabulously wealthy and its major cities, Adulis, Matara and the capital Aksum, became three of the most important cosmopolitan centers in the ancient world. Although they were off the beaten path as far as European history is concerned, they were just as cosmopolitan and culturally important. Aksum - which at its height ruled over present-day northern Ethiopia, Yemen, soutern Saoudi Arabia, and northeastern Sudan - was listed by the Persian prophet Mani as the third kingdom of the world, after Rome and Persia. The Aksumite rulers carried the title "negusa nagast" (king of kings), symbolic of their rule over numerous tribute-paying principalities and a title used by successive Ethiopian rulers into the mid-twentieth century.

The Aksumite religion was actually derived from Arabic religion. It was a polytheistic religion which believed that the gods controlled the natural forces of the universe. However, in the fourth century CE, King Ezana converted to Christianity, declared Aksum to be a Christian state (thus making it the first Christian state in the history of the world) and began actively converting the population to Christianity. Not many of the people accepted Christianity at first, but Christianity gradually supplanted the old religion. The move was politically and commercially beneficial to Aksum in that Rome was undergoing similar conversion. After the fall of Rome in the fifth century AD, the Aksumites replaced Greek in the liturgy and began using their own native language, Ge'ez.

Aksum remained a strong empire and trading power until the rise of Islam in the seventh century AD. However, because the Aksumites had sheltered Muhammed's first followers, the Muslims never attempted to overthrow Aksum as they spread across the face of Africa. Even though Aksum no longer served as a center or hub of international trade, it nonetheless enjoyed good relations with all of its Muslim neighbors. Aksum remained untouched by the Islamic movements across Africa. Because of this, the Ethiopic (or Abyssinian) Church has lasted until the present day.

In response to Islamic expansion in the Red Sea area and the loss of their seaborne commercial network, the Aksumites turned their attention to the colonizing of the northern Ethiopian highlands, south of Aksum. As early as the mid-seventh century, the old capital at Aksum had been abandoned, although it continued as a religious center and occasional coronation place. By the tenth century a post-Aksumite Christian kingdom (sometimes called Amhara) had emerged that controlled the central northern highlands from modern Eritrea to Shewa (region around Addis Abeba) and the coast from old Adulis to Zeila (in present-day Somalia). About 1137 a new dynasty came to power in the Christian highlands, the Zagwe. Christianity flourished under the Zagwe: many churches were built and Christian literature and art flourished in and around the capital Adefa. In time, Adefa became known as Lalibela, the name of the Zagwe king to whose reign the Adefa churches' construction has been attributed.

About 1270 Yekuno Amlak drove out the last Zagwe ruler and proclaimed himself king. His assumption of power marked yet another stage in the southward march of Amhara and ushered in an era of increased contact with the Levant, the Middle East, and Europe. The new dynasty that Yekuno Amlak founded came to be known as the "Solomonic" dynasty because its scions claimed descent not only from Aksum but also from King Solomon of ancient Israel and Queen Sheba of Saba (as a side note, the Ethiopic Church claims to still have the Ark of the Covenant in possession today). The new king concerned himself with the consolidation of his control over the northern highlands and with the weakening and, where possible, destruction of encircling pagan and Muslim states. He enjoyed some of his greatest success against Ifat, an Islamic sultanate to the southeast of his kingdom that posed a threat to trade routes between Zeila and the central highlands. Yekuno Amlak's grandson, Amda Siyon (reigned 1313-44), also had many military successes: he finished off Ifat and expanded the kingdom in all directions, especially the south.

Zara Yakob (reigned 1434-68) was without a doubt one of the greatest Ethiopian rulers. His substantial military accomplishments included a decisive victory in 1445 over the sultanate of Adal (centered on Harer, east of Ifat) and its Muslim pastoral allies, who for two centuries had been a source of determined opposition to the Christian highlanders. Zara Yakob also reformed the government system, reorganized the Orthodox Church, converted many pagans to Christianity and gave rise to a boom of Ge'ez literature; he even wrote some important religous tracts himself.

From the mid-fifteenth through the mid-seventeenth century, Christian Ethiopians were confronted by the aggressiveness of the Muslim states, the far-reaching migrations of the warlike Oromo, and the efforts of the Portuguese - who had been summoned to aid in the fight against the forces of Islam - to convert them from Monophysite Christianity to Roman Catholicism. The effects of the Muslim (over whom Ethiopia was eventually victorious) and Oromo activities (who eventually settled throughout Ethiopia and mixed with the locals) and of the civil strife engendered by the Portuguese (who were eventually kicked out) left the empire much weakened by the mid-seventeenth century. One result was the emergence of regional lords essentially independent of the throne, although in principle subject to it. During this time (1769-1855), the kingdom (with its capital now at Gonder) no longer existed as a united entity capable of concerted political and military activity. Various principalities were ruled by autonomous nobles, and warfare was constant. After the mid-nineteenth century, the different regions of the Gonder state were gradually reintegrated to form the nucleus of a modern state by strong monarchs such as Tewodros II, Yohannis IV, and Menelik II, who resisted the gradual expansion of European control in the Red Sea area and at the same time staved off a number of other challenges to the integrity of the reunited kingdom.

Menelik II was succeeded by his daughter, Zawditu, who was declared empress. After her death in 1930, Negus Tafari was crowned Haile Selassie I, "Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God, and King of Kings of Ethiopia." As emperor, Haile Selassie pushed for reforms aimed at modernizing the country and breaking the nobility's authority. He made Ethiopia into the modern country that it is today. He was forced into exile by the Italians who occupied Ethiopia in 1936. While in exile, his pleas for international support made him a major international figure. In 1941, with help of the British, Ethiopia was liberated and Haile Selassie could return to his throne. He continued his reforms and international diplomatic role until his death in 1974, in spite of ever increasing resistance from various groups in Ethiopia. Since then, Ethiopian events have been dominated by power struggle, various separatist movements and the resulting wars, poverty and famine. The latter was brought to the attention of the international community by Bob Geldorf's "Do They Know It's Christmas" and the subsequent Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia (raising well over $100 million for famine relieve projects in Central and East Africa).

UNIQUE UNIT: although little details are known, the Aksumites appear to have relied very heavily on spear throwing soldiers (aka Javelineers - Habash/Abyssinian are just synonyms for Ethiopian/Aksumite), although they did use all sorts of other weapons as well. Names of units and the like are not known but military formations were called Sarawit (singular: Sarwe). In the industrial age Ethiopian leaders would often hire Oromons to fight for them. I have no idea what kind of weapons these used though (Muslims in the Mediterranean used firearms and artillery and stuff, not sure if these technologies had penetrated into Ethiopia).

CAPITAL: Aksum - ancient capital
CITIES:
Adulis - primary (pre-)Aksumite port
Matara - mayor Aksumite city
Lalibela/Adefa - capital of medieval Zagwe dynasty
Gonder/Gondar - renaissance capital (17-19th century)
Zeila - important medieval coastal city (Somalia)
Addis Ababa - modern capital
Berbera - important city in North Somalia
Sawakin - important city in East Sudan
Harer - Arabian stronghold in Ethiopia, conquered
Yeha - important (pre-)Aksumite city, religious site
Gabaza - Port of Adulis (ala Piraeus)
Dahlak Kebir - Island city in Red Sea
Samidi - Aksumite Eritrean port city
Adwa - Aksumite Tigray city, battleground
Ku'bar - unknown temporary capital of post-Aksumites
Ankober - important post-Aksumite Shewan city
Zayla` - post-Aksumite trade city
Aydhab - post-Aksumite military center
Weqro - Aksumite Tigray city; medieval royal burial site
Ham - important Aksumite Eritrean city
Tekondo - important Aksumite Eritrean city
Qohayto - important Aksumite Eritrean city
Addi Dahno - Aksumite West Tigray city
Henzat - Aksumite West Tigray city
Cherqos Agula - Aksumite East Tigray city
Degum - Aksumite East Tigray city
Hawelti - pre-Aksumite Tigray city
Melazo - pre-Aksumite Tigray city
Meroe - Nubian city conquered by Aksum
Aden - mayor port city in Yemen
Sana - city in Yemen
Marib - city in Yemen (capital of Saba)
Dongola - conquered Nubian town
Soba - Nubian Christian town
Weyna Dega - alleged temporary post-Aksumite capital
Mar'adé - temporary post-Aksumite Shewan capital
Genbita - post-Aksumite Nubian city
Kassala - post-Aksumite Nubian city
Hanhita - post-Aksumite Gonderian city
Aganiti - post-Aksumite Lasta city
Nazret - Aksumite Shewan city
Qeneda - Aksumite Lasta (Wollo) site
Tchika-Beret - Aksumite Lasta (Wollo) site
Roha - Religious site in Lasta/Wollo
Aseb - Important modern city
Dese - Important modern city
Massawa/Mitsiwa - Important modern port
Asmara/Asmera - Important modern city
Addi Grammaten - Aksumite Eritrean city
Kaskase - Aksumite Eritrean city
Feqya - Aksumite Eritrean city
Zala-Bet-Makeda - important Aksumite city
Etchmara - important Aksumite city
Gulo-Makeda - important Aksumite city
Haghero-Deragweh - important Aksumite city
Dergouah - important Aksumite city
Hawzien - Aksumite East Tigray city
Kwiha - Aksumite East Tigray city
Welwel - Important wells, modern battleground
Anza - Aksumite East Tigray city
Wuchate Golo - Aksumite West Tigray city
Edage Hamus - Aksumite East Tigray city
Addi Galamo - Aksumite East Tigray city
Nasi - post-Aksumite city
Arato - Northern Eritrean city
Rora Laba - Northern Eritrean city
Dicdic - Northern Eritrean city
Shimbra Kure - renaissance age battleground
Metema - industrial age battleground
Dogali - industrial age battleground

[History Guy]

Excellent work, Locutus. I'm printing it down to read. I'll have to look up some more about the Ethiopian history, as I know only a little about it. I'm almost done the Carthage history (had to shorten it a bit and now it's just about as long as Phoenician history), and I'm working on short biographies of all the great leaders, with Hammurabi coming first, second Xerxes, third Alexander, etc.

[Locutus]

I still have a promise to Wernazuma to fulfill:

The name for this civ should be Ethiopia, if only for name-recognition (in spite of it being one of the greatest empires of the ancient world, many people have never even heard of Aksum).

As Ethiopian leader I would go for King Ezana, who Christianized (is that the word?) Aksum, but that's a bit of a personal preference. Zara Yakob would be a very good alternative, should people prefer it. His was extremely successful in terms of military, construction, religion and culture (see history above).

As Unique Unit I would go for Sarwe (pl: Sarawit), which is basically identical to the Impi, in terms of both graphics and stats (maybe make it 2/2/1 instead of 1/2/2?).

Abilities: as I suggested above, Commercial & Religious would be best, though if there are too many civs with these abilities others would fit as well.

Great Leaders & Cities: my lists above are pretty much complete (with the leaders I suggest removing who ever becomes the 'overall' leader). When 2 city names are mentioned, I would go with the first one: Lalibela/Adefa -> Lalibela.


BTW, for those interested: there is one book that is THE standard work on ancient Aksum, it contains almost everything known about this ancient empire (well, maybe 80%) while it is still very readable, even for non-historians (contrary to many other scientific history books). The best part is, it's available online for free! Get it here.

[Stefu]

Hm. I don't think that Sarwe should be identical to Impi in terms of graphics. I mean, some effort, people!

[Guynemer]

An excellent work overall; though I'm wondering why no mention of the Aksumite Jews? (Or perhaps I just missed it.) A fascinating aspect of not only Ethiopian history, but the history of Western religion.

[Locutus]

Stefu,
True, different graphics would be nice (and should probably be aimed for), but it's a true that the Ethiopian warriors in appearance most likely weren't much different from the Zulus: they were black, on foot and fought with spears. The only real difference that I know of is in the shape of the shield (hardly an essential point). If I would have to give the graphics guys some pointers I would say: take the Impi (or something similar) as starting point, make the shield round, add a short sword - slung on the back - and make the spear more like a classical spear: long handle, short blade (long blades were used as well but it will make the difference with the Impi more obvious). Details are impossible to give and some of the above is based on speculation, so artistic freedom would not bother even the most meticulous historian.

Guynemer,
You mean this?

The new dynasty that Yekuno Amlak founded came to be known as the "Solomonic" dynasty because its scions claimed descent not only from Aksum but also from King Solomon of ancient Israel and Queen Sheba of Saba (as a side note, the Ethiopic Church claims to still have the Ark of the Covenant in possession today).

[Guynemer]

That's sort of peripheral to it, I suppose. Just the fact that there has been a significant Jewish population in Ethiopia for millenia, they held power for a time, no one is quite sure where they came from, etc. etc. Perhaps, in the grand sweep of Ethiopian history, it's not as important as the other things you mentioned in detail, but it is a fascinating diversion.

[Locutus]

Well, has there been any major country/empire/whatever in history (except for pre-Columbian America) that DIDN'T have a Jewish population? And since Jews are very 'commerical' by nature, they almost always manage to get some degree of power (since money == power), Ethiopia isn't special in that sense. The myth of the Solomic dynasty shouldn't be taken too seriously, it's probably just that, a myth (although AFAIK no full-proof evidence exists to disprove it, there are many clues). It was a useful political tool at the time to unite the people and to restore the national pride, but not much more. If I had to mention pick any minority group in Ethiopia for being remarkable, it would be the Buddhists (AFAIK Ethiopia was the only pre-modern age empire outside Asia to have Buddhist citizens).