Amanirenas: the one-eyed queen of Kush who fought Rome

Around 25 B.C., the Roman Empire was at the height of its confidence. Augustus had just made himself master of the Mediterranean, and Egypt was his personal possession. Then, from the south, an army from the Kingdom of Kush crossed the frontier, sacked Roman towns and carried away statues of the emperor himself. Leading Kush was a queen: Amanirenas.

Kush, Rome’s southern neighbour

Kush was one of Africa’s great ancient kingdoms, along the Nile in what is now Sudan. Its kings had once ruled Egypt as pharaohs, and by the time of Augustus its capital was Meroë, a city of pyramids, temples and iron furnaces. Kush traded gold, ivory and incense north into Egypt and had dealt with Greek and Roman rulers for centuries.

What “Kandake” means

Greek and Roman writers called the queens of Kush “Candace”, as if it were a name. In fact it comes from the Meroitic title kandake (also written kentake), used for royal women, often the queen mother. Several powerful kandakes ruled or co-ruled Kush. Amanirenas is the one remembered for taking on Rome.

The war

When the Roman prefect of Egypt took part of the army east on a campaign into Arabia, Kush struck. Kushite forces attacked Syene (modern Aswan), Elephantine and Philae on Egypt’s southern frontier, took captives and pulled down statues of Augustus. One of those statues, a bronze head of the emperor, would turn up again almost two thousand years later.

Rome hit back. The new prefect, Gaius Petronius, marched south, pushed through Pselchis and Primis (Qasr Ibrim) and sacked Napata, an old royal city of Kush. But he did not reach Meroë, and the war did not end there. The Kushites attacked again, and Petronius had to rush back to defend the Roman garrison at Primis.

A queen who negotiated as hard as she fought

In the end, Kush sent ambassadors to Augustus, who was on the Greek island of Samos. The Greek geographer Strabo, writing within living memory of the war, says the envoys got everything they asked for, and that Augustus even cancelled the tribute Rome had imposed. For a kingdom that had attacked Roman territory, it was a remarkable result. Rome’s frontier settled near Primis, and peace between Rome and Kush lasted for generations.

The one-eyed queen

Strabo describes the queen who led Kush as a masculine woman who had lost one of her eyes. Most historians identify her with Amanirenas, whose name appears in Meroitic inscriptions alongside her son, Prince Akinidad. We don’t know how she lost the eye. Hookline’s series imagines it happening in battle.

What is real in Kandake, and what isn’t

• Real: Amanirenas, Prince Akinidad, Gaius Petronius, the attack on Syene, the stolen statues of Augustus, the fall of Napata, the one-eyed queen, the lion god Apedemak.
• Imagined: Nyala and her mother, the Roman officer Lucius, the demand for exactly one hundred children, and the queen’s supernatural sight. Rome really did take Kushite captives, but these characters are fictional.

Amanirenas is still a symbol of resistance in Sudan today. Her story is one of the oldest records we have of an African ruler facing down a European empire, and coming away with better terms than she started with.