OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
367
latioti is derived from the superior wretched-ness of the Greek patriarch and his diminutivecongregation . 1
VI. The Coptic patriarch, a rebel to the Cae-sars, or a slave to the khalifs, still gloried in thefilial obedience of the kings of Nubia and Ethio-pia . He repaid their homage by magnifyingtheir greatness; and it was boldly assertedthat they could bring into the field an hundredthousand horse, with an equal number of ca-mels;"' that their hand could pour out or re-strain the waters of the Nileand the peaceand plenty of Egypt was obtained, even in thisworld, by the intercession of the patriarch. Inexile at Constantinople, Theodosius recommend-ed to his patroness the conversion of the blacknations of Nubia, " from the tropic of Cancer to
1 The history of the Copts , their religion, manners, <&c. may befound in the Abb£ Renaudot’s motley work, neither a translation noran original; the Chronicon Orientale of Peter, a Jacobite 5 in thetwo versions of Abraham Ecchcllensis, Paris, 1651; and John SimonAsseman, Venet. 1729. These annals descend no lower than thexiiithcentury. The more recent accounts must be searched for in the tra-vellers into Egypt , and the Nouveanx Memoires des Missions de Lev*ant. In the last century, Joseph Abudacnus, a native of Cairo , pub-lished at Oxford, in thirty pages, a slight Historia Jacobitarura, 147post 150.
m About the year 737. See Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p.221, 222; Elmacin, Hist. Saracen , p. 99.
n Ludolph. Hist. A£thiopic. et Comment. 1. i, c. 8 . Renaudot, Hist.Patriarch. Alex. p. 480, &c. This opinion, introduced into Egypt andEurope by the artifice of the Copts , the pride of the Abyssinians, thefear and ignorance of the Turks and Arabs has not even the semblanceof truth. The rains of Ethiopia do not, in the increase of the Nile , con-sult the will of the monarch. If the river approaches at Napata, withinthree days journey of the Red Sea , (see d’Anville's Maps) a canal thatshould divert its course would demand, and most probably surpass, thepower of the Caesars.
0 The Abyssinians, who still preserve the features and olive com-plexion of the Arabs , afford a prool that two thousand years are not
sufficient
CHAP.
XLVI1.