Sembrouthes was a King of the

Kingdom of Aksum The Kingdom of Aksum ( gez, መንግሥተ አክሱም, ), also known as the Kingdom of Axum or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom centered in Northeast Africa and South Arabia from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Based primarily in wh ...

. He is known only from a single inscription in

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

that was found at Dekemhare (ደቀምሓረ ድንበዛን), Hamasien in modern-day

Eritrea Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...

, which is dated to his 24th

regnal year A regnal year is a year of the reign of a sovereign, from the Latin ''regnum'' meaning kingdom, rule. Regnal years considered the date as an ordinal, not a cardinal number. For example, a monarch could have a first year of rule, a second year of ...

. Sembrouthes was the first known ruler in the lands later ruled by the

Emperor of Ethiopia The emperor of Ethiopia ( gez, ንጉሠ ነገሥት, nəgusä nägäst, "King of Kings"), also known as the Atse ( am, ዐፄ, "emperor"), was the hereditary monarchy, hereditary ruler of the Ethiopian Empire, from at least the 13th century ...

to adopt the title "

King of Kings King of Kings; grc-gre, Βασιλεὺς Βασιλέων, Basileùs Basiléōn; hy, արքայից արքա, ark'ayits ark'a; sa, महाराजाधिराज, Mahārājadhirāja; ka, მეფეთ მეფე, ''Mepet mepe'' ...

". S. C. Munro-Hay places his reign in a gap between `DBH and

DTWNS DTWNS (vocalized by historians as Datawnas) was a king of Aksum (c. 260). He is mentioned with his son ZQRNS (vocalized as "Zaqarnas") in an inscription from al-Mis`al in Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Repu ...

, or c.250. However, W.R.O. Hahn, in a study published in 1983, assigns Sembrouthes to the 4th century, between

Aphilas Aphilas bisi Dimele (early 4th century) was a Negus of the Kingdom of Aksum in East Africa modern day northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. He is known only from the coins he minted, which are characterized by a number of experiments in imagery on the obv ...

and Ezana. He also identifies him with Ousanas or the legendary Ella Amida. Munro-Hay also suggests that Sembrouthes may have been the ruler who erected the anonymous '' Monumentum Adulitanum''. The latter is an inscription at Adulis that

Cosmas Indicopleustes Cosmas Indicopleustes ( grc-x-koine, Κοσμᾶς Ἰνδικοπλεύστης, lit=Cosmas who sailed to India; also known as Cosmas the Monk) was a Greek merchant and later hermit from Alexandria of Egypt. He was a 6th-century traveller who ma ...

made a copy of for king

Kaleb of Axum Kaleb (), also known as Saint Elesbaan, was King of Aksum, which was situated in modern-day Eritrea and Ethiopia. Procopius calls him "Hellestheaeus", a variant of grc-koi, Ελεσβόάς version of his regnal name, gez, እለ አጽብ� ...

.Munro-Hay, ''Aksum'', p. 80

Notes

{{Ethiopia-royal-stub Kings of Axum 3rd-century monarchs in Africa