Topic summary
Axumite

Extracted from the Wikipedia article Kingdom of Aksum.
Early history
Quite probably, the kingdom was a confederacy, one of which was led by a district-level king who commanded the allegiance of other petty kings within the Axumite realm. The ruler of the Axumite kingdom was thus 'king of kings' — a title often found in inscriptions of this period. There is no evidence that a single royal lineage has yet emerged, and it is quite possible that at the death of a king of kings, a new one would be selected from among all the kings in the confederacy, rather than through some principle of primogeniture."