Ezana of Axum
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Ezana Kingdom of Aksum |
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Ezana of Axum (Ge'ez: ዔዛና ʿĒzānā unvocalized ዐዘነ ʿzn; also spelled Aezana or Aizan) was ruler of the Kingdom of Aksum (320s – c. 360AD) located in present-day Eritrea, Northern Ethiopia, Yemen, southern Saudi Arabia, northern Somalia, Djibouti, northern Sudan, and southern Egypt. He himself employed the style (official title) "king of Saba and Salhen, Himyar and Dhu-Raydan". Tradition states that Ezana succeeded his father Ella Amida (Ousanas) while still a child and his mother, Sofya served as regent.
Ezana was the first monarch of Axum to embrace Christianity, and the first after Zoskales to be mentioned by contemporary historians, a situation that led S. C. Munro-Hay to comment that he was "the most famous of the Aksumite kings before Kaleb." He appointed his childhood tutor, the Syrian Christian Frumentius, head of the Ethiopian Church. A surviving letter from the Arian Roman Emperor Constantius II is addressed to 'Ezana and his brother Se'azana, and requests that Frumentius be sent to Alexandria to be examined for doctrinal errors; Munro-Hay assumes that 'Ezana either refused or ignored this request.
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