to Herban,
and rewarded him with a high office under his government.

[Illustration: 307.jpg PYRAMID OF MEDUM]

Esimaphasus did not long remain King of the Homeritae. A rebellion
soon broke out against him, and he was deposed. Elesbaas, King of Auxum,
again sent an army to recall the Homeritae to their obedience, but this
time the army joined in the revolt; and Elesbae then made peace with
the enemy, in hopes of thus gaining the advantages which he was unable
to grasp by force of arms. From a Greek inscription on a monument at
Auxum we learn the name of AEizanas, another king of that country, who
also called himself, either truly or boastfully, king of the opposite
coast. He set up the monument to record his victories over the Bougoto,
a people who dwelt between Auxum and Egypt, and he styles himself the
invincible Mars, king of kings, King of the Hexumito, of the Ethiopians,
of the Saboans, and of the Homerito. These kings of the Hexumito
ornamented the city of Auxum with several beautiful and lofty obelisks,
each made of a single block of granite like those in Egypt.

Egypt in its mismanaged state seemed to be of little value to the empire
save as a means of enriching the prefect and the tax-gatherers; it
yielded very little tribute to Constantinople beyond the supply of
grain, and that by no means regularly. To remedy these abuses Justinian
made a new law for the government of the province, with a view of
bringing about a thorough reform. By this edict the districts of
Menelaites and Mareotis, to the west of Alexandria, were separated from
the rest of Egypt, and they were given to the prefect of Libya, whose
seat of government was at Parotonium, because his province was too poor
to pay the troops required to guard it. The several governments of Upper
Egypt, of Lower Egypt, of Alexandria, and of the troops were then given
to one prefect. The two cohorts, the Augustalian and the Ducal, into
which the two Boman legions had gradually dwindled, were henceforth to
be united under the name of the Augustalian Cohort, which was to contain
six hundred men, who were to secure the obedience and put down any
rebellion of the Egyptian and barbarian soldiers. The somewhat high
pay and privileges of this favoured troop were to be increased; and, to
secure its loyalty and to keep out Egyptians, nobody was to be admitted
into it till his fitness had been inquired into by the emperor's
examiners. The first duty of the cohort was to c