SEBAK
49G
SEBAT
Phut. It may be remarked that it seems certain that, from a remote time, Ethiopia below Meroe could never have formed a separate powerful kingdom, and was prob- ably always dependent upon either JNIeroe or Egypt.
•i. Description. — Meroe was a large island in Ethiopia, formed by the Astaboras, on the east (Atbara. Takazze), and Astapus (Bahr el-Asrak), on the west (alluded to in Zeph. iii, 10; Isa. xviii, 1), the two arms that unite to form the Blue Nile (Strabo. xvii, 821). See Nile. It is mountainous, but fruitful (Heliod. ^fhhiop. x, 5), and its chief city is also called Meroi>. This has been from antiquity the seat of a priesthood with an oracle of Jupiter Ammon (Herod, ii, 29), and a trading-place for the caravans of Africa and Arabia (Strabo, xvi, 771 ; xvii, 786 sq. ; Pliny, ii, 75; v, 10; vi, 35; xxxvii, 15; Diod. Sic. i, 33 ; iii, 5 sq. ; Ptolem. iv, 8). It is noted by the ancients as remarkable for the fact that here the sun casts shadows part of the year southward and part northward (comp. Strabo, ii, 135 sq. ; Pliny, ii, 75; Lu- can, X, 300, 305, etc.: some think this is referred to in Isa. xviii, 1 ; Zejih. iii, 10). The city lay in the north- ern extremity of the island (seventy thousand paces from the entrdnce, i. e. the southern extremitj' — Pliny, vi, 35), five thousand stadia from Syene (Strabo, ii, 114; comp. Pliny, ii, 75), and ten thousand from Alexandria (Strabo, i, 62; ii, 114). The city of Meroe had gained control of the whole island, and sent colonies of priests to Upper Eg3'pt to settle Thebes and Ammonium. In its nourishing period this kingdom was exceedingly powerful (Pliny, vi, 35), and was inhabited by farmers, shepherds, and hunters (Strabo, xvii, 821). Deserts of sand surrounded it (ibid.). The priesthood retained power until the third century before Christ, when it was overthrown by a king Ergamenes (under Ptolemy Philadelphus). Thenceforward the power of the city seems to have declined ; it disappears from the view of Western writers, and not until the time of Augustus do we begin to hear sparse, and on some points contradic- tory, accounts of a city somewhere in that region, under (jueens who bear the common name of Candace (comp. Pliny, vi, 35; Dion Cas. liv, 5; Eiiseb. /A £. ii, 1). But Meroe was deserted, a few houses only remaining.
JModern travellers have striven to find its site, and it is identitied with some probability as the ruins almost twenty miles north-east of the Nubian city Shendy, in the Dar el-Atbara, a district near Assur forming a pe- ninsula, between the river Atbara, the Nile (Bahr As- rak), and the river Kahad. (See Kussegger's Chnrte von Nuhien, iu his Reis., and ii, 1,476,480 sq. ; Bruce, Trav- els, iv, 542 sq. ; Burckliardt, Travels in NuMa, p. 273 sq. ; Kuppell, A rah. p. 114, 383, with plate v ; Cailliaud, Vvyaije a Meroe an Fleuve Blanc [Paris, 1826], 4 vols, with plates; Hoskins, Travels in E/hiopia, Exhibiting the State of the Country under the Dominion of Meroe [Lond. 1835], with plates.) This supposition is con- firmed by the records of distances left by the ancients, for from Syene to Assur the caravan road is .534 Eng- lish miles by Kussegger's account. 560 by Hoskins's, while the ancient reckoning is ecpiivalent to .568 or 590 English miles — an unimportant difference. So the dis- tance from the beginning of the island to the city was 60 miles (see above), and Kussegger fomid the distance fmm Assur to the mouth of the Atbara 55, Hoskins 60 miles. See Ludolf, Comment. Hist. .Ethiop. p. 88 sq. ; Delisle, in the llistoire de I'Acadeniie des Snences in 1708, p. 365 sq.; Tzschucke, Ad Mel. HI, i, 2.56 sq.; Mannert, X, i, 182 sq. ; Heeren, Ideen, II, i, 3.52: For- biger, llandb. ii, 814 si).; Smith, Diet, of Class, Geog. 8. V. " Meroe." See Ethiopia.
Sebak. See Thicket.
Sebald, St., a legendary wonder-worker of the Ro- mish Church, said to have been the son of a Danish king, or, l>y another tradition, of a peasant. He began his studies at Paris before he was fifteen years of age, and after a few years married a daughter of the king Dagobert, from whom, however, he seimrated with her
consent after the lapse of a single day, in order to be- come a hermit and practice a rigid asceticism. After ten years he made a pilgrimage to Rome, and received authority to )ireach from pope (iregory II. While on the way to Germany he miraculously delivered St. Willibald from death by starvation, and after reaching Bavaria he wrought numerous conversions, gathered churches, and settled near Nuremberg as a hermit. The date of his death is uncertain, being given as A.D. 801, 901, or 1070. He had directed that his body shoukl be laid on a wag<in drawn by four bullocks,and buried where the cattle should come to a stop. The place so indicat- ed was before St. Peter's Chapel, at Nuremberg, which, accordingly, after having been transformed into a church, took his name. Many wonders were wrought by his life- less body, in consequence of which he was beatified by pope Gregory X, and canonized by Martin V (1425), while the town of Nuremberg chose him for its patron saint. The 19th of August is set apart for his com- memoration. A rich and artistic monument by Peter Yischer, erected to his memory, may be seen in the Church of St. Sebaldus, at Nuremberg. — Herzog, Real- Encyklop. s. v.