Aethiopia

[2] The Greek historian Herodotus uses the appellation to refer to regions south of Egypt when describing "Aethiopians," indicating Nubia, not the modern nation of Ethiopia.

Homer (c. 8th century BC) is the first to mention "Aethiopians" (Αἰθίοπες, Αἰθιοπῆες), writing that they are to be found at the east and west extremities of the world, divided by the sea into "eastern" (at the sunrise) and "western" (at the sunset).

He wrote: The Sons of Boreas pursued the Harpies to the lands of the Massagetae and of the proud Half-Dog men, of the Underground-folk and of the feeble Pygmies; and to the tribes of the boundless Black-skins and the Libyans.

Huge Earth bare these to Epaphus -- soothsaying people, knowing seercraft by the will of Zeus the lord of oracles, but deceivers, to the end that men whose thought passes their utterance might be subject to the gods and suffer harm -- Aethiopians and Libyans and mare-milking Scythians.

For verily Epaphus was the child of the almighty Son of Cronos, and from him sprang the dark Libyans, and high-souled Aethiopians, and the Underground-folk and feeble Pygmies.

In 515 BC, Scylax of Caryanda, on orders from Darius I of the Achaemenid Empire, sailed along the Indus River, Indian Ocean, and Red Sea, circumnavigating the Arabian Peninsula.

[11] Herodotus tells us that king Cambyses II (c. 570 BC) of the Achaemenid Empire sent spies to the Aethiopians "who dwelt in that part of Libya (Africa) which borders upon the southern sea."

There gold is obtained in great plenty, huge elephants abound, with wild trees of all sorts, and ebony; and the men are taller, handsomer, and longer lived than anywhere else.Herodotus also wrote that the Ammonians of Siwa Oasis are "colonists from Egypt and Aethiopia and speak a language compounded of the tongues of both countries".

[22][23] With regard to the Ethiopians, Strabo indicates that they looked similar to Indians,[24] remarking "those who are in Asia (South India), and those who are in Africa, do not differ from each other.

Following Strabo, the Greco-Roman historian Eusebius claims that the Ethiopians had emigrated into the Red Sea area from the Indus Valley and that there were no people in the region by that name prior to their arrival.

[25] Physiognomonics, a Greek treatise traditionally attributed to Aristotle, but now of disputed ownership made an observation on the physical nature of the Egyptians and Ethiopians with the view that "Those who are too black are cowards, like for the instance, the Egyptians and Ethiopians"[27] The Greek travelogue from the 1st-century AD, known as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, initially describes the littoral, based on its author's intimate knowledge of the area.

"[31][32] Manilius, a Roman poet wrote in his Astronomicon "The Ethiopians stain the world and depict a race of men steeped in darkness; less sun-burnt are the natives of India; the land of Egypt, flooded by the Nile, darkens bodies more mildly owing to the inundation of its fields: it is a country nearer to us and its moderate climate imparts a medium tone.