Mahrem (state war-god and dynastic patron of the Aksumite kings)

Mahrem is the war-god of the Aksumite state and the tutelary deity of its kings, who from the third century CE styled themselves 'son of the invincible Mahrem' on their monuments and coins. His warlike character is underlined both by his consistent Greek rendering as Ares and by his epithet '(he) who will not be defeated by the enemy'. Reckoned a son of the celestial head-god Astar and brother of the sea-god Beher, he is credited in the pre-Christian inscriptions of Ezana with delivering the king's enemies into his hands. His cult was displaced when Ezana adopted Christianity in the fourth century.

Parentage

• Astar (celestial Venus-god, head of the Aksumite triad)

Domains

• war and victory
• kingship and dynastic legitimacy

Powers

• to deliver enemies into the king's hands and grant victory in battle
• to protect and legitimise the ruling dynasty

Epithets

• walda Maḥrem
• za-iyǝmäwwǝʾ ǝmǝnnä ḍar

Relations

• sibling: Beher (god of the sea, member of the Aksumite triad)

Sources

• Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, ed. Siegbert Uhlig, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003–2014, s.v. 'Maḥrem'.
• Stuart C. Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991.