that King Sedanda was seized with a severe and contagious leprosy, and
seeing that his complaint was incurable, having named the prince who was
to succeed him, he took poison and died, according to the custom of those
kings when they are afflicted with any physical deformity."(73)

(M26) The king of Sofala who dared to survive the loss of his front tooth
was thus a bold reformer like Ergamenes, king of Ethiopia. We may
conjecture that the ground for putting the Ethiopian kings to death was,
as in the case of the Zulu and Sofala kings, the appearance on their
person of any bodily defect or sign of decay; and that the oracle which
the priests alleged as the authority for the royal execution was to the
effect that great calamities would result from the reign of a king who had
any blemish on his body; just as an oracle warned Sparta against a "lame
reign," that is, the reign of a lame king.(74) It is some confirmation of
this conjecture that the kings of Ethiopia were chosen for their size,
strength, and beauty long before the custom of killing them was
abolished.(75) To this day the Sultan of Wadai must have no obvious bodily
defect, and the king of Angoy cannot be crowned if he has a single
blemish, such as a broken or a filed tooth or the scar of an old
wound.(76) According to the Book of Acaill and many other authorities no
king who was afflicted with a personal blemish might reign over Ireland at
Tara. Hence, when the great King Cormac Mac Art lost one eye by an
accident, he at once abdicated.(77) It is only natural, therefore, to
suppose, especially with the other African examples before us, that any
bodily defect or symptom of old age appearing on the person of the
Ethiopian monarch was the signal for his execution. At a later time it is
recorded that if the king of Ethiopia became maimed in any part of his
body all his courtiers had to suffer the same mutilation.(78) But this
rule may perhaps have been instituted at the time when the custom of
killing the king for any personal defect was abolished; instead of