The news of the events in Najaran spread like wildfire; the number of the victims was exaggerated, and the punishment of the rebels was stigmatized as a persecution of the Christians on the part of a Jewish king. An elegy was composed on the martyrs. Simeon, a Syrian bishop, who was traveling to northern Arabia, did his utmost to rouse up enemies against Dhu-Nowas. Simeon believed the exaggerated account which had been circulated. He sent an incisive letter to another bishop who lived near Arabia, imploring him to set the Christians against the Jewish king, and to incite the Nejus (king) of Ethiopia to war against him. He also proposed to imprison the teachers of Judaism in Tiberias, and to compel them to write to Dhu-Nowas to put a stop for their sake to the persecution of the Christians. The Emperor Justin the First, a weak and foolish old man, was also asked to make war on the Jewish king. But his people were engaged in a war against the Persians, and he therefore replied, "Himyara is too far from us, and I cannot allow my army to march through a sandy desert for so great a distance. But I will write to the king of Ethiopia to send troops to Himyara." Thus, many enemies conspired to ruin one who had attempted to assist his co-religionists in every way. Dhu-Nowas's most formidable enemy was Elesbaa (Atzbaha), the Nejus of Ethiopia, a monarch full of religious zeal. He beheld with jealousy the crown on the head of a Jew, and required no persuasion to fight, for the Jewish kingdom had long been a thorn in his side. Elesbaa equipped a powerful fleet, which the Byzantine Emperor, or rather young Justinian, his co-regent, re-inforced with ships from Egypt. A numerous army crossed the narrow strait of the Red Sea to Yemen. The Christian soldiers were united with this army. Dhu-Nowas, it is true, took measures to prevent the landing of the Ethiopian army by barring the landing-places with chains, and gathering an army on his side. The army of Himyara, however, was inferior in numbers to that of Ethiopia, but the king relied on his faithful and courageous cavalry. The first engagement terminated disastrously for Dhu-Nowas. The town of Zafara (Thafar) fell into the hands of the enemy, and with it the queen and the treasures. The Himyaran soldiers lost all courage. Yussuf Dhu-Nowas, who saw that there was no escape, and who was unwilling to fall into the hands of his arrogant foe, plunged, with his steed, from a rock into the sea, his body being carried far away (530). The victorious Ethiopians raged in Himyara with fire and sword, plundering, massacring, and taking the unarmed prisoners. They were so enraged at the Jews in Himyara that they massacred thousands as an atoning sacrifice for the supposed Christian martyrs of Najaran. Such was the end of the Jewish kingdom of Himyara, which arose in a night and disappeared in a night.