The emperor not merely granted it, but gave orders to evacuate the subject territory, and rejected the proposal of his governor to make the vanquished tributary. This event, otherwise not important, is remarkable in so far as just then the definite resolution of the Roman government became apparent, to maintain absolutely the Nile valley as far as the river was navigable, but not at all to contemplate taking possession of the wide districts on the upper Nile. Only the tract from Syene, where under Augustus the frontier-troops were stationed, as far as Hiera Sycaminos (Maharraka), the so-called Twelve-mile-land (Δωδεκάσχοινος), while never organised as a nome and never viewed as a part of Egypt, was yet regarded as belonging to the empire; and at least under Domitian the posts were even advanced as far as Hiera Sycaminos.[247] On that footing substantially the matter remained. The Oriental expedition planned by Nero (p. 61) was certainly intended to embrace Aethiopia; but it did not go beyond the preliminary reconnoitring of the country by Roman officers as far as Meroe. The relations with the neighbours on the Egyptian southern frontier down to the middle of the third century must have been on the whole of a peaceful kind, although there were not wanting minor quarrels with that Candace and with her successors, who appear to have maintained their position for a considerable time, and subsequently perhaps with other tribes, that attained to ascendency beyond the imperial bounds. [Sidenote: The Blemyes.] It was not till the empire was unhinged in the period of Valerian and Gallienus, that the neighbours broke over this boundary. We have already mentioned (p. 250) that the Blemyes settled in the mountains on the south-east frontier, formerly obeying the Aethiopians, a barbarous people of revolting savageness, who even centuries later had not abandoned human sacrifices, advanced at this epoch independently against Egypt, and by an understanding with the Palmyrenes occupied a good part of upper Egypt, and held it for a series of years. The vigorous emperor Probus drove them out; but the inroads once begun did not cease,[248] and the emperor Diocletian resolved to draw back the frontier. The narrow “Twelve-mile-land” demanded a strong garrison, and brought in little to the state. The Nubians, who roamed in the Libyan desert, and were constantly visiting in particular the great Oasis, agreed to give up their old abodes and to settle in this region, which was formally ceded to them; at the same time fixed annual payments were made to them as well as to their eastern neighbours the Blemyes, nominally in order to compensate them for guarding the frontier, in reality beyond doubt to buy off their plundering expeditions, which nevertheless of course did not cease. It was a retrograde step--the first, since Egypt became Roman. [Sidenote: Aethiopian commercial traffic.]