CANDACE. - 1. A legendary queen of India in the time of Alexander the Great, by whom, on his expedition into India, she is said to have been received and deceived, so that he made peace with her and left the country undisturbed.
2. In Acts 8:27 there is mention of the finance minister of the queen C. (Κανδάκης) of Ethiopia. From what the ancients report (Strabo, Pliny, Cassius Dio, etc.) it can be deduced that at that time women ruled in Ethiopia.
Strabo relates (XVII, 8.20) that the generals of queen C., against whom the prefect of Egypt Petronius waged war, were taken prisoner by him and led to Alexandria. Pliny (Natur. hist., VI, 186) reports that the expedition sent by Nero to explore Ethiopia related that a woman C. ruled there, a name borne by all the queens. It seems, however, to be not a name but rather a title common to them all. In the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the temple of the lion god at Naga, alongside the names of the queen stands the title Katahe, a word very close to "C.," because in Ethiopian proper names the letter n is omitted or even added. Historically and chronologically certain is only the existence of queen C., against whom Petronius waged war ca. the year 23, and of her of the Acts, who lived under Tiberius, and perhaps still under Nero.