CANDACE. - 1. The legendary queen of India in the time of Alexander the Great, who, during his expedition into India, is said to have received and deceived him, so that he made peace with her and left the country undisturbed.
2. In Acts 8:27 mention is made of the minister of finance of the Ethiopian queen C. (Κανδάκης). From what the ancients report (Strabo, Pliny, Cassius Dio, etc.), it may be deduced that women ruled in Ethiopia at that time.
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 brought to Alexandria. Pliny (Natur. hist., VI, 186) reports that the expedition sent by Nero to explore Ethiopia stated that a woman C. ruled there, a name borne by all the queens. It seems, however, that this was not a name, but rather a title common to all of them. In the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the temple of the lion-god at Naga, beside 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 are only the existence of the queen C. against whom Petronius waged war around the year 23, and that of the queen of Acts, who lived under Tiberius, and perhaps still under Nero.