ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY
- Ethiopia
- L. Aethiopia, from Gk. Aithiopia, from Aithiops (see Ethiop). The native name is Abyssinia.
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- Ethiop
- late 14c., from L. Æthiops "Ethiopian, negro," from Gk. Aithiops, perhaps from aithein "to burn" + ops "face" (cf. aithops "fiery-looking," later "sunburned").
Who the Homeric Æthiopians were is a matter of doubt. The poet elsewhere speaks of two divisions of them, one dwelling near the rising, the other near the setting of the sun, both having imbrowned visages from their proximity to that luminary, and both leading a blissful existence, because living amid a flood of light; and, as a natural concomitant of a blissful existence, blameless, and pure, and free from every kind of moral defilement. [Charles Anthon, note to "The First Six Books of Homer's Iliad," 1878]
Aethiopia has the roots of the same words used for "dawn" according to Max Mueller making the people of the dawn-light the same as the twilight "dwelling near the rising, the other near the setting of the Sun" farthest East and West from any vantage point putting those "people" in "Abyssinia" or the abyss; celestial ocean. Could easily mean the semi-visible stars at dawn or twilight bathed in soft glow not yet surrounded by darkness or succumbed to pure light; a heavenly existence?
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