THE MACROBIANS.

The Macrobians, meaning long-lived, were a legendary tribe of Aethiopia, a kingdom positioned in the land towards the Western Sunset at the ends of the earth in ancient Libya (Africa).
In the inhabited world according to Herodotus, Libya (Africa) is imagined as extending no further south than the Horn of Africa, terminating in uninhabitable desert. The Macrobians dwelt geographically along the sea South of Libya on the Atlantic opposite of the Erythraean sea to the East of them. South of the Pillars of Hercules and Atlas Mountains, at the extreme South-East of the continent, were the Macrobians while the Libyans along the Mediterranean Sea were indigenous to Northern Libya. All peoples inhabiting the southern most fringes of the inhabitable world were known as Ethiopians (after their black skin).
Macrobians were known for their longevity and height. An average person was suppose to live to the age of 120. They were said to be the tallest and handsomest of all men. At the same time, they were reported as being physically distinct from the rest of mankind.
Herodotus' account says that the Persian Emperor Cambyses II upon his conquest of Egypt (525 BC) sent ambassadors to Macrobia, bringing luxury gifts for the Macrobian king to entice his submission. The Macrobian ruler, who was elected based on his stature and beauty, replied instead with a challenge for his Persian counterpart in the form of an unstrung bow: if the Persians could manage to draw it, they would have the right to invade his country; but until then, they should thank the gods that the Macrobians never decided to invade their empire.
Later on according to sources Canaanite Phoenician tribes who left their homeland of Canaan and sailed West of the Mediterranean Sea also settled along the Atlantic coast of Africa, after they were driven out of their homeland by invading Hebrew Israelite tribes under Moses, Joshua and David.
Both Xenophon and Herodotus makes it known that during their time, Asia was ruled by the Persians in the East, Europe ruled by the Scythians in the North, Northern Libya ruled by the Carthaginians and Southern Lybia ruled by the Macrobian Ethiopians in the West.
When Herodotus described the Eastern, Southern and Western (Asia, Arabia, Libya) ends of the inhabited Earth, he made it known that the Macrobians dwelt the farthest towards the sunset (west) of the Southern Nile River beyond the Western Sahara. Herodotus also made it known that only 2 tribes accomplished this long journey from the Nile River to the Western Ends of the earth beyond the vast desert Sahara, these 2 tribes were known as the Libyan Nasamones, who spoke an alien language to the inhabitants, and the Ichthyophagi of Elefantine, who spoke the same language as the inhabitants, but Cambyses with his huge army failed to accomplish what the Nasamones and the Ichthyophagi had already completed. Cambyses, after being insulted by the tallest and long-lived Macrobian Ethiopian King of the West, he eagerly wanted to conquest and subdue all people of Amun and destroy all temples of the god, but failed in his desperate attempt. And although Cambyses had departed from Susa to invade and conquer the land of Egypt by crossing the Sinai desert and afterwards departing from Egypt to reach the deep Southern realms of Meroe, he was still far away from the land of the Macrobians, who dwelt beyond the vast Sahara desert at the ends of the earth as far as the Ocean towards the Western Sunset.
According to Herodotus, the Macrobians practiced an elaborate form of embalming. They preserved the dead bodies by first extracting moisture from the corpses, then overlaying the bodies with a type of plaster, and finally decorating the exterior in vivid colors in order to imitate the deceased as realistically as possible. Then they placed the body in a hollow crystal pillar, which they kept in their homes for a period of a year. Macrobia was also noted for its gold, which was so plentiful that the Macrobians shackled their prisioners in golden chains.