decline followed a pattern close to that of the Western
Roman Empire. The role played by the Huns and Vandals
in the decline of Rome was taken by the Arabs, who, in the
seventh century, expanded into the Red Sea and down the
Arabian Peninsula. Aksum lost its colonies in Arabia and
its trade routes. This precipitated economic decline: money
stopped being coined, the urban population fell, and there
was a refocusing of the state into the interior of the country
and up into the highlands of modern Ethiopia.