This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Frumentius was a fourth century Phoenician Roman youth who, according to the traditional account, was shipwrecked on the Red Sea coast along with his relative Aedesius and brought to the court of the Kingdom of Aksum, an origin story built on accident and captivity rather than on a deliberate missionary voyage he had chosen for himself.
At the Aksumite court he rose to tutor and advise the young king Ezana, a position of genuine influence for a shipwrecked foreigner to reach, one that put him close enough to Aksum's ruling family to help shape the religious direction of the kingdom's own royal court from within rather than as an outside missionary petitioning for access.
Once free to leave Aksum, Frumentius chose instead to travel to Alexandria and ask its bishop Athanasius to send a missionary to the growing Christian community he had helped foster at the Aksumite court, a decision to seek reinforcement rather than to simply depart with his freedom secured, one that set in motion the specific chain of events that would make him a bishop rather than merely a well placed royal tutor.