To ensure the supply of goods, the Axum kings did their best to extend their trading network across the interior of Africa.
They had numerous rivals, who were engaged in the same business from before, like the Kingdom of Kush, which in the past supplied Egypt with African goods across the Nile.
Already around the end of the 1st century, Axum gained control of the territory of the Kingdom of Kush. During the 2nd and 3rd centuries the Axum Kingdom expanded its control over the southern part of the Red Sea.
Thus the Kingdom of Axum gradually succeeded in becoming the main supplier of African goods to the Roman Empire.
