The Nabataean Kingdom (Arabic: المملكة النبطية), also named Nabatea, was a political state of the Arab Nabataeans during classical antiquity.
Nabataea remained independent from the 4th century BC until It was annexed by the Roman Empire in AD 106, which renamed it Arabia Petrea cause of ancient Greek city Petra.
Temple of Avdat in the Negev, built by the Nabataeans to commemorate king Obodas I and his victories against the Hasmoneans and the Seleucids.
The Nabataeans were one among several nomadic Bedouin tribes that roamed the Arabian Desert and moved with their herds to wherever they could find pasture and water. They became familiar with their area as seasons passed, and they struggled to survive during bad years when seasonal rainfall diminished. Although the Nabataeans were initially embedded in Aramaic culture, theories about them having Aramean roots are rejected by modern scholars. Instead, archaeological, religious and linguistic evidence confirm that they are a northern Arabian tribe.
The precise origin of the specific tribe of Arab nomads remains uncertain. One hypothesis locates their original homeland in today's Yemen, in the southwest of the Arabian peninsula, but their deities, language and script share nothing with those of southern Arabia. Another hypothesis argues that they came from the eastern coast of the peninsula.
The suggestion that they came from the Hejaz area is considered to be more convincing, as they share many deities with the ancient people there; nbtw, the root consonant of the tribe's name, is found in the early Semitic languages of Hejaz.
Similarities between late Nabataean Arabic dialect and the ones found in Mesopotamia during the Neo-Assyrian period, as well as a group with the name of "Nabatu" being listed by the Assyrians as one of several rebellious Arab tribes in the region, suggests a connection between the two. The Nabataeans might have originated from there and migrated west between the 6th and 4th centuries BC into northwestern Arabia and much of what is now modern-day Jordan.
Nabataeans have been falsely associated with other groups of people. A people called the "Nabaiti", who were defeated by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, were associated by some with the Nabataeans because of the temptation to link their similar names. Another misconception is their identification with the Nebaioth of the Hebrew Bible, the descendants of Ishmael, Abraham's son.
Unlike the rest of the Arabian tribes, the Nabataeans later emerged as vital players in the region during their times of prosperity. However, their influence then faded, and the Nabataeans were forgotten.
Although the Nabataeans were literate, they left no lengthy historical texts. However, there are thousands of inscriptions still found today in several places where they once lived, including graffiti and on their minted coins. The first historical reference to the Nabataeans is by Greek historian Diodorus Siculus who lived around 30 BC, but he includes some 300 years earlier information about them. He uses a source by Hieronymus of Cardia; one of Alexander the Great's generals who had a first-hand encounter with the Nabataeans.
Diodorus relates how the Nabataeans survive in a waterless desert and how they managed to defeat any enemies by hiding in the desert until the latter would surrender for lack of water. The Nabataeans dug cisterns that were covered and left signs known only to themselves. Diodorus wrote about how they were "exceptionally fond of freedom" and includes an account about unsuccessful raids that were initiated by Greek general Antigonus I in 312 BC.
neither the Assyrians of old, nor the kings of the Medes and Persians, nor yet those of the Greeks have been able to enslave them, and... they never brought their attempts to a successful conclusion. - Diodorus
After Alexander the Great's death in 323 BC, his empire split among his generals. During the conflict between Alexander's generals, Antigonus I conquered the Levant and this brought him to the borders of Edom, just north of Petra.The wealthy Nabataeans became Antigonus's next target, their wealth was generated by revenues from the trade caravans that transported frankincense, myrrh and other spices from Eudaemon in today's Yemen, across the Arabian peninsula, passing through Petra and ending up in the Port of Gaza for shipment to European markets. This wealth distinguished the Nabataeans from other Arab tribes. Antigonus appointed one of his officers to attack the Nabataean "barbarians" and take their herds as booty. The three raids either came to nothing or ended up in disaster for the Greeks.
In the first raid, the Greeks managed to loot tonnes of spices and silver from Petra in 312 BC; although the year is regarded as the official start of Nabataean history, they were already wealthy. Two confrontations soon followed and in light of the defeats, Antigonus deserted his plans against these Arabs, as he had more important matters to attend to. During the Battle of Ipsus in Anatolia around 301 BC, Antigonids lost to a Greek coalition that included the Seleucids.
The series of wars between the Greek generals ended in a dispute over the lands of modern-day Jordan between the Ptolemies based in Egypt and the Seleucids based in Syria. The conflict enabled the Nabataeans to extend their kingdom beyond Edom.
Kingdom
During the late fourth century BC, the Nabataeans occupied northern Hejaz, Edom and the Negev into the Mediterranean Sea. Along with some offshore islands and a stretch of land along the coast of the Red Sea. Diodorus mentions that the Nabataeans had attacked merchants ships belonging to the Ptolemies in Egypt but were soon targeted by a larger force and "punished as they deserved". While it is unknown why the wealthy Nabataeans turned to piracy, one possible reason is that they felt that their trade interests were threatened by the competitive naval trade route across the Red Sea.
Half a century following Antigonus's aggressions is the second historical reference to the Nabataeans in Hauran. Dionysius, one of two Greek employees who sought an alternative career of selling women as sex slaves, was once detained by the Nabataeans for a week during one of his trades.Considering the Nabtaean society's remarkable gender equality at that time, it is likely that they were objecting to the treatment of women in their area, which they believed they were responsible for in the course of maintaining law and order.
Aretas I is the first named king of the Nabataeans whose name was found on an inscription in the Negev dating back to the second century BC. Around the same time, the Arab Nabataeans and the neighboring Jewish Maccabees had maintained a friendly relationship, the former had sympathized with the Maccabee who were being mistreated by the Seleucids. The Nabataeans started to mint coins during the same century, portraying the extensive economic and political independence that they enjoyed.
Petra was included in a list of major cities in the Mediterranean area to be visited by a notable from Priene, a sign of the significance of Nabataea in the ancient world. Petra was included with Alexandria, which was considered to be a supreme city in the civilized world.
Nabataeans and Hasmoneans
The Nabataeans were allies of the Maccabees during their struggles against the Seleucid monarchs. They then became rivals of their successors, the Judaean Hasmonean dynasty, and a chief element in the disorders which invited Pompey's intervention in Judea.The Port of Gaza was the last stop for spices that were carried by trade caravans before shipment to European markets, and so the Nabataeans had considerable influence over the Gazans. The Hasmonean King Alexander Jannaeus, besieged the city of Gaza around 100 BC, on the grounds that the Gazans had favoured the Ptolemies over the Judaeans in their recent battles. Gaza was occupied and its inhabitants put to the sword by Jannaeus.
The Hasmoneans, under Jannaeus, launched a campaign that captured several territories in Transjordan north of Nabataea, along the road to Damascus, including northern Moab and Gilead. The territorial acquisitions threatened Nabataean trade interests, both to Gaza and to the Seleucids in Damascus.[8] The Nabataean King, Obodas I fought to restore the areas. Obodas managed to defeat Jannaeus in the Battle of Gadara around 93 BC, when he ambushed him and his forces in a steep valley where Jannaeus "was lucky to escape alive".
After the Nabataean victory over the Judaeans, the former were now at odds with the Seleucids, who were not impressed with the increasing influence of the Nabataeans to the south of their territories.The Nabataeans were again victorious over the Greeks, and this time over the Seleucids. During the Battle of Cana, the Seleucid king Antiochus XII waged war against the Nabataeans and the king himself was slain during combat. His demoralized army fled and perished in the desert from starvation. After Obodas's victories over the Judaeans and the Greeks, he became the first Nabataean king to be worshipped as a god by his people.
Avdat was a temple built in the Negev desert by the Nabataeans to commemorate Obodas. He was buried there and inscriptions have been found referring to "Obodas the god".
During the reign of Aretas III (87 to 62 BC) the kingdom seems to have reached its territorial zenith, but it was defeated by a Roman army under the command of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus. Scaurus' army even besieged Petra, but eventually a compromise was negotiated.
Paying a tribute, Aretas III received the formal recognition by the Roman Republic.
The Nabataean kingdom saw itself slowly surrounded by the expanding Roman Empire, which conquered Egypt and annexed Hasmonean Judea. While the Nabataean kingdom managed to preserve its formal independence, it became a client kingdom under the influence of Rome
Roman annexation - Arabia Petraea
Arabia Petraea or Petrea, also known as Rome's Arabian Province (Latin: Provincia Arabia) or simply Arabia, was a frontier province of the Roman Empire beginning in the 2nd century; it consisted of the former Nabataean kingdom in Jordan, southern Levant, the Sinai Peninsula and northwestern Arabian peninsula. Its capital was Petra. It was bordered on the north by Syria, on the west by Iudaea (merged with Syria from AD 135) and Aegyptus, and on the south and east by the rest of Arabia, known as Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix.
It was annexed by Emperor Trajan, like many other eastern frontier provinces of the Roman Empire, but held onto, unlike Armenia, Mesopotamia and Assyria, well after Trajan's rule – its desert frontier being called the Limes Arabicus. It produced no usurpers and no emperors (Philippus, though Arab, was from Shahbā, a Syrian city added to the province of Arabia at a point between 193 and 225 — Philippus was born around 204). As a frontier province, it included a desert populated by the nomadic Saraceni, and bordering the Parthian hinterland.
The Roman Empire in the time of Hadrian (ruled AD 117–38), showing, in western Asia, the imperial province of Arabia Petraea (Jordan/NW Saudi Arabia/Sinai). A single legion was deployed there in 125 AD.
Though subject to eventual attack and deprivation by the Parthians and Palmyrenes, it had nothing like the constant incursions faced in other areas on the Roman frontier, such as Germany and North Africa, nor the entrenched cultural presence that defined the other, more Hellenized, eastern provinces.
Most of Arabia was sparsely populated, and its cities can be found concentrated to the north, toward the Jordan. The only major port is Aqaba, which can be found at the tip of a wide gulf from the Red Sea bearing the same name. There is some disagreement as to what was the capital of the province, with claims that Bostra, near the border of the province of Syria, as the sole capital and other claims that both Petra and Bostra served that purpose.
Petra served as the base for Legio III Cyrenaica, and the governor of the province would spend time in both cities, issuing edicts from both. Upon annexation of the province, Bostra gained the appellative “Traiane” when Trajan declared it the capital while Hadrian performed the same ceremonial act for Petra when he became emperor.
Before Roman control, the area was ruled by Rabbel II, last king of the Nabataeans until 106 AD. When Rabbel II, who had ruled since 70 AD, died, the Third Cyrenaica legion moved north from Egypt into Petra, while the Sixth Ferrata legion, a Syrian garrison unit, moved south to occupy Bostra. The conquest of Nabataea can be best described as casual, an act by Trajan to consolidate control of the area before acting on his designs for territory across the Tigris and eventually into Mesopotamia proper.
There is no evidence of any pretext for the annexation: Rabbel II had an heir by the name of Obodas and though there was little fighting and gloria (attested to by the fact that Trajan did not adopt the appellation Arabicus, as he did Dacius when he conquered Dacia), there does seem to have been enough of a defeat to cause some humiliation on the part of the Nabataeans. The two cohorts that eventually found themselves in Arabia had been sailed from Egypt to Syria in preparation for the action, which despite some resistance among the Nabataean royal guard, seemed to be not entirely resisted by the Nabataeans, suggested by the fact that the Nabataean troops served as auxiliary troops supporting Roman legions soon after conquest.
The conquest of Arabia was not officially celebrated until completion of the Via Nova Traiana. This road extended down the center of the province from Bostra to Aqaba. It isn’t until the project is finished that coins, featuring Trajan’s bust on the obverse and a camel on the reverse, appear commemorating the acquisition of Arabia. These coins are minted until 115, at which time the Roman imperial focus was turning farther eastward.
The road links not only Bostra and Aqaba, which other than being a port doesn’t seem to hold much significance in the eyes of the imperial government, but also Petra, which sits at the center of the province, between the road’s two termini. Though Trajan declared Bostra to be the capital of the province, he also awarded Petra the status of metropolis, as a sign that he agreed in the matter of its importance with his successor, Hadrian, who considered it to be more dignified and historic.
Recently, evidence has been discovered that Roman legions occupied Madain Salih under Trajan in the Hijaz mountain area of northeastern Arabia, increasing the extension of the "Arabia Petraea" province south.
Romanization
With Roman conquest came the imposition of Latin and Greek in official discourse. This was standard for a province in Eastern Rome, but Arabia had far less of the history of Hellenization and Romanization than its neighbors, and the Greek language was little used before its introduction by the Romans. After the conquest, though, Greek was adopted popularly, as well as officially, practically supplanting Nabataean and Aramaic, as evidenced by inscriptions at Umm al Quttain. The occurrence of Latin in the province was rare and limited to such cases as the tomb inscription of T. Aninius Sextius Florentinus, governor in 127, and, somewhat paradoxically, in personal names.
Millar makes a case for a Graeco-Roman Hellenization in Arabia.[citation needed] It is an area, after all, that was not significantly hellenized during the rule of Alexander, and the locals originally spoke Aramaic and Nabataean, not Greek. So with the introduction of Roman rule, along with many aspects of classic Roman socialization, such as public works and glorification of the military, came an introduction of some Greek cultural and social values. Arabia acclimates to the new culture so fully that it seems the original linguistic groups faded away. There were scattered Nabataean inscriptions during the period of imperial Roman rule.
When Avidius Cassius rebelled against what he believed was a deceased Marcus Aurelius, he received no support from Arabia province, overlooked by some historians due likely to the fact that Arabia hadn’t the wealth or political might of Syria. Arabia responded similarly when the governor of Syria, Pescennius Niger, proclaimed himself emperor in 193.
Bosra, capital of Arabia Petraea.
When Septimius Severus came into power and stripped the Syrian city of Antioch of its status as Metropolis for its part in the rebellion and meted out punishment to any others who were unlucky enough to choose the wrong side, the Third Cyrenaica received the honorific “Severiana”. In addition, the governor of Arabia, P. Aelius Severianus Maximus, was allowed to continue in his post in reward for his loyalty. Syria was later split into two and Arabia was expanded to include the Leja’ and Jebel Drūz, rough terrain south of Damascus, and also the birthplace of M. Julius Phillipus — Phillip the Arab.
Severus had enlarged a province that was already huge. He then proceeded to enlarge the empire, through the conquest of Mesopotamia. The transfer of the Leja’ and Jebel Drūz seemed to have been part of a shrewd series of political acts on the emperor’s part to consolidate control of the area before this conquest. Arabia became the ideological power base for Septemius Severus in the Roman Near East. The obvious need to mitigate and tame the power of the province of Syria, which had shown itself over and over to be a hotbed of rebellion, was then accomplished in three parts: The aforementioned reorganization of Syria into two political units, the reduction of its territory in favor of Arabia, and the marriage of the emperor to the shrewd Julia Domna.
Arabia became such a symbol of loyalty to Severus and the empire, according to Bowersock, that during his war against Clodius Albinus, in Gaul, Syrian opponents propagated a rumour that the Third Cyrenaica had defected. That it would matter to an issue in France that a single legion in a backwater province on the other side of the empire would rebel indicates the political sway that Arabia had amassed. Not a land of significant population, or resources or even strategic position, it had become a bedrock of Roman culture. That it was an Eastern Roman culture didn't seem to dilute its effectiveness in matters in the west. It is precisely because Arabia had so little that it was able to define itself as Roman and that spurred its loyalty to an Imperial Rome that may never have existed.
With Emperor Diocletian's restructuring of the empire in 284–305, Arabia province was enlarged to include parts of modern-day Israel. Arabia after Diocletian became a part of the Diocese of Oriens ("the East"), which was part of the Prefecture of Oriens.
During Byzantine - Palaestina Salutaris
Palaestina Salutaris or Palaestina Tertia was a Byzantine (Eastern Roman) province, which covered the area of the Negev (or Edom), Sinai (except the north western coast) and south-west of Transjordan, south of the Dead Sea. The province, a part of the Diocese of the East, was split from Arabia Petraea in the 6th century and existed until the Muslim Arab conquests of the 7th century.
In 105, the territories east of Damascus and south to the Red Sea were annexed from the Nabataean kingdom and reformed into the province of Arabia with a capital Petra and Bostra (north and south). The province was enlarged by Septimius Severus in 195, and is believed to have split into two provinces: Arabia Minor or Arabia Petraea and Arabia Maior, both subject to imperial legates ranking as consularis, each with a legion.
Palaestina Salutaris within Diocese of the East, in 400 AD.
By the 3rd century, the Nabataeans had stopped writing in Aramaic and begun writing in Greek instead, and by the 4th century they had partially converted to Christianity, a process completed in the 5th century.
Petra declined rapidly under late Roman rule, in large part from the revision of sea-based trade routes. In 363 an earthquake destroyed many buildings, and crippled the vital water management system.
The area became organized under late Roman Empire as part of the Diocese of the East (314), in which it was included together with the provinces of Isauria, Cilicia, Cyprus (until 536), Euphratensis, Mesopotamia, Osroene, Phoenice and Arabia Petraea.
Byzantine rule in the 4th century introduced Christianity to the population. Agricultural-based cities were established and the population grew exponentially. Under Byzantium (since 390), a new subdivision did further split the province of Cilicia into Cilicia Prima, Cilicia Secunda; Syria Palaestina was split into Syria Prima, Syria Salutaris, Phoenice Lebanensis, Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda and eventually also Palaestina Salutaris (in 6th century).
Palaestina Tertia included the Negev, southern Transjordan, once part of Arabia Petraea, and most of Sinai with Petra as the usual residence of the governor and Metropolitan Archbishopric. Palestina Tertia was also known as Palaestina Salutaris. According to historian H.H. Ben-Sasson,
The Muslim Arabs found the remnants of the Nabataeans of Transjordan and the Negev transformed into peasants. Their lands were divided between the new Qahtanite Arab tribal kingdoms of the Byzantine vassals, the Ghassanid Arabs and the Himyarite vassals, the Kindah Arab Kingdom in North Arabia, forming parts of the Bilad al-Sham province.
References
Ministry of Tourism & Antiquities - Petra from the official website for The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Jane, Taylor (2001). Petra and the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans. London, United Kingdom: I.B.Tauris. pp. 14, 17, 30, 31. Retrieved 8 July 2016.
Maalouf, Tony (2003). Arabs in the Shadow of Israel: The Unfolding of God's Prophetic Plan for Ishmael's Line. Kregel Academic. Retrieved 8 July 2016.
Mills, Watson; Bullard, Roger (1990). Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Mercer University Press. p. 598. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
Waterfield, Robin (11 October 2012). Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire. Oxford University Press. p. 123. Retrieved 10 July 2016.
Salibi, Kamal (1998). The Modern History of Jordan. I.B.Tauris. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-86064-331-6. Retrieved 11 July 2016.
Johnson, Paul (1987). A History of the Jews. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-79091-4.
Josephus, Flavius (1981). The Jewish War. 1:87. Trans. G. A. Williamson 1959. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-14-044420-9.
Ball, Warwick (10 June 2016). Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire. Routledge. p. 65. Retrieved 10 July 2016.
Taylor, Jane; Petra; p.25-31; Aurum Press Ltd; London; 2005; ISBN 9957-451-04-9
Teller, Matthew; Jordan; p.265; Rough Guides; Sept 2009; ISBN 978-1-84836-066-2
"'Al Kanfei Yonah". Google Books. Retrieved 27 August 2014.
Gibson (2011), p. 132.
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