Cornelius Palma Frontonianus

Aulus Cornelius Palma Frontonianus annexed the Nabataean kingdom for Rome and was executed by Hadrian. He was consul in 99 and again in 109, an unusual second consulship indicating high standing with Trajan, and governed Nearer Spain before being sent east. As governor of Syria from about 104 he oversaw the annexation of the Nabataean kingdom in 106, creating the province of Arabia Petraea. The Nabataeans were an Arab people who had grown wealthy controlling the incense and spice routes from southern Arabia to the Mediterranean, with their capital at Petra, cut into rock in a defile in what is now Jordan, and a second centre at Bostra. The annexation appears to have been largely peaceful; the last king died, and Roman forces occupied the territory without a recorded campaign, though a coin issue celebrating Arabia acquired suggests something more than an inheritance. Trajan built the Via Nova Traiana from Bostra to the Red Sea, and the province supplied a route for trade and a flank for the later Parthian war. Palma received triumphal ornaments and a statue in the Forum of Augustus for it. He was among the four consulars — with Celsus, Nigrinus and Lusius Quietus — executed in 118, at the start of Hadrian's reign, on a charge of conspiring against him. Hadrian denied ordering it and blamed the Senate and the praetorian prefect Attianus, and nobody believed him. The executions poisoned his relations with the Senate for the rest of his reign, and he is said to have regretted them.

• Lived: 60 CE – 118 CE
• Nationality: Roman
• Roles: general