Roman Arabia (Provincia Arabia)

The province Rome annexed to control a trade route, taking over a kingdom that had made itself rich by charging tolls on it. Provincia Arabia was created in 106 under Trajan by absorbing the Nabataean kingdom, apparently without a war - the last king died and Roman troops moved in. The Nabataeans were Arabs who had settled the caravan routes carrying frankincense and myrrh from southern Arabia to the Mediterranean, and their capital at Petra was a city cut into sandstone cliffs in a valley reached through a narrow gorge, supplied by an elaborate system of dams and channels that made agriculture possible in the desert. Petra is now a World Heritage site and among the most visited monuments in the Middle East. The province covered the Sinai edge, the Negev, modern Jordan and northwest Saudi Arabia, with Bostra as its administrative capital and a legion stationed there. Trajan built the Via Nova Traiana from Bostra to the Red Sea at Aila, the modern Aqaba. The province's importance faded as sea routes through the Red Sea took over the incense trade from the caravans. Jerash preserves an exceptionally complete Roman provincial townscape. The frontier here faced desert rather than an organised enemy and was managed by treaties with tribes. Christianity spread early. The region fell to Arab armies in the 630s. Petra may have held 20 thousand people at its height. The province was created without a triumph being celebrated. Its garrison was the Third Legion Cyrenaica. Nabataean is written in an alphabet from which Arabic script descends.

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