Overview of the historical presence of the Roman Empire in the Arabian Peninsula
The Roman presence in the Arabian Peninsula had its foundations in the expansion of the empire under Augustus, and continued until the Arab conquests of Eastern Roman territory from the 630s onward.
The volume of commerce between Rome and India via Red Sea and Arabian Sea was huge since the conquest of Egypt by the Romans in 30 BC, according to the historian Strabo: 120 Roman vessels sailed every year from Berenice Troglodytica and many times touched southern Arabia Felix on their travel to India, while doing the Spice Route.[1] Mostly in order to secure the maritime route from piracy, the Romans organized an expedition under Aelius Gallus in which the port of Aden (then called Eudaemon) in southern Arabia was occupied temporarily. The Romans furthermore maintained a small legionary garrison in the Nabataean port of Leuke Kome (meaning "the white village", located north of the Arabian port of Jeddah) in the 1st century in order to control the commerce of spices, according to the academic Theodor Mommsen (see Indo-Roman trade relations).[2]
Frankincense and myrrh, two spices highly prized in antiquity as fragrances, could only be obtained from trees growing in southern Arabia, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Arab merchants brought these goods to Roman markets by means of camel caravans along the Incense Route. This Incense Route originally commenced at Shabwah in Hadhramaut, the easternmost kingdom of South Arabia, and ended at Petra. Strabo compared the immense traffic along the desert routes to that of an army. The Incense Route ran along the western edge of Arabia's central desert about 100 miles inland from the Red Sea coast. The Roman Pliny the Elder stated that the journey consisted of sixty-five stages divided by halts for the camels. Both the Nabataeans and the South Arabians grew tremendously wealthy through the transport of these goods destined for the Roman Empire.
Gallus' expedition
The ruins of Old Marib, Yemen, besieged by the Romans in 25 BC
Then part of the Kingdom of Saba, the area of modern-day Yemen was called Arabia Felix (Latin for 'Happy Arabia' / 'Fortunate Arabia') by the Romans, reflecting its perceived prosperity. The success of the Sabaeans was based on their cultivation and trade of valuable spices and aromatics, including frankincense and myrrh. Irrigation of these crops was enabled by the Great Dam of Ma'rib. Strabo mentions that Ilasaros was the ruler of Hadhramaut at that time.
Augustus commanded Gallus to undertake a military expedition to Arabia Felix in 26 BC, where he was to either conclude treaties making the Arabian people foederati (i.e., client states), or to subdue them if they resisted. According to Theodor Mommsen, Aelius Gallus sailed with 10,000 legionaries from Egypt and landed at Leuce Kome, a trading port of the Nabateans in the northwestern Arabian coast.[8] Gallus' subsequent movements relied on a Nabataean guide called Syllaeus, who proved to be untrustworthy.[4][9][10] As a result of Syllaeus' misdirections, the army took six months to reach Ma'rib, the Sabaean capital.
Gallus besieged Ma'rib unsuccessfully for a week, before being forced to withdraw. Mommsen ascribes this to a combination of disease, over-extended supply lines, and a tougher desert environment than the Romans had expected.[citation needed] Gallus' retreat to Alexandria was completed in sixty days. The supporting Roman fleet had more success: they occupied and destroyed the port of Eudaemon (modern Aden), securing the Roman merchant route to India.
Trajan and the Arabia Petraea province
A map of the Roman Empire shortly after Trajan's conquests of the kingdom of Nabataea, including Hegra in the interior. The province was soon reduced back to the line of limes Arabicus.
The Nabateans maintained close relations with the Romans since their arrival in the southeastern Mediterranean area. Under Augustus they were a Roman client kingdom.
When the emperor Trajan started his military expansions toward the east Rabbel II Soter, one of Rome's client kings, died. This event prompted the annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom, although the manner and the formal reasons for the annexation are unclear. Some epigraphic evidence suggests a military operation, with forces from Syria and Egypt. What is clear, however, is that by 107, Roman legions were stationed in the area around Petra and Bostra, as is shown by a papyrus (and other evidence) found in Egypt.
The Hedjaz region was integrated into the Roman province of Arabia in 106 CE. A monumental Roman epigraph of 175-177 was recently discovered at Al-Hijr (then called Hegra). The region then formed part of Roman history, and then Byzantine history, until the 7th century. In 356, the city of Hegra is again mentioned, as being led by a mayor of local origin, but it seems to have been very little [...][12]
The conquest of Arabia was not officially exulted until the completion of the Via Traiana Nova in 120s. This road extended down the center of the province from Bostra to Aqaba. It was not until the project was finished that coins, featuring Trajan's bust on the obverse and a camel on the reverse, appeared commemorating the acquisition of Arabia. These coins were minted until 115, at which time the Roman imperial focus was turning farther eastward. The road links not only Bostra and Aqaba, but also Petra, and was continued by a "caravan road" south the coast of western Arabia until the port of Leuce Kome.
In 1965, further evidence was discovered that Roman legions occupied Mada'in Saleh in the Hijaz Mountains area of northwestern Arabia, increasing the extension of the Arabia Petraea province.[13] Particularly interested in the East, Trajan secured Indian Ocean trade by establishing a garrison on tropical Farasan island, in the south of that sea.[14]
Hadrian probably restructured the province after the Trajan expansion, reducing the area to nearly half the original size (at the west of what was called the Limes Arabicus) in order to better defend Arabia Petraea from raiders and enemies. The same process occurred in Caledonia, when he abandoned the Roman forts around Inchtuthil and the Gask Ridge and created Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain (reducing the Roman-controlled area of Scotland).
Under emperor Septimius Severus Arabia Petraea was expanded to include the Leja' and Jabal al-Druze, rough terrain south of Damascus, and also the birthplace of M. Julius Phillipus (Philip the Arab).
Roman Arabia in the "Diocese of the East" (Dioecesis Orientis) at the beginning of the 5th century
Indeed, the Romans found a powerful ally in the Arabs called Ghassanids, who moved from the area of Marib to southern Syria, mainly in the 2nd century. The Ghassanids were the buffer zone against the other Bedouins penetrating Roman territory in those years. More accurately their kings can be described as phylarchs, native rulers of subject frontier states. Their capital was at Jabiyah in the Golan Heights. Geographically, the Ghassanid kingdom occupied much of Syria, Mount Hermon (Lebanon), Jordan and Palestine, and its authority extended via tribal alliances with other "Azdi" tribes all the way to the northern Hejaz as far south as Yathrib (Medina).
Furthermore, precise Arab ancestry of the Roman emperor Philip the Arab is not known, since all sources give only the Latin names of him and his family members. However, having originated from the general area in which the Ghassanids settled, many historians consider he may have been of that origin. His being mentioned either as a Christian himself or at least tolerant of Christians would fit with his originating from a people which was in the process of Christianization at the time of his rule.
Septimius Severus 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 Septimius Severus in the Roman Near East.
Arabia became such a symbol of loyalty to Severus and the empire, according to Bowersock,[15] that during his war against Clodius Albinus, in Gaul, Syrian opponents propagated a rumour that the Third Cyrenaica legion controlling Arabia Petraea had defected. That it would matter to an issue in Gaul 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, resources, or even strategic position, it had become a bedrock of Roman culture. That it was an Eastern Roman culture did not seem to dilute its effectiveness in matters in the west. It is precisely because Arabia Petraea had so little that it was able to define itself as Roman and that spurred its loyalty to Imperial Rome.
Another example of the loyalty to Rome of the Arab tribes of northern Arabia was Lucius Septimius Odaenathus. He was "the son of Lucius Septimius Herod (Hairān), the senator and chief of Tadmor, the son of Vaballathus (Wahballath), the son of Nasor"[16] and was the romanized Arab ruler of Palmyra and later his wife Zenobia and son Vaballathus ruled the short-lived Palmyrene Empire. Odaenathus, in the second half of the 3rd century, succeeded in recovering the Roman East from the Sassanids and restoring it to the Empire.
The province was conquered by the Arab Muslims under the CaliphUmar in the early 7th century: the Legio III Cyrenaica was destroyed defending Bostra in 630, ending the Roman presence in Arabia.[17]
Lucius Septimius Severus was a Roman politician who served as emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus was the final contender to seize power after the death of the emperor Pertinax in 193 during the Year of the Five Emperors.
Philip the Arab was Roman emperor from 244 to 249. He was born in the province of Arabia Petraea, in a city situated in modern-day Syria. After the death of Gordian III in February 244, Philip, who had been Praetorian prefect, achieved power. He quickly negotiated peace with the Persian Sassanid Empire and returned to Rome to be confirmed by the Senate. During his reign, the city of Rome celebrated its millennium.
Osroene or Osrhoene was an ancient region and state in Upper Mesopotamia. The Kingdom of Osroene, also known as the "Kingdom of Edessa", according to the name of its capital city, existed from the 2nd century BC, up to the 3rd century AD, and was ruled by the Abgarid dynasty. Generally allied with the Parthians, the Kingdom of Osroene enjoyed semi-autonomy to complete independence from the years of 132 BC to AD 214. Though ruled by a dynasty of Arab origin, the kingdom's population was of mixed culture, being Syriac-speaking from the earliest times. The city's cultural setting was fundamentally Syriac, alongside strong Greek and Parthian influences, though some Arab cults were also attested at Edessa.
Legio III Cyrenaica, was a legion of the Imperial Roman army. The legion had its origins among the forces of Mark Antony during the civil wars of late first century BC. In the Imperial period it was stationed in Egypt, where it played a key role in campaigns against the Nubians and Jews. In the first century AD, it was usually located in Arabia Petraea. There are still records of the legion in Syria at the beginning of the 5th century. The legion symbol is unknown.
The Nabataeans or Nabateans were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Levant. Their settlements—most prominently the assumed capital city of Raqmu —gave the name Nabatene to the Arabian borderland that stretched from the Euphrates to the Red Sea.
Arabia Petraea or Petrea, also known as Rome's Arabian Province or simply Arabia, was a frontier province of the Roman Empire beginning in the 2nd century. It consisted of the former Nabataean Kingdom in the southern Levant, the Sinai Peninsula, and the northwestern Arabian Peninsula. Its capital was Petra. It was bordered on the north by Syria, on the west by Judaea and Egypt, and on the south and east by the rest of Arabia, known as Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix.
Legio X Fretensis was a legion of the Imperial Roman army. It was founded by the young Gaius Octavius in 41/40 BC to fight during the period of civil war that started the dissolution of the Roman Republic. X Fretensis is then recorded to have existed at least until the 410s.
Roman Syria was an early Roman province annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War following the defeat of King of Armenia Tigranes the Great, who had become the protector of the Hellenistic kingdom of Syria.
Assyria was a short-lived Roman province in Mesopotamia that was created by Trajan in 116 during his campaign against the Parthian Empire. After Trajan's death, the newly proclaimed emperor Hadrian ordered the evacuation of Assyria in 118.
Pre-Islamic Arabia, referring to the Arabian Peninsula before Muhammad's first revelation in 610 CE, is referred to in Islam in the context of jahiliyyah, highlighting the prevalence of paganism throughout the region at the time.
The Via Traiana Nova or Via Nova Traiana, previously known as the Via Regia or King's Highway, was an ancient Roman road built by Emperor Trajan in the province of Arabia Petraea, from Aqaba on the Red Sea to Bostra. It was specifically known as the Via Traiana Nova in order to distinguish it from the Via Traiana in Italy. It is occasionally also referred to simply as the Via Nova or 'Via Nova Traiana' Its construction started shortly after the annexation of Arabia, supervised by governor Gaius Claudius Severus, and was completed under Hadrian.
Gaius Aelius Gallus was a Roman prefect of Egypt from 26 to 24 BC. He is primarily known for a disastrous expedition he undertook to Arabia Felix under orders of Augustus.
Mesopotamia was the name of a Roman province, initially a short-lived creation of the Roman emperor Trajan in 116–117 and then re-established by Emperor Septimius Severus in c. 198. Control of the province was subsequently fought over between the Roman and the Sassanian empires until the Muslim conquests of the 7th century.
The Nabataean Kingdom, also named Nabatea, was a political state of the Nabataeans during classical antiquity.
Palaestina Salutaris or Palaestina Tertia was a Byzantine province, which covered the area of the Negev, Sinai 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 during the reforms of Diocletian in c.300 CE and existed until the Muslim Arab conquests of the 7th century.
Transjordan, the East Bank, or the Transjordanian Highlands, is the part of the Southern Levant east of the Jordan River, mostly contained in present-day Jordan.
Nashan is the name of an ancient South Arabian city in the northern al-Jawf region of present day Yemen, in the territory of the ancient Kingdom of Ma'in. The city was called Nestum in the Natural History book that was written by Pliny the Elder.
The Bostran era was a calendar era with an epoch corresponding to 22March 106AD. It was the official era of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, introduced to replace dating by regnal years after the Roman annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom. It is named after the city of Bostra, which became the headquarters of the Sixth Legion stationed in the province.
References
↑ The Geography of Strabo published in Vol. I of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1917
↑ Theodor Mommsen. The Provinces of the Roman Empire. Chapter X (Syria and the land of the Nabataeans)
As found in the Notitia Dignitatum. Provincial administration reformed and dioceses established by Diocletian, c.293. Permanent praetorian prefectures established after the death of Constantine I. Empire permanently partitioned after 395. Exarchates of Ravenna and Africa established after 584. After massive territorial losses in the 7th century, the remaining provinces were superseded by the theme system in c.640–660, although in Asia Minor and parts of Greece they survived under the themes until the early 9th century.
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