About Sixty-Three
Years Before Christ, Pompey Took Petra; And, From That Period, The
Sovereigns Of Idumea Were Tributary To The Romans.
This city, however,
still retained its commerce, and was in a flourishing condition, as we are
informed by Strabo, on the authority of his friend Athenedorus, who visited
it about thirty-six years after it.
He describes it as built on a rock,
distinguished, however, from all the rocks in that part of Arabia, from
being supplied with an abundant spring of water. Its natural position, as
well as art, rendered it a fortress of importance in the desert. He
represents the people as rich, civilized, and peaceable; the government as
regal, but the chief power as lodged in a minister selected by the king,
who had the title of the king's brother. Syllaeus, who betrayed Elius
Gallus, appears to have been a minister of this description.
The next mention that occurs of the trade of Petra is in the Periplus of
the Erythrean Sea, the date of which, though uncertain, there is good
reason to fix in Nero's reign. According to this work, Leuke Kome, at the
mouth of the Elanitic Gulf, was the point of communication with Petra, the
capital of the country, the residence of Malachus, the king of the
Nabathians. "Leuke Kome, itself, had the rank of a mart in respect to the
small vessels which obtained their cargoes in Arabia, for which reason
there was a garrison placed in it, under the command of a centurion, both
for the purpose of protection, and in order to collect a duty of
twenty-five in the hundred." In the reign of Trajan, Idumea was reduced
into the form of a Roman province, by one of his generals; after this time
it not does fall within our plan to notice it, except merely to state, that
its subjection does not seem to have been complete or permanent, for during
the latter empire, there were certainly sovereigns of this part of Arabia,
in some degree independent, whose influence and alliance were courted by
the Romans and Persians, whenever a war was about to commence between these
two powers.
From this sketch of the trade of the Arabians from the earliest period, we
may conclude, in the first place, that when navigation was in its infancy,
it was confined, or almost entirely so, to a land trade carried on by
caravans; and that Petra was the centre to which these caravans tended from
the east and the south, bringing with them from the former the commodities
of India, and from the latter the commodities of the more fertile part of
Arabia. From Petra, all these goods were again transported by land to the
shores of the Mediterranean and to Egypt. In the second place, when
navigation became more commonly known and practised, (and there is good
reason to believe that it was known and practised among the Arabians,
especially those near the Persian Gulf, at a very early period,) a portion
of the Indian commodities, which before had been carried by land to Petra
were brought by sea to Sabaea.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 193 of 524
Words from 100435 to 100956
of 273188
