_ EVK , _,LL1) various obstacles he at last reached A 4' IC6 or Albus Pagus, the emporium of the Nabathm ans, and the port of Petra, which was probably at or near Elath (Strabo, xvi:4, 22, 24; Dion Cas sius, liii :27 ; Arrian, Periplus Maris Eryth.). An other friend of Strabo, the Stoic philosopher Athenodorus, had spent some time in Petra, and related to him with admiration how the inhabit ants lived in entire harmony and union under excellent laws. The kingdom was hereditary; or at least the king was always one of the royal family and had a prime minister or vizier, irtrporos, who was styled the king's brother. Pliny also repeatedly speaks of the Nabathxans (Ilist. Nat. v:11; vi:28; xii:27); and classes along with them the Cedrei, exactly as Kedar and Ne baioth are placed together in Is. lx :7. Another Arabian king of the name of Aretas is the one mentioned by St. Paul (2 Cor. :32; comp. Acts vii :24, 25; Joseph. Antiq. xviii. 5. 1). We find that a former Aretas had been invited to assume the sovereignty by the inhabitants of Damascus (Joseph. De Bell. Jud., i. 4, 7; Antiq. xiii. 15, 1); and now, during the weak reign of Caligula, the sante city is seized by another Aretas, and gov erned through an etlznarch, as related by Paul. The kingdom of Arabia Petrma maintained its nominal independence till about A. D. to5, in the reign of the Emperor Trajan, when it was sub dued by Cornelius Palma, governor of Syria, and annexed to the vast empire of Rome.
(4) Under the Romans. The Nabathmans had, as we have seen, early applied themselves to commerce, especially as the carriers of the prod ucts of Arabia, India, and the far-distant East, which, as we learn from Strabo, were transported on camels from the above-mentioned A Tr 6t, -EVK , --/171 to Petra, and thence to Rhinocoloura (El 'Arish) and elsewhere. 'But under the Roman dominion the trade of these regions appears to have widely extended itself, and to have flourished in still greater prosperity ; probably from the circum stance that the lawless rapacity of the adjacent nomadic hordes was now kept in check by the Roman power, and particularly by the garrisons which were everywhere established for this spe cific purpose. The country, too, was now ren dered more accessible, and the passage of mer chants and caravans more practicable, by military ways.' From Elath, or Ailah, one great road had its direction northwards to the rich and central Pe tra ; thence it divided, and led on one side to Jerusalem, Gaza, and other ports on the Mediter ranean ; and on the other side to Damascus. An
other road appears to have led directly from Ailah along the Gnor to Jerusalem. Traces of these routes are still visible in many parts.
These facts are derived not front the testimony of historians, but from the specifications of the celebrated Tabula TIzeodosiana, or Peutingeriana, compiled in the fourth century. According to this, a line of small fortresses was drawn along the eastern frontier of Arabia Petrwa, towards the desert, some of which became. the sites of towns and cities, whose names arc still extant.
But as the power of Rome fell into decay, the Arabs of the desert would seem again to have acquired the ascendency. They plundered the cit ies, but did not destroy them; and hence those regions are still full of uninhabited, yet stately and often splendid, ruins of ancient wealth, and taste, and greatness.
(5) Petra. Even Petra, the rich and impreg nable metropolis, was subjected to the same fate; and now exists, in its almost inaccessible loneli ness only to excite the curiosity of the scholar, and the wonder of the traveler, by 'he singular ity of its site, its ruins, and its fortunes.
In the course of the fourth century this region came to be included under the general .name of 'Palestine' ; and it then received the special desig nation of Palerstina Tertia, ot Salutaris. It be came the diocese of a metropolitan, whose seat was at Petra, and who was afterward placed under the patriarch of Jerusalem.
With the Mohammedan conquest in the seventh century its commercial prosperity disappeared. Lying between the three rival empires of Arabia, Egypt, and Syria, it lost its ancient independence ; the com se of trade was diverted into new chan nels ; its great routes were abandoned.
(6) Syria Sobal. At length the entire coun try was quietly yielded up to the Bedawees of the surrounding wilderness, whose descendants still claim it as thcir domain. During the twelfth century it was partially occupied by the Crusaders, who gave it the name of Arabia Tertia, or Syria Sobal. From that period it remained unvisited by Europeans, and had almost disappeared from their maps, until it was partially explored, first by Seetzen in 18o7, and more fully by Burckhardt in 1812; and now the wonders of the Wady Miisa are familiarly known to all. (Vincent's Com merce of the Ancients; Forster's Mohammedanism Unveiled, and Geography of Arabia; Robinson's Sketches of Idunta,a, in 'Amer. Bib. Repos.', 1833; and Bibl. Researches, vol. ii.) N. M.