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Nabataean, member of a people of ancient Arabia whose settlements lay in the borderlands between Syria and Arabia, from the Euphrates River to the Red Sea. Little is known about them before 312 bc, when they were unsuccessfully attacked by Demetrius I Poliorcetes, king of Macedonia, in their mountain fortress of Petra south of the Dead Sea. Their monopoly on the rich caravan trade that passed from the Arabian interior to the coast was the chief source of their prosperity.
As the Seleucid kingdom grew weaker in the 2nd century bc, the Nabataean kingdom increased in strength and extended its frontiers to the north and east and probably to the south along the eastern coast of the Red Sea. The Nabataeans occupied Ḥawrān, and shortly after 85 bc their king Aretas III ruled Damascus and Coele Syria (Lebanon). Upon the Roman general Pompey’s entry into Palestine (63 bc), Aretas became a Roman vassal, retaining Damascus and his other conquests; Damascus, however, was later annexed by the Roman emperor Nero (reigned ad 54–68).
The final period of Nabataean history was one of peaceful prosperity as allies of Rome. Hellenistic influences may be traced in the royal coinage and in the rock-cut architecture at Petra. When the Roman emperor Trajan annexed the kingdom (ad 105–106) and set up the new province of Arabia, Bostra (Bozrah), east of the Jordan River, was chosen in place of Petra as the provincial capital.
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