Home ▸ Catalog ▸ |Roman Coins| ▸ |Roman Provincial| ▸ |Roman Arabia||View Options: | | | Arabia Petraea, Petrea, or simply Arabia, consisted of the former Nabataean Kingdom in the southern Levant, the Sinai Peninsula and northwestern Arabian Peninsula. It was bordered on the north by Syria, on the west by Judaea (merged with into Syria Palestina from 135 A.D.) and Egypt, and on the south and east by the rest of Arabia, known as Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix. The territory was annexed by Trajan, like many other eastern frontier provinces of the Roman Empire, but held onto, unlike Armenia, Mesopotamia and Assyria, well after Trajan's rule, its desert frontier being called the Limes Arabicus. Trajan declared Bostra to be the capital of the province, he also awarded Petra the status of metropolis. Most of Arabia's territories were sparsely populated. In addition to Bostra and Petra, major cities included Jerash (Gerasa), Canatha, Adraa, Maximianopolis, Philippopolis and Amman (Philadelphia). The only major sea port was Aqaba, at the tip of the wide Gulf of Aqaba at the Red Sea. Though subject to eventual attack and deprivation by the Parthians and Palmyrenes, it had nothing like the constant incursions faced in other areas on the Roman frontier. |