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    S. Thomas Parker, “The Roman Frontier in Southern Arabia: A Synthesis of Recent Research”. Pp. 142- 142,152 in W. S. Hanson, ed., The Army and Frontiers of Rome: Papers offered to David Breeze on the ‘occasion of his sixth-fifth birthday and his retirement from Historic Scotland. JRA Supplementary Series 74. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2009. am ae EA fe vena am Pan @ shogana en ne E70 or a) errHoRus (LEG1Y) co ‘THE DEPLOYMENT OF ROMAN oo MILITARY UNITS IN THE FOURTH (CENTURY IN PALAESTINA AND ARABIA apnou disc yn aH eon OS cotton of Bown waa (© conor Fig. 13.1. Map of the southern sector of the Arabian frontier. 143 The Roman frontier in southern Arabia: a synthesis of recent research. S. Thomas Parker Introduction In 1986, in Romans and Saracens: a history of the Arabian frontier, 1 presented a historical synthesis of the Roman frontier in Jordan and remarked that the southern sector (from the S end of the Dead Sea to the Red Sea) was the least known. It was the only sector for which there were no military building inscriptions. Only one military site (Udruh) had by then been excavated and that site was (and still remains) largely unpublished. Only one intensive regional survey had been conducted but it had not then been published in definitive form.! Otherwise, apart from milestones, some rather superficial surface surveys, and a few scraps from documentary sources, primary evidence about the sector was essentially non-existent? But the last two decades have witnessed a transformation of our knowledge of this sector. A variety of regional surface surveys and excavations has produced a veritable explosion of evidence, including epigraphic and papyrological. Although much of the evidence awaits definitive publication, the new research, combined with continued work elsewhere in Jordan and the Negev of Israel, necessitates a re-examination of my earlier historical synthesis. Although our understanding of the history of this frontier has been broadened and deep- ‘ened, I will suggest that the basic historical schema I proposed in 1986 has been largely sub- stantiated, with some then-tentative suggestions confirmed. Although I will include some introductory remarks about the Nabataeans, my main focus here will be from the beginning of direct Roman rule in A.D. 106 until the Muslim conquest in the early 7th c. (fig. 13.1). ‘The Nabataeans I cannot give proper attention to all the new evidence about the Nabataean client-state in this region (which was, after all, the Nabataean heartland) but I may make a few salient points. Above all, the various regional surveys have collected compelling evidence for both the breadth and intensity of Nabataean settlement in the Ist c. BC, and Ist c. A.D. On most surveys of southern and central Jordan this is typically the best-represented compared to all other historical periods, both in terms of the number of sites and the quantity of evidence.® S. Schmid has presented a learned synthesis of the new evidence, arguing convincingly that, although the Nabataeans probably immigrated into the region as early as the middle of the first millennium B.C., it is only “c.100 BC that material culture identified as Nabataean appears”. This goes a long way towards explaining the apparent settlement ‘gap’, reported by ‘most regional surveys in both central and $ Jordan, between the end of the Late Iron II (7th-6th BC) and the Early Roman/Nabataean period (Ist c. B.C.-Ist c. A.D.), Thus, the ‘explosion’ of settlement visible in the Ist c. B.C. probably reflects the sedentarization of significant elements of the Nabataeans who had long been present in the region, not an intrusion of new people. The sources suggest that, while the Nabataeans retained a strong interest in trade, there was a significant increase in the intensity of agriculture — probably a mixed form of livestock breed- ing and cultivation. It seems that this process was accelerating during the reign of the last Nabataean king, Rabbel II (A.D. 70-106) 1 MacDonald 1988, 2 Parker 1986, 87-113. 3 Eg, Findlater 2002; MacDonald 1988, 1992, and 2004; Miller 1992; Parker 2000, 374-75; Smith ea 1997. 4 Schmid 2001, 367, 5 Ibid. 401 with other references. 44 S. T. Parker ‘The Roman annexation of Nabataea: a Trajanic conquest? Given the breadth and intensity of settlement throughout central and $ Jordan and the Negev in the Ist c. A.D, it is startling to see the abrupt break in occupation attested at a number of excavated sites throughout the region at the turn of the 2nd c. This has important impli- cations for the nature of the Roman annexation, which to most scholars had seemed a relative- ly peaceful process with, at most, only limited Nabataean resistance.® Schmid first realized that, whatever the ambiguity of the sparse literary sources, there was growing archaeological evidence for extensive destruction at a number of sites in both S Jordan and the Negev around the turn of the 2nd c? In the last decade, the number of excavated sites reporting such evidence has grown significantly, and it includes both rural and urban ones. As I have summarized the evidence elsewhere, it need not be rehearsed in detail here, but a few points warrant mention because of their implications for the creation of the subsequent Roman security system, espe- cially in the south. The evidence for destruction includes major Nabataean settlements (often wrongly charac- terized as ‘cities’) of the Negev, such as Oboda and Sbaita, as well as minor stations along the caravan routes, such as Moje Awad. To the east in Jordan, there is destruction or discontinuity attested at sites in the region east and southeast of the Dead Sea, such as Dhiban and Khirbet edh-Dharih, at several sites within Petra itself (e.g,, the Temple of the Winged Lions, the so- called ‘Great Temple’, and the domestic complex of Ez-Zantur), farther south at Humayma, and as far as the Red Sea at Aila.® The most recent evidence is perhaps the most compelling in support of seeing serious Nabataean resistance to a Roman invasion. The ‘Great Temple’ at Petra appears to have been hastily fortified, and a variety of military equipment was recover- ed from its subsequent destruction levels."® The early 2nd-

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