page_title: Nabataean Kingdom
section_title: Roman annexation
hierarchical_section_title: Nabataean Kingdom / History / Roman annexation
context_page_description: The Nabataean Kingdom, also named Nabatea, was a political state of the Arab Nabataeans during classical antiquity.
  The Nabataean Kingdom controlled much of the trade routes of the region, amassing large wealth and drawing the envy of its neighbors. It stretched south along the Red Sea coast into the Hejaz, up as far north as Damascus, which it controlled for a short period.
  Nabataea remained independent from the 4th century BC until it was annexed in AD 106 by the Roman Empire, which renamed it Arabia Petraea.
context_section_description: In 106 AD, during the reign of Roman emperor Trajan, the last king of the Nabataean kingdom Rabbel II Soter died. That might have prompted the official annexation of Nabatea to the Roman Empire, but the formal reasons and the exact manner of annexation are unknown. Some epigraphic evidence suggests a military campaign, commanded by Cornelius Palma, the governor of Syria. Roman forces seem to have come from Syria and also from Egypt. It is clear that by 107 AD Roman legions were stationed in the area around Petra and Bosra, as is shown by a papyrus found in Egypt. The kingdom was annexed by the empire to become the province of Arabia Petraea. Trade seems to have largely continued thanks to the Nabataeans' undiminished talent for trading. Under Hadrian, the limes Arabicus ignored most of the Nabatæan territory and ran northeast from Aila (modern Aqaba) at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba. A century later, during the reign of Alexander Severus, the local issue of coinage came to an end. There was no more building of sumptuous tombs, apparently because of a sudden change in political ways, such as an invasion by the neo-Persian power under the Sassanid Empire.
  The city of Palmyra, for a time the capital of the breakaway Palmyrene Empire, grew in importance and attracted the Arabian trade away from Petra.
caption: A map of the Roman Empire, at its greatest extent, showing the territory of Trajan's Nabataean conquests in red