Roman annexation of Nabataea

Cassius Dio records the event in a single sentence: “About this time Palma, the governor of Syria, subdued the part of Arabia around Petra and made it subject to the Romans.” It is also attested by two papyri of 107 and a Safaitic inscription. Some inscriptions point to a military operation with troops from Syria and Egypt, but the former royal troops were taken into the Roman army and resistance seems to have been slight. Rabbel II died in 105 or 106, and his death may have prompted the annexation.

The new province of Arabia, also called Arabia Petraea, had its legionary base at Bostra, usually named as its capital, though Petra, a metropolis by 114, remained prominent in the early years, and governors issued edicts from both cities. The province counted its years from 22 March 106 — the Bostran era, still used in the region in the Islamic period, as late as 735; the Chronicon Paschale puts its start in 105, which long made the date a matter of dispute. The governor Gaius Claudius Severus began the Via Traiana Nova, a road of about 430 km from Bostra to Aila (Aqaba) on the Red Sea, which was completed under Hadrian. Trade through the former kingdom seems largely to have continued.