Roman Arabia by G.W. Bowersock (review)

336 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS G. W. BOWERSOCK. Roman Arabia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983. Pp.XIV, 224 with 16 B/W plates, colour frontispiece, 8 maps and plans. ---_._----------------------Describing the genesis of a research project often helps explain its fundamental significance, and in the Preface of his book on Roman Arabia, Professor Bowersock states that lithe gestation of this volume has been preternaturally long" (ix). When Bowersock began his research in the late 1960's, he quickly realized that the relevant textual and archaeological material was both rich and challenging, but that a synthetic study based on recently accumulated data was conspicuously absent. His initial statement of the status of research on Roman Arabia, published in JRS in 1971, stimulated considerable interest and led several young scholars to undertake their own projects of study and excavation in Jordan. The fortunate result of this initial stimulus was a new wave of literature that, over the following decade, raised and, to some extent, resolved a series of questions concerning the Roman province of Arabia. As the Preface acknowledges, Bowersock has himself been able to make full use of this recent scholarship, and his new study constitutes the first authoritative history of the region from the 4th c. BC to the time of Constantine. The lower chronological boundary is set by the appearance of .the Nabataeans in historical record, the upper by the dissolution of the old province of Arabia. The subject of the book is essentially political and military history: "principally ... the Roman presence in the Nabataean kingdom and the Roman province which was subsequently created out of that kingdom" (ix). Allusion is made to crucial problems involving the social and enonomic life of the region in that period (such as the process of the sedentarization of the Nabataeans), but the major goal is recreation of events during the Nabataean and Roman administrations and their immediate explanation. In this Bowersock has succeeded admi rably, and his study constitutes the necessary first step towards recreating the overall patterns of Nabataean, BOOK REVIEWS/CO~PTES RENDUS 337 Roman, and early Arab Iife there. Although archaeological data figure prominently in the book, further survey and excavation are necessary for virtually every period and every part of the former province. Bowersock's expressed hope that his work will assist other scholars should be abundantly realized. The first chapter describes the geography and topography of the region, with shrewd appreciation of the relevance of these factors to historical events. "Arabia is a vague word," as Bowersock notes, because of the vast area inhabited by Arab peoples, the absence of obvious natural borders, and the nomadic character of many of its tribes. To the Romans it was the land Sand E of Palestine, in the corner of the Mediterranean between Egypt and Syria. The province ultimately encompassed the Negev in present-day Israel, NW Saudi Arabia, most of Jordan, and S Syria. Formation of the Provincia Arabia in AD 106 closed the circuit of imperial provinces around the Mediterranean, and provided important strategic advantages. Arabia controlled the roads between Palestine and Egypt and the easiest passage from the Cui f of Aqaba to the Mediterranean ports of Caza and Rhinocolura; it dominated the route S from Damascus. Perhaps no other Roman province, comments Bowersock, could show such a dramatic diversity of geographical and climatic features: sea coast, desert, the great Jordan-rift valley, the Jordanian plateau cut by its four main wadis (Yarmuk, Zerqa, MUjib, Hasa), and the basaltic lava fields to the NE. Because of rainfall patterns, the W half of the Jordanian plateau has always nurtured the major cities of the region, but even in the desert the soil often is fertile. The Nabataeans developed methods of water storage and irrigation that allowed an agriculturally-based urban flowering in the Hejaz, the Hisma, and the Negev unequalled until the last few decades. In his second chapter Bowersock provides a short, perceptive history of the Nabataean kingdom from its beginnings until the arrival of Pompey in 64 BC, emphasizing its relations with the adjacent Creek and Jewish kingdoms. The Nabataeans, who first appear in historical sources in the late 4th c. BC as...