The Nabataean Arabs, one of the most gifted peoples of the ancient world, are today known only for their hauntingly beautiful rock-carved capital--Petra. Here, in the wild and majestic landscapes of southern Jordan, they created some of the most prodigious works of man in the vast monuments that they chiseled from the sandstone mountains. The very scale of their achievement is breathtaking, but beyond mere magnitude is their creative vision, for they transformed the living rock of Petra into an enduring architectural masterpiece.

For nearly two thousand years, their civilization has been lost and all but forgotten. Yet the Nabataeans were famous in their day--Herod the Great and his sons, and a kaleidoscope of Roman emperors, were keenly aware of their power and wealth. Often victims of Greek, Roman, or Herodian duplicity, murder, and power politics, the Nabataeans were major players in the drama of the Middle East in biblical times.

This richly illustrated volume recounts the story of a remarkable but lost civilization and the capacity of its people to diversify their skills as necessity demanded. It describes their nomadic origins, the development of their multifaceted culture, their relations with their now famous neighbors, and the demise of their kingdom. It looks at their continued, if unrecognized, survival as Christians and farmers under the Byzantine Empire and into the early years of Islam.

The Roman province of Arabia occupied a crucial corner of the Mediterranean world, encompassing most of what is now Jordan, southern Syria, northwest Saudi Arabia, and the Negev. Mr. Bowersock's book is the first authoritative history of the region from the fourth century B.C. to the age of Constantine.The book opens with the arrival of the Nahataean Arabs in their magnificent capital at Petra and describes the growth of their hellenized culture based on trade in perfume and spices. It traces the transformation of the region from an Arab kingdom under Roman influence into an imperial province, one that played an increasingly important role in the Roman strategy for control of the Near East. While the primary emphasis is on the relations of the Arabs of the region with the Romans, their interactions with neighboring states, Jewish, Egyptian, and Syrian, are also stressed. The narrative concludes with the breakup of the Roman province at the start of the Byzantine age.