Rome's reach into Arabia

This lesson asks you to describe ways in which Greek and Roman actions and institutions influenced other societies. The museum offers one case: the Byzantine empire, which al-Mubarakpuri's The Sealed Nectar calls the Romans, and what he says it did to the trade and the rulers of the Arab lands. The Greek side, the rest of the empire and the effects on later cultures are for your class to bring. ¹

List what al-Mubarakpuri says the Romans did, and what changed for the people they met: routes, rulers, alliances. Ask whose account you are reading, what it was written to explain, and what it leaves out.

Read what one author says Rome did in Arabia. In the record of the Byzantine Empire, the Romans in the introduction to The Sealed Nectar are the imperial power ruling Egypt, Syria and northern Hijaz; they controlled the sea trade routes, were the patrons of the Arab allies in Syria, and incited the Abyssinians against Yemen. ^{2 3 4} On Syria, the record gives the author's account of the reason: the Romans made the Dajaima and then the Ghassanids kings over the Arabs of Syria to restrain the desert Arabs and to serve as a force against the Persians. ⁴ On Yemen, its trade failed as the Romans prevailed over the sea trade routes after extending their power over Egypt, Syria and northern Hijaz, and this was among the causes of the migration of the Kahlan clans. ^{2 3} All of this is the author's account; the record gives no statement by the Romans themselves about their reasons.

This record stands on one book, The Sealed Nectar, and cites no other for these reports. The record of the Nabataean kingdom adds that, in the same book, the Nabataeans took Petra as their capital, and no one could oppose them until the Romans came and destroyed them. ⁵ The record of the Ghassanid kingdom says the period of the Dajaima is only roughly estimated, from the early second century CE to about its end. ^{4 6 7} So ask of each sentence: is it the author's alone, or do the records hold a second source for it?

The author says the Romans made Arab kings in Syria to restrain the desert Arabs and to serve as a force against the Persians. What kind of evidence would you need before saying these were the Romans' own reasons, and why is one author's account not enough?

• The Byzantine Empire: what The Sealed Nectar says of the Romans in Yemen, Syria and Egypt.
• The Ghassanid kingdom: the Arab kings the Romans set up over the Arabs of Syria.
• The Dajaima: the Arab clans the Romans took into their service before the Ghassanids, in the author's account.
• The Nabataean kingdom: what the author says of their effect on Yemen's trade and of the Romans.

Read The Byzantine Empire and make two columns: what al-Mubarakpuri says Rome did, and what happened, in his account, to the societies it touched.