Aretas III.

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Aretas III. Philhellenos (Harithath) was from 87 to 62 BC. King of the Nabataeans . He is the successor to his father Obodas I.

Aretas III. on a Roman denarius with gesture of submission, 58 BC Chr., Albert 1343

After Aretas in 87 BC Became king, he conquered especially at the expense of the Seleucid king Antiochus XII. the northern area of ​​Jordan and the south of Syria ( Koile Syria ). A counter-campaign by the Seleucids failed in 84 BC. BC, he was killed in a battle. Aretas was able to reign in 85 BC. Spread to Damascus . According to the ancient historian Flavius ​​Josephus , he was brought into the country by the Damascus themselves, as they were dissatisfied with the rule of Ptolemaeus Mennaei . This enabled the Nabataeans to control the trade route from the Mediterranean to India and the Middle East . In the south, its territory extended into what is now Saudi Arabia. Later (probably 72 BC) Damascus withdrew from its control, finally around 66 BC. To be conquered by the Romans. During this time he repeatedly invaded Syria and devastated it. However, since the Romans saw the country as their protectorate , they defeated Aretas in a battle without ending the conflict.

Already before that, Aretas III. against Israel and had defeated Alexander Jannäus at Addida, but had turned back after a treaty. In the Jewish controversy for the throne in the 1960s, through the mediation of Antipater , he supported the pretender John Hyrcanus II , whose situation was already extremely bad and who even had to flee the country. Aretas now defeated his brother and rival Aristobulus II with an army of supposedly 50,000 horsemen and numerous foot soldiers in a battle. In return for these military services, he received the city of Madaba . When the vanquished retreated to Jerusalem, Aretas besieged the city in 65 BC. Nevertheless, Aristobulus was able to ascend the Jewish throne with the help of the Romans, whereupon Rome asked the Nabatean king to withdraw from Jerusalem. Although Aretas III. responded to the demand, Aristobulus pursued him and ambushed his army at Papyron. Finally, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus , supplied with grain by Hyrcanus in this difficult terrain , marched in 62 BC. In the direction of Petra, after Pompey had not been able to complete this undertaking the year before due to other obligations. With 400 talents (10 tons) of silver (according to other information 300 talents) and the recognition of Roman sovereignty, Aretas was able to persuade him to turn back. With this recognition, however, the Nabataeans did not lose their independence, even if a victory coin minted by the Romans suggested this and Pompey during his triumphal procession in 61 BC. The submission of the Nabatean king Aretas III. exclaimed.

Aretas called himself “Philhellenos”, the friend of the Greeks , and was the first Nabatean king to mint coins based on the Ptolemaic model, although their inscription was Greek. The mint was initially the newly conquered Damascus, later probably Petra. He founded the city of Auara, which is now called Humeima, and built a guard station in Bostra (today Bosra ) on the caravan route to Damascus, which would later become the capital of the Nabatean Empire. Archeology places the emergence of painted ceramics among the Nabataeans in his reign.

literature

  • Nabataeans. In: Harald Haarmann : Lexicon of the fallen peoples. From Akkaders to Zimbri. CH Beck, Munich 2012, p. 203 f.
  • FM Heichelheim : History of Syria and Palestine from the conquest by Cyrus II to the occupation by Islam (547 BC - 641/2 AD). In: Oriental history from Cyrus to Mohammed (= Handbook of Oriental Studies , first section, second volume, fourth section, delivery 2). Brill, Leiden 1966, pp. 99-290, here especially pp. 147 f., 154 ff., 196 f. ( online ).
  • Ulrich Wilcken : Aretas 3 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II, 1, Stuttgart 1895, Col. 673 f.
  • Manfred Lindner: The History of the Nabataeans. In: Ders .: Petra and the Kingdom of the Nabataeans. 6th edition, Delp, Bad Windsheim 1997, esp. Pp. 54-59.
  • Robert Wenning : The Decapolis and the Nabataeans. In: Journal of the German Palestine Association 110, 1994, pp. 1–35, esp. Pp. 4–6.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus : Bellum Judaicum , I, 4,8.
  2. ↑ Gerhard Prause : Herod the Great. The correction of a legend. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1992, p. 56.
  3. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus : Bellum Judaicum , I, 6,2.
  4. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus : Bellum Judaicum , I, 8,1.
  5. ↑ Peter Funke : Rome and the Nabatean Empire up to the establishment of the province of Arabia. In: Hans-Joachim Drexhage , Julia Sünskes (Ed.): Migratio et Commutatio. Studies of ancient history and its afterlife. Commemorative publication of the century. St. Katharinen 1989, pp. 1-18, especially p. 8 f.
  6. ↑ M. Jessop Price: Recent Acquisitions of Greek Coins by the British Museum. In: Archaeological Reports, No. 20 (1973/4), pp. 66-71.
personal data
SURNAME Aretas III.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aretas III. Philhellenos (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of the Nabataeans
DATE OF BIRTH 2nd century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 1st century BC Chr.