Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE MIDDLE MEN OF THE MIDDLE
EAST (333 BC-AD 324)
War and invasion were not the utter disaster that they might have been for the people of the
region. Located at the centre of the land bridge between Africa and Asia, the cities sur-
rounding the King's Highway were particularly well placed to service the needs of passing
foreign armies. They also profited from the caravan routes that crossed the deserts from Ar-
abia to the Euphrates, bringing shipments of African gold and South Arabian frankincense
via the Red Sea ports in present-day Aqaba and Eilat. The Greeks, the Nabataeans and the
Romans each capitalised on this passing bounty, leaving a legacy of imported culture and
learning in return.
The Greeks
By the 4th century BC the growing wealth of Arab lands attrac-
ted the attention of a young military genius from the West
known as Alexander of Macedon. Better known today as Alex-
ander the Great, the precocious 21 year old stormed through the
region in 334 BC, winning territories from Turkey to Palestine.
At his death in 323 BC in Babylon, Alexander ruled a vast
empire from the Nile to the Indus, with similarly vast dimen-
sions of commerce. Over the coming centuries, Greek was the
lingua franca of Jordan (at least of the written word), giving ac-
cess to the great intellectual treasures of the classical era. The
cities of Philadelphia (Amman), Gadara, Pella and Jerash blossomed under Hellenistic rule,
and prospered through growing trade, particularly with Egypt, which fell under the same
Greek governance.
Key Nabataean
Sites
»
»Petra, Jordan
»
»Siq Al-Barid, near Petra,
Jordan
»
»Madain Saleh, Saudi Ara-
bia
The Nabataeans
Trade was the key to Jordan's most vibrant period of history, thanks to the growing import-
ance of a nomadic Arab tribe from the south, known as the Nabataeans. The Nabataeans
produced only copper and bitumen (for waterproofing boat hulls) but they knew how to
trade in the commodities of neighbouring nations. Consummate middlemen, they used their
exclusive knowledge of desert strongholds and water supplies to amass wealth from the
caravan trade, first by plundering and then by levying tolls on the merchandise that tra-
versed the areas under their control.
