ANCIENT KINGS OF ARABIA. 139 



himiself, as in the days of old, by violence and plun- 

 der, sweeping his troop of fierce bandits across the 

 path of the merchant and the pilgrim.* 



The same peculiarities that secured the independ- 

 ence of these roving hordes against the disciplined 

 legions of the East and the West, prevented them 

 from acquiring influence, or extending their con- 

 quests beyond their ovv^n territories. AVhile the 

 Babylonians, Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, on 

 the one side, and the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, 

 on the other, rose in succession to the proud emi- 

 nence of imperial grandeur, and spread cheir victories 

 over the greater portion of the known Avorld ; 

 scarcely a gleam of splendour shines on the long 

 dynasties of the Tobbaas, the Hareths, and the Mon- 

 dars of Arabian history. Nor is it difficult to ex- 

 plain the cause. The parcelling of the nation into 

 independent tribes impaired their common strength ; 

 no necessity ever summoned them to combine for 

 their mutual defence ; no motives of external ad- 

 vantages could prevail with them to suspend their 

 domestic feuds ; and no leader till Mohammed arose 

 seems to have possessed the genius or address to 

 concentrate their impetuous energies, with a view- 

 to national aggrandizement. 



Connected with this part of our history, there re- 

 mains to be noticed one of the most singular spots 

 in all Arabia,— perhaps in the Eastern World, — 

 Petra, the ancient capital of Idumaea, which has 

 been but recently brought to light, after being for a 

 Beries of ages as effectually hidden in its solitude 



* The historian of the Decline and Fall of the Rom. Emp , in 

 a note, chap. 1., says, " The 'non ante devictis Sabea regibus,' 

 and the ' intacti Arabum thesauri,' of Horace (Odes i. 29 and ' 

 iii. 24), attest the virgin purity of Arabia." Yet, despite of these 

 classical facts, and of his own quotations, this learned skeptic, 

 with his usual inconsistency when treating of religious subjects' 

 labours to prove, almost in the same page, that the perpetual 

 ndependence of the Arabs is an unfounded boast. 



