140 ANCIENT KINGS OF ARABIA. 



from the knowledge of Europeans as the palace of 

 Sheddad, or the fabled paradise of Irem. This city 

 app^S?to have been cieval.with the birth of com- 

 nlerce ; and there is indubitable evidence that it 

 was a flourishing emporium seventeen centurie^ 

 before the Christian era. It was the point to which 

 all the trade of Northern Arabia originally tended ; 

 and where the first merchants of the earth stored 

 ?he ;'ecIous commodities of the East. It formed 

 the great entrepot between Palestine, Syria, and 

 EKVpt, and there is little doubt that the company of 

 Ishmaelites with their camels, bearing spicery,b^m, 

 'ind mvrrh to whom Joseph was sold by his breth- 

 ren were the regular caravans that visited the mar-. 

 kets of Petra. The famous soothsayer Balaam was 

 a native of this place, whose inhabitants were then 

 renowned for their learning, their oracular temple, 

 and their skill in augury.* . 



After Antigonus had recovered Syria from Ptoi 

 emv he sent two successive detachments, under 

 his general Athen^us and his son Demetrius, to take 

 Petra by storm; but both expeditions failed. It was 

 besieged by Severus, the Roman WO^on^'^^^l 

 foimd the place to be impregnable. By «ie ad.ice 

 of Antipaler, he agreed to take a sum of money and 

 rai^e the siege. Lucullus and Pompey had no bet- 

 e success.^ The latter was obliged to come o 

 terms with Aretas ; and the former could only obtain 

 a temporary truce notwithstanding the insinuations 

 of pTarc^thath'e had subdued the whole nation 

 of the Arabs. Trajan, who put an end to the dynasty 

 of its ancient kings, invested this capita^, with a 

 mimerous army ; but, from its strong, position ad 

 the eallant defence of the garrison, he found its 

 reduS impossible. In one of the assaults which 

 he- headed in person, he narrowly escaped being 

 slainThrs horse was wounded, and a soldier killed 



» Good's Translat. of Job, note, p. 37. Numbers xxii. 5. 



