While the Edomites thus extended their conquests westward, they were driven out of their own country by the Nabathreans (q. v.), who, leaving the nomad habits of their ancestors, settled down amid tlie moun- tains of Edom, engaged in commerce, and founded the little kingdom of A rahia Petrcea. Some of their mon- archs took the name Arctas (2 Mace, v, 8; Joseph. ^^^ XV, 1,2), and some Obodas (Joseph. A nt. xiii, 5, 1). One of them was that Aretas whose daughter Herod Antipas married (Matt, xiv, 3, 4) ; and it was the same king of Arabia who captured Damascus, and held it at the time of Paul's conversion (Acts ix, 25; 2 Cor. xi,32). Idu- miea was taken by the Romans in A.D. 105, and under their paternal government the enterprising inhabitants increased greatly in wealth and power. A lucrative transport trade between India, Persia, and the Levant was in their hands. Roads were constructed across the desert of Arabia, through the defiles of Edom, and west- M'ard and northward to the ]\Iediterranean and Pales- tine. Traces of them still remain, with ruinous milita- ry stations at intervals, and fallen milestones of the times of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius {Peutinrjer Tables; La- borde's Toyaye ,- Burckhardt's *5;/nff, p. 374, 419; Irby and Mangles's Travels, j). 371, 377, 1st ed.). The mag- nificent rock-temples, palaces, and tombs of Petra Avcre then constructed, which still continue to be the -wonder and admiration of Eastern travellers. Thev are not the
IDIIM^A
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works of the Edomites, but of the descendants of Xehai- j oth, Ishmael's oldest son and Esau's brother-in-law (Gen. XXV, 13; xxxvi,3; Joseph. ^IhM, 12, 4; Diod.Sic.lt).)
On the revival of Jewish power under the Asraona> ans, that part of Southern Palestine to which the name Idumiiia liad been given by classic writers was seized, and about 15.C. 125 they were finally subdued by John Hyrcanus, who compelled them to submit to circum- cision and other Jewish rites, with a view to incorpo- rate them with the nation (1 Mace, v, 3, 65 ; 2 Mace, x, 16 ; xii, 32 ; Joseph. Ant. xiii, 9, 1 ; 15, 4). The amal- gamation, however, of the two races seems never to have been perfected. The country was governed by Jewish prefects, and one of these, an Idumaean by birth, became procurator of Judiea, and his son was Herod the Great, "king of the Jews" (Joseph. Ant. xii, 8, 6 ; xiii, 0, 2: xiv, 1, 3 and 8 ; xv, 7, 9 ; xvii, 11, 4). Not long before the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, 20,000 Iduma;ans were call- ed in to the defence of the city by the Zealots, but both parties gave themselves up to rapine and murder (Joseph. IVar, iv, 4, 5; 5, 1; vii, 8, 1). This is the last mention made of tlie Edomites in history. The author of a work on Job, once ascribed to Origen, says that their name and language had perished, and that, like the Ammon- ites and Moabites, they had all become Arabs. In the second century Ptolemy limits the name Idumtea to the country west of the Jordan.
In the first centuries of the Christian £era Edom was included in the province of Palcestina Tertia, of which Petra was metropolis (S. Paulo, Georp: Sac. p. 307 ; Re- land, Fullest, p. 218). After the jMohauiiiK-ihin ciUKjuest its commercial importance declined, its ilomisliing port and inland cities fell to ruin. The Jldliainnu'daus were the instruments by which the fearf'id predictions of the Scripture were finally fidtilled. Tlie Crusaders made several expeditions to Edom, penetrating it as far as to Petra, to which they gave the name "Valley of jMoses" (Gesta Dei per /^r««cos,p. 518, 555, etc.), a name still ex- isting in the Arabic form Wady Musa. On a command- ing hill some twelve miles north of Petra they built a fortress, and called it Mvns Regalis ; its modern name is Shobek (ib. p. 611). The Crusaders occupied and forti- fied Kerak, the ancient Kir INIoab, and raised it to the dignity of an episcopal see, under the impression that it was Petra (J6. p. 812,885, 1119). From the age of the Crusaders until the present century nothing was kno\\Ti of Iduniiea. No traveller had passed through it, and as a comitry it had disappeared from history. Volney heard some vague reports of its wonders from Arabs. Seetzen also heard much of it in the year 180G, but he was unable to enter it. Burckhardt was the first to traverse the country. In 1812 he travelled from Kerak south by Shobek to Petra {Trav. in S//r. p. 377 sq. ; Rob- inson, Bib. Res. ii, 165). In 1828, Laborde, proceeding northward from Akabah through the defiles of Edom, also visited Petra, and brought away a portfolio of splen- did drawings, which proved that the descriptions of Burckhardt had not been exaggerated. Many have since followed the footsteps of the first explorers, and a trip to Petra now forms a necessary part of the Eastern traveller's grand tour.
4. Physical Geoffrapky. — Idumaja embraces a section of a broad mountain range, extending in breadth from the vaUey of the Arabah to the desert plateau of Arabia. "Along the base of the range on the side of the Arabah, are low calcareous hills. To these succeed lofty masses of igneous rock, chiefly porphj-ry ; over which lies the red and variegated sandstone in irregidar ridges and abrupt clifTs, broken by deep and wild ravines. The lat- ter strata give the mountains their most striking feat- ures" (Porter, Hnndb.for S. ami Pal. i, 44). '■ The first thing that struck me," says Stanley, '• in turning out of the Arabah up the defiles that lead to Petra was, that we had suddenly left the desert. Instead of the abso- lute nakedness of the Sinaitic valleys, we found our- selves walking on grass, sprinkled with flowers, and the level platforms on each side were filled with sprouting