Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/410

 394 NABATAEI. habited the land of Edom, commonly known as Idumaea, and intimate that there was no connection ■whatever between the Idumaeans of Petra in the Augustine period, and the children of Esau ; they were, in fact, Nabataeans, and therefore, according to Josephus and other ancient authorities, Ishmaelite Arabs. How or when they had dispossessed the Edomites does not appear in history, nor what had become of the remnant of the Edomites. (Robinson, Blh. Res. vol. ii. pp. 558, 559.) But while Judas Maccabaeus was on terms of friendship with the Nabataei, he was carrying on a war of extermination against the Edomites. (Joseph. A nt. xii. 8. § 1 ; 1 Maccab. v. 3.) It is worthy of remark, however, that the Idumaeans with whom Hyrcanus was in alliance, over whom Aretas reigned, and from whom Herod was sprung, are expressly said to be Naba- taeans {Ant. xiv. 2. § 3, 3. §§ 3, 4), whose alli- ance was refused by Pompey, on account of their inaptitude for war. And this identity is further proved by Strabo, who writes that the Idumaeans and the lake (Asplialtides>occupy the extreme west (?) corner of Judaea : — " These Idumaeans are Na- bataeans ; but being expelled thence in a sedition, they withdrew to the Jews and embraced their cus- toms." (xvi. p. 760.) This recognition of the Nabataean origin of the later Idumaeans, proves that the name is to be regarded as a geographical, rather than as a genealogical designation. Pliny (vi. 32) throws little light upon the subject, merely making the Nabataei contiguous to the Scenite Arabs, with whom they were more probably identical, and stating that tlie ancients had placed the Thimanaei next to them (i. e. on the E.); in the place of whom he names several other tribes, as the Tavcni, Suelleni, Arraceni, &c. {Ibid.) But the .statement of Josephus that the Nabataei extended from the Euphrates to the Red Sea, is confimied by the fact that the name is still to be found in both those regions. Thus the name Nabat is apphed to a marshy district, described by Golius as part of the " palustria Chaldaeae," between Wasith and Basra, which was called " paludes Nabathaeorum," (Golius, cited by Forster, Geog. of Arabia, vol. i. p. 214 n.*), while at the other extremity the name Nabat is given to a town two days beyond (i. e. south) of El-Haura in the Hedjaz, by an Arabian geographer (SiJiouti, cited by Quatremere, Memoire stir les Nabateens, p. 38), near vihexeJebel Nahit is marked in modern maps. The existence of this name in this locality is regarded by M. Quatremere as an additional argument forthe identity ofii7-i7frarawith Leuce Come, proving that the country of the Nabataei did actually extend so far south. The fact of the origin of the Nabataeans from Nebaioth the son of Ishmael, resting as it does on the respectable authority of Josephus, followed as he is by S.Jerome {Quaest. Hebr. in Genes, torn. ii. p. 530), and all subsequent writers in the western world, has been called in question by II. Quatremere in the Me'moire above referred to ; who maintains that they are in no sense Ishmaelites, nor connected by race with any of the Arab families, but were Aramaeans, and identical with the Chaldaeans. He cites a host of ancient and most respectable native Arabic authors in proof of this theory ; according to vvhose state- ments the name Nabats or Nabataeans designated the primitive and indigenous population of Chaldaea and the neighbouring provinces, probably those vvhom Eusebius designates Babylonians in contradistinction from the Chaldaeans. They occupied the whole of NACOLEIA. that countiy afterwards called Irak-Arab, in the most extended sense of that name, even compre- hending several provinces beyond the Tigris ; and it is worthy of remark, that Masoudi mentions a rem- nant of the Babylonians and Chaldaeans existing in his day in the very place which is designated the marshes of the Nabataeans, i. e. in the villages situ- ated in the swampy ground between Wasith and Basra. (lb. p. 66.) Other authors mention Naba- taeans near Jathrib or Medina, which would account for the Jebel Nibut in that vicinity ; and another section of them in Bahrein, on the eastern coast of the peninsula, who had become Arabs, as the Arab inhabitants of the province of Oman are said to have become Nabataeans. (lb. p. 80.) This settlement of Nabataeans in the Persian Gul/maj be alluded to by Strabo, who relates that the Chaldaeans, banished from their country, settled themselves in the town of Gerrha, on the coast of Arabia (xvi. p. 766 ) ; which fact would account for the commercial inter- course between the merchants of Gerrha and those of Petra above referred to ; the Nabataei of Petra being a branch of some family also from Babylon and perhaps driven from their country by the same political revolution that dispossessed the re- fugees of Gerrha. However this may have been, it must be admitted that the very ingenious and forcible arguments of JI. Quatremere leave little doubt that this remarkable people, which appears so suddenly and comparatively late on the stage of Arabian history, to disappear as suddenly after a brief and brilliant career of mercantile activity and success, were not natives of the soil, but ahens of another race and family into which they were sub- sequently merged, again to reappear in the annals of their own original seats. (lb. pp. 88 — 90.) Reland gives a different account of the identity of the names in the two quarters. {Palaestina, p. 94.) [G. W.] NABATHRAE. [Arualtes.] NABIA'NI (NagIa^■ol'), a tribe of the Caucasus, whom Strabo (xi. p. 506) couples with the Panxani (na7|a;'oi), about the Palus Maeotis. [E. B. J.] NABLIS, a river of Germany, flowing into the Danube from the north, and probably identical with the Naab in Bavaria. ( Venat. Fort. vi. 11; Geogr. Eav. iv. 26, who calls it Nabus or Navus.) [L. S.] NABRISSA or NEBRISSA (Nd§p(o-<7o, Strab. iii. pp. 140, 143; Ptol. ii. 4. § 12 ; Nebrissa, in old editt. of Plin. iii. 1. s. 3, but Sillig reads Nabrissa; Nebrissa, Sil. iii. 393), surnamed Veneria, a town of the Turdetani in Hispania Baetica, situated upon the aestuary of the river Baetis. According to Silius (J. c.) it was celebrated for the worship of Dionysus. Now Lebrija. (Florez, Esp. Sagr. xii. p. 60.) NABRUM, a river of Gedrosia, mentioned by Pliny (vi. 23. s. 26). It must have been .situated near the mouth of the Arabis, between this river and the Indus ; but its exact position cannot be determined. It is not mentioned in the voyage of Ncarchus. [V.] NACMU'SII. [Mauretania.] NACOLEIA, NACO'LIA (NoKo'Aeia, Na/foAfa), a town in Phrygia Epictetus, between Dorylaeum and Cotyaeum, on the upper course of the river Thymbres. (Strab. xii. p. 576 ; Steph. B. s. v. ; Ptol. V. 2. § 22.) In the earher times, the town does not seem to have been a place of much con- sequence, but later writers often mention it. It has acquired some celebrity from the fact that the em- peror Valens there defeated the usurper Procopius. (Amm. Marc, xxvii. 27; comp. Zosim. iv. 8; Sorrat. Hist. EccL iv. 5 ; Sozom. iv. 8.) In the reign of