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Updated: June 10, 2025
About 333 B.C., Damascus came under the control of Alexander the Great. Antiochus Dionysius reigned there three years, but was succeeded by Aretas of Arabia in 85 B.C. Under Trajan it became a Roman provincial city. The Mongols took it in 1260, and the Tartars plundered it in 1300.
Thereupon Aretas had advanced with, it was said, 50,000 men into Judaea and, reinforced by the adherents of the Pharisees, he kept king Aristobulus besieged in his capital. Syrian Cities
He died at Julias; and when he was carried to that monument which he had already erected for himself beforehand, he was buried with great pomp. Herod The Tetrarch Makes War With Aretas, The King Of Arabia, And Is Beaten By Him As Also Concerning The Death Of John The Baptist. How Vitellius Went Up To Jerusalem; Together With Some Account Of Agrippa And Of The Posterity Of Herod The Great.
Ultimately the adroit Jewish minister Antipater from Idumaea persuaded Aretas to purchase a guarantee for all his possessions, Damascus included, from the Roman governor for a sum of money; and this is the peace celebrated on the coins of Scaurus, where king Aretas appears leading his camel as a suppliant offering the olive branch to the Roman. Difficulty with the Parthians
But this marriage proved unfortunate, since it involved him in difficulties with Aretas, king of Arabia, father of his first and repudiated wife. He ended his days in exile at Lyons, having provoked the jealousy or enmity of Caligula, the Roman emperor, through the intrigues of Herod Agrippa, the brother of Herodias, and consequently, a grandson of Herod the Great and Mariamne.
So Antipus, when he had made this agreement, sailed to Rome; but when he had done there the business he went about, and was returned again, his wife having discovered the agreement he had made with Herodias, and having learned it before he had notice of her knowledge of the whole design, she desired him to send her to Macherus, which is a place in the borders of the dominions of Aretas and Herod, without informing him of any of her intentions.
He also proposed to make him presents on that account. At length he prevailed with Aretas in his suit.
Peter; the sard, meaning faith and martyrdom, was given to Reuben and St. Bartholomew; the sapphire, for hope and contemplation, to Naphtali and St. Andrew, and sometimes, according to Aretas, to St. Paul; the beryl, meaning sound doctrine, learning, and long-suffering, to Benjamin and to St. Thomas, and so forth.
Damascus and the valleys of Lebanon had submitted to the Nabataean prince, Aretas of Petra. Lastly, in Cilicia the pirates or the Romans bore sway.
He incited, from motives of ambition, the deposed prince to reassert his rights, and influenced by his counsels, he fled to Aretas, the king of Arabia, whose capital, Petra, had become a great commercial emporium. Aretas, Antipater, and Hyrcanus, marched with an army of fifty thousand men against Aristobulus, who was defeated, and fled to Jerusalem.
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