ARAB ADQVIS S P Q R OPTIMO PRINCIPI S C

ARAB ADQVIS S. P. Q. R. OPTIMO PRINCIPI. S. C. � Same type � on first and second brass, of the same Emperor.

Coins with the above types and inscriptions, bear the date, on the obverse, of Trajan 's fifth consulship, contemporaneous with A.U.C. 858 (A.D. 105). It was up to that period, from the age of Augustus, who (B.C. 24), by his lieutenant Aelius Gallus, unsuccessfully attempted the conquest of Arabia, that it remained undisturbed by the Roman Arms. The same enterprise, however, was undertaken with a more fortunate result, by Trajan, who, according to Eutropius, reduced it to the state of a province. � It appears that A. Cornelius Palma, governor of Syria, was the commander of the expedition. Dion [Cassius Dio] fixes the time: viz. that when the Emperor went out to the second Dacian War. And the Chronicle of Eusebius, as well as the Alexandrine Chronicle, more definitely teaches us, that the Petraean Arabs and the people of Bostra, computed their aera from the year of Rome 858. The coins in question, therefore, as records of Arabia Adquisita, are ascribed to the above-mentioned year, but without excluding the following one. � That part of Arabia, however, which was occupied by the Romans, bore but a small proportion to the immense tract of territory above named. It was, in fact, that portion which bordered on Judaea, and called Petraea, as some say, from its principal city Petra.
With Regard to the figure of an animal at the foot of the personified province, as in the above cut (from a first brass coin in the British Museum), it is evident from coins of the Aemilia and Plautia families, and also from Greek coins inscribed with the word APABIA, that it is the camel � an animal common in Arabia, and therefore an appropriate symbol of the region. The ostrich is no less evidently represented on another coin of Trajan, bearing the same legend, and is also a bird indigenous to the same country. Tristan conjectures that what the woman holds in her right hand is a branch of frankincense; and in her left a reed, or sweet cane, called calamus odoratus (or aromaticus), both which, according to ancient writers, were products of Arabia. In this opinion, Spanheim concurs, whose instructive remarks on this point deserve perusal by the students of natural history. � See also Eckhel, vi. 420.

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