General Notes

Event: King of Nabataea Acceded BET 100 BC AND 96 BC Note:
Gaza had acted as a principle seaport on the Mediterranean for Nabataea n merchants. The people of Gaza appealed for help to Aretas II (100 - 9 6 BC), the ruler of the Nabataeans. Aretas, however, did not respond in t ime and Gaza was taken. While this may appear as a puzzling situation, f or Gaza was a very vital port in the Nabataean trading empire, Aretas I I was active in other ways. He expanded Nabataean territory to the nort h, which would later prove to have been a very prudent move. Sometime l ater, he seems to have negotiated a way for the Nabataean merchants to c ontinue to use Gaza as a port city, since Alexander Jannaeus does not a ppear to have occupied Gaza (Philip Hammond, The Nabataeans, pg. 1 6). A later Roman source credits Aretas II with 700 sons.