ARABIA, Bostra. Pseudo-autonomous issue

ARABIA, Bostra. Pseudo-autonomous issue. Struck under Commodus, AD 177-192. Turreted bust of Tyche right; date in field / Camel standing right. Kindler 19; SNG ANS 1199.

Titular see of Syria. Bostra, "The fortress", is neither Bosor of Reuben and Moab(Deuteronomy 4:24; Joshua 20:8), nor Bosrah of Edom (Genesis 36:33, Jeremiah 49:13, etc.), now Bouseira between Tafile and Shobaq. Perhaps it is the same as Bosor, or Bosora, taken by the Machabees (1 Maccabees 5:26, 28, 36), an independent town in Peraea. It was included in the Nabatean Kingdom (M. de Vogue, La Syrie centrale, Inscriptions, 103) and last held by the Romans. When the kingdom was destroyed by Cornelius Palma (105 or 106), a general of Trajan, Bostra became the metropolis of Arabia and was known as Nova Trajana Bostra. There the Third Legio Cyrenaica held its garrison. In the same year began the era of Bostra, after which the numerous inscriptions in trans-Jordanic Palestine are reckoned. The city was already a very important one; it was there that the great Roman road began which ran to the Red Sea, as well as most of the other roads that crossed the country in every direction; the governor of the province had his residence there.

Under Alexander Severus (222-235) Bostra became a Roman colony. In the fourth century it is called "a great city", by Ammianus Marcellinus (Res gestae, XIV, 8, 3), and from the extent of its ruins G. Rindfleisch has calculated that it must have had about 80,000 inhabitants (Zeitschrift des deutsehen Palastinavereins, xxi, 32). Remains of splendid monuments are yet visible, colonnades, triumphal arches, baths, a theatre, temples, churches, etc. Bostra, being an important trade centre for caravans, was visited by Mahomet; it was there that Bahira, a Nestorian monk, acknowledged him as a prophet. 

Colección : Roman Provincial Coins