Aretas IV Philopatris

Who is Aretas IV Philopatris?

Aretas IV Philopatris was a king of the Nabataean Kingdom, an Arab trading civilization centered on the rock-cut city of Petra in what is now southern Jordan, and he reigned for roughly five decades from around 9 BC to 40 AD, making him the longest-reigning and by most accounts the most prosperous of the Nabataean monarchs. His reign is widely considered the architectural and economic golden age of Petra, during which the kingdom controlled and profited from the lucrative overland incense and spice trade routes linking Arabia, the Levant, and the Mediterranean world. Many of Petra's most celebrated monuments, including the great facade known as Ad Deir, or the Monastery, are commonly dated by archaeologists to his period of rule. Aretas IV is also known through classical written sources: the Jewish historian Josephus records his military conflict with Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee, and the New Testament's Second Letter to the Corinthians references an ethnarch acting under "Aretas the king" who controlled Damascus, indicating the reach of his political influence beyond the Nabataean heartland. His reign left behind some of the most extensively preserved architectural evidence of Nabataean civilization, and Petra, the city most associated with his rule, is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Jordan's most recognized cultural landmarks.

Sources: Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, Book XVIII · The Second Letter to the Corinthians, 11:32 (New Testament) · Jane Taylor, Petra and the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans (I.B. Tauris, 2001)