Dupondius of Trajan celebrating the annexation of Arabia. Rome, 111 or 112-114. RIC II Trajan 457 or 615. Obv.: IMP CAES NERVAE TRAIANO AVG GER DAC P M TR P COS V (or VI) P P: Head of Trajan, radiate, right Rev.: S P Q R OPTIMO PRINCIPI / ARAB ADQVIS / S C, Arabia standing facing, head left, a small camel standing left at her feet, half hidden behind her. The annexation of Arabia, the Nabataean Kingdom which had been a client-kingdom since Pompeian times, took place in 106 AD and was celebrated on coins and official inscriptions in 111. This reverse type, with or without the legend Arab(ia) adquis(ita), was then struck on a large set of coins : at Rome on aurei, denarii, sestertii, dupondii and asses, but also on tetradrachms of Nabataean standard with Greek legends minted at Rome for circulation in Arabia, and on Nabataean drachmas minted at Antioch for circulation in Arabia too. On this standardized image, like all deities and allegories, the personification of Arabia is identified by her attributes : her clothing, a camel, a branch she extends in her right hand and a conspicuous long object she carries vertically with her left hand. It seems there is no consensus about these attributes. "Arabia bears a branch — a symbol of peace or perhaps rather of her herbal wealth — and an object of uncertain meaning, which Strack identifies as a quiver, but which we prefer to regard as some form of case or bundle — probably of canes. The camel is the sign manual of the land." (BMC vol.3 p. lxxvii). "Arabia standing facing, head left, wearing chiton, peplos and stephane, holding branch in right hand over Arabian camel to left and bundle of cinnamon sticks (?) in left " (RPC III 4050). Some other numismatists see a reed (Cohen) or a bundle of calami odorati (I don't remember which one wrote this). Descriptions by experts in recent auctions say "bundle of rods", "calamus stems", "une canne"... but the "cinnamon sticks" interpretations seems to be the most popular. Symbols and attributes had to be easily identified by Roman citizens at first glance, which, in my opinion, excludes the bundle of canes, cinnamon sticks or calami odorati hypotheses, because such things were surely not part of a Roman citizen's everyday life. It is more likely that Arabia's attributes were references to well-known symbols and stereotypical images. Arabia's long chlamys falls on her front side in a triangular shape. On Flavian coins, the Jewish or German prisoners wear the same long triangular chlamys (and nothing else). This clothing must suggest a foreign nation. The camel and the branch must refer to well-known late Republican coins, the denarii of M. Aemilius Scaurus showing the Nabataean king Aretas III kneeling, holding an olive-branch, a camel at his side. This was the official image of the Nabataean Kingdom Roman citizens could have in mind. The long object Arabia holds vertically in her left hand must be a lictor's fasces without its axe. It sometimes happened that fasces were represented on coinage with no axe inserted in them, for example on Julius Caesar denarii. Late Republican denarii showing fasces without the axe blade Sestertii of Hadrian can show a lictor carrying his fasces the same way. The message delivered by the Trajanic image of Arabia is clear : the client-kingdom of Arabia (camel, branch) is now directly under the imperium of a Roman magistrate (the fasces). This interpretation is more coherent with the ancient texts that mentioned the annexation of Arabia: "Redacta in formam provinciae Arabia" (milestones of Jordan, dated 111, 112 and 114) ; " Arabiam postea in provinciae formam redegit." (Eutropius); "(Arabia) was given the name of a province, assigned a governor, and compelled to obey our laws by the emperor Trajan" (Ammianus Marcellinus).
