ABSTRACT
Petra's role in the defense of the east against the rising Saracen threat though it had been the capital city of Palaestina Salutaris since the middle of the fourth century, has remained obscure. An epigram recently discovered at Petra promises to shed some light on these issues, and may indeed provide evidence for Petra's role in the defense of the eastern frontier against Saracen raids. Petra had somehow been involved in this arrangement until the late sixth century, when there is evidence for the intervention of a Saracen phylarch in the arbitration of a dispute involving citizens of Petra. Aside from tins smattering of evidence one lack sufficient data to write a history of the military-administrative role of Petra. For Saracens, if indeed they are the enemy referenced, the poet of Petra probably intended the meaning used by Homer and Herodotus. The elite of Petra felt embattled as their city and territory increasingly became part of an Arabic-speaking land.
