Arabs and Empires before the Sixth Century

Abstract

This chapter examines a very broad range of literary and epigraphic sources from the conquest of the Babylonian kingdom by Cyrus the Great down to the adventures of the renegade Amorkesos at the close of the fifth century. Alongside a consideration of the encroachment of Roman and Persian power into the deserts, and the increasing complexity of their relationship with the Arabs, this chapter includes a new edition of the Ruwāfa inscriptions, as well as an examination of North Arabian epigraphic material from Dadan and Taymāʾ, and from regions further north such as Ḥaṭrā and Edessa.