Aretas IV

…greatest wealth and power, under Aretas IV (8 bce–40 ce), their territory extended from al-Ḥijr in the south, northward past Petra, along the northern route east of the Jordan River as far as the Ḥawrān region south of Damascus. The Nabataean territory—except for its southern part—was incorporated into the Roman…

…wife, the daughter of King Aretas IV of the Nabataeans, an adjacent Arab people. John’s denunciation of this marriage doubtless presented Herod with the danger that his Jewish subjects would combine with his semi-Arab subjects in opposition to him. John’s execution certainly preceded Aretas’s victory over Herod in 35–36, a…