Note 156 — Chapter X · SYRIA AND THE LAND OF THE NABATAEANS.

According to the Arabian accounts the Benu Sâlih migrated from the region of Mecca (about 190 A.D., according to the conjectures of Caussin de Perceval, Hist. des Arabes, i. 212) to Syria, and settled there alongside of the Benu-Samaida, in whom Waddington finds anew the φυλὴ Σομαιθηνῶν of an inscription of Suwêda (n. 2308). The Ghassanids, who (according to Caussin, about 205) migrated from Batn-Marr likewise to Syria and to the same region, were compelled by the Salihites, at the suggestion of the Romans, to pay tribute, and paid it for a time, until they (according to the same, about the year 292) overcame the Salihites, and their leader Thalaba, son of Amos, was recognised by the Romans as phylarch. This narrative may contain correct elements; but our standard authority remains always the account of Procopius, de bello Pers. i. 17, reproduced in the text. The phylarchs of individual provinces of Arabia (i.e. the province Bostra; Nov. 102 c.) and of Palestine (i.e. province of Petra; Procop. de bello Pers. i. 19), are older, but doubtless not much. Had a sheikh-in-chief of this sort been recognised by the Romans in the times before Justinian, the Roman authors and the inscriptions would doubtless show traces of it; but there are no such traces from the period before Justinian.