The RomanColoniaeof the Near East also sufficient to confirm that the normal restructuring of the city consti-
tution took place here also.^193 But in this as in almost all other respects the
subsequent history and nature of Petra as a Roman-Greek-Nabatean city in
the late Roman period remains a mystery. But note now the title appearing in
P.Petra (..), lines –:ἐνΑὐγουστοκολωνίᾳ[Ἀ]ντωνιανῇἐ[π]ι[σήμ[ῳ
καὶ]εὐ[. .]ε[ῖμ]η[τρὶ]κ[ολωνιῶν]/ἉδριανῇΠέτρᾳμητροπόλειτῆςΤρίτης
Παλαιστίνης Σαλουτ[αρίας].^194
In the next reign, that of Severus Alexander (..–), the other major
city of the province of Arabia, Bostra (known since Trajan’s acquisition of
Arabia asΝέα ΤραιανὴΒόστρα), followed suit, and gained the titlecolo-
nia. Again, we have no historical context for the grant. Apart from a single
Greek inscription which records a dedication on behalf of Gordian III by
ἡκολωνία, dated to the th year of the province (..),^195 the sole
explicit evidence is provided by the city’s coins, which have the legends
COLONIA BOSTRA, N(ea) TR(aiana) A(lexandriana), COL BOSTRA and
COL METROPOLIS BOSTRA / BOSTRON / BOSTRENORUM.^196 How-
ever the inscriptions of third- and even fourth-century Bostra do reflect
the existence of local offices with Latin titles. An undated Latin inscrip-
tion (IGLSXIII ) mentionsquaestoribus; but, more important, one of
/ is datedἐπὶκουαιστορείας(IGLSXIII ), while two men are de-
scribed asἀπὸφλάμενος(IGLSXIII –). These texts are undated, but
surely derive from the third century. However there is nothing else in the
attested titulature of city officials in this period to reflect its colonial status,
not even the appearance of the termστρατηγός.^197 We can be sure that the
normal language of Bostra, even for legal purposes, continued to be Greek:
the fact is explicitly attested in a papyrus from Oxyrhynchus (P. Oxy.)
recording the sale of a slave at ‘‘Bostra in Syria’’ in..,κατὰδίπλωμα
Ἑλληνικόν. Yet the document makes curiously insistent use of what seem to
. Starcky and Bennett (n. ), on pp. and , refer to the twostratēgoimen-
tioned (as ’SRTGY’) in a Nabatean inscription from Hegra / Medain Saleh, and suggest
that these are in fact the annualstratēgoi/duumviriof Petra. The inscription isCISII., ,
re-published by Jaussen and Savignac,Mission archéologique en ArabicI (), , no. .
Unfortunately the idea that this is a dating formula (‘‘in the days of ’’—‘L YMY) is removed
by the different reading in J. Cantineau.Le nabatéenII (), , no. viii.
.The Petra PapyriI, ed. J. Frösén, A. Arjava, and M. Lentinen ().
.IGLSXIII .
. See Spijkerman (n. ), –; A. Kindler,The Coinage of Bostra(); M. Sartre,
Bostra des origines à l’Islam(), .
. For the city’s institutions as reflected in the epigraphy of the region, see Sartre
(n. ), –.