Arabia Deserta

Arabia Deserta (Latin for ), also known as Arabia Magna (), signified the desert interior of the Arabian Peninsula, delineated to the northeast by the Euphrates. During ancient history, this land was populated by nomadic Bedouin tribes.

Arabia Deserta was one of three regions into which the Romans divided the Arabian peninsula: Arabia Deserta (or Arabia Magna), Arabia Felix, and Arabia Petraea. As a name for the region, it remained popular into the 19th and 20th centuries, and was used in Charles M. Doughty's Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888).

Bibliography

• G.W. Bowersock, "The three Arabias in Ptolemy's geography" and "Arabs and Saracens in the Historia Augusta" in G.W. Bowersock, Studies on the Eastern Roman Empire, Goldbach, 1994.
• F. Millar, The Roman Near East, London, 1994, pp. 514 ff.

References