For Rome, riches and glory in an outpost of empire.

This article focuses on the history and account of the Roman occupation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. There was no Jordan when the Romans arrived. There was a vast expense of desert loosely called wadis when they are dry, and a small stream that trickled its way from Syria to the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. The man who led the Romans was General Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, better known as Pompey. He became such a legend, in fact that in the 16th century when fragments of inscribed stone turned up in the buried city of Pompeii, both the workmen and their noble employer thought the stone referred to the general, not to the city. As for the native Nabataeans, Rome was certainly not unaware of them and of their riches, but it made no move for almost a century and a half. The golden age of Roman Jordan began with Trajan but grew more golden under his successor Hadrian. After the golden days came the reign of Antoninus Pius. This emperor in fact seldom left Rome, but took a personal interest in Philadelphia. For six hundred years after Pompey, however, Roman legions kept order, Roman administrators did their duty and the prosperous citizens built baths and temples, piazzas and fountains, theaters and monumental family tombs. Here, as in other outposts of the empire, the Roman presence was superior not in numbers but in power. The supreme commanders of both military and civil administrations would be Roman, and under them was one hierarchy of officers and another of bureaucrats.