into a national revolt aimed at liberating the land. The clash was not only with the Syrian forces but also between nationalist fundamentalists who were unwavering in their devotion to Hebraism and adherents to the new culture who constituted the Hellenistic or Reform party. In both conflicts victory went to the Maccabean side. In 141 b.c. Judas's brother Simon was elected high priest and ruler, and Jewish independence was recognized by the Seleucid king, Demetrius II. A new Jewish commonwealth was born, lasting until the advent of the Romans eighty years later. The Maccabees forcibly Judaized the Aramaic-speaking pagan Arabs (Ituraeans) of Galilee and the Idumaeans of southern Judaea by offering them a choice between expulsion and circumcision. The latter was preferred by the majority.
The Jews were not the only nation to take advantage of Seleucid weakness. Parthia, Bactria and adjoining lands succeeded in reasserting their independence. Arab dynasties were established at Edessa, at Palmyra, at Horns and in the Biqa, reducing the incompetent successors of Antiochus IV from an imperial house to rulers of a local state in northern Syria. The entire century between his death in 164 and the Roman conquest in 64 b.c. presents a confused picture of native revolts, internal dissension, family quarrels and steady loss of territory.
Among the Arabians, the Nabataeans, established south of the Dead Sea at Petra, were now becoming a considerable power. They first appear early in the sixth pre-Christian century as nomadic tribes in the desert east of what is today Transjordan and was then the Aramaean states of Edom and Moab. In 400, while Syria was under Persian rule, they were still mostly nomads, living in tents, speaking Arabic, abhorring wine and uninterested in agriculture. In the following century they abandoned the pastoral way of life in favour of agriculture and trade, gradually evolving into a highly organized, culturally advanced, progressive and opulent society. Theirs was another case illustrating an
