many buildings and crippled the vital water management system. The old city of Petra was the capital of the Eastern Roman province of Palaestina III and many churches from the Byzantine period were excavated in and around Petra. In one of them, the Byzantine Church, 140 papyri were discovered, which contained mainly contracts dated from 530s to 590s, establishing that the city was still flourishing in the 6th century. Petra served as the base for Legio III Cyrenaica, and the governor of the province would spend time in both cities, issuing edicts from both. History Roman conquest Before Roman control in 106 AD, the area had been ruled by Rabbel II, last king of the Nabataeans, who had ruled since 70 AD. When he died the Third Cyrenaica legion moved north from Egypt into Petra, while the Sixth Ferrata legion, a Syrian garrison unit, moved south to occupy Bostra. The conquest of Nabataea can be best described as casual, an act by Trajan to consolidate control of the area before acting on his designs for territory across the Tigris and eventually into Mesopotamia proper. There is no evidence of any pretext for the annexation: Rabbel II had an heir by the name of Obodas and though there was little fighting (attested to by the fact that Trajan did not adopt the appellation "Arabicus"), there does seem to have been enough of a defeat to humiliate the Nabataeans. The two cohorts that eventually found themselves in Arabia had sailed from Egypt to Syria in preparation for the action. Apart from some units of the Nabataean royal guard, this seems not to have been strongly resisted, as suggested by the fact that some Nabataean troops served as auxiliary Roman troops shortly after the conquest. The conquest of Arabia was not officially celebrated until completion of the Via Nova Traiana. This road extended down the center of the province from Bostra to Aqaba. It was not until the project was finished that coins, featuring Trajan's bust on the obverse and a camel on the reverse, appeared commemorating the acquisition of Arabia. These coins were minted until 115, at which time the Roman imperial focus was turning farther eastward. The road linked not only Bostra and Aqaba, which other than being a port does not seem to have held much significance to the imperial government, but also Petra, which sat at the center of