Kingdom of Hatra
2nd-century Arab kingdom
The Kingdom of Hatra (Arabic: مملكة الحضر, romanized: Mamlakat al-Ḥażr), also called Kingdom of Arabaya and Araba, was a 2nd-century Assyrian kingdom centered on the city of Hatra and located between the Roman and the Parthian empires, mostly under Parthian suzerainty, in modern-day northern Iraq.
Name
The name of "Hatra" appears various times in the Aramaic Hatrene inscriptions as Hatran Aramaic: 𐣧𐣨𐣣𐣠, romanized: ḥṭrʾ, vocalized as: Ḥaṭrā), probably meaning "enclosure, hedge, fence".
History
The history of Hatra before the Parthian Empire is obscure. It has been suggested that a settlement was founded there under the Neo-Assyrian or the Achaemenid Empire, but that remains speculative.
The earliest known records that mention Hatra are from the late 1st century. The early rulers of Hatra used the title of marya "lord", but starting from the 170s, they started using the title of malka "king", often in the form of "King of the Arabs". This elevation of titulature is considered to be related to the Roman incorporation of Edessa in 165, which resulted in Hatra being the westernmost part of the Parthian Empire, and thus of higher strategic importance. Several scholars, including the historian J. Teixidor, have argued that "Arab" in the texts of Hatra indicate the territory in which the town of Hatra is located, rather than a group of people.
In the first and second centuries, Hatra was ruled by a dynasty of princes with uncertain origins. According to the historians Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, the kings of Hatra were either Assyrians, Arabs with an Assyrian title, or just southern Arabs.
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