vassal.[1] As “allies” of the Romans the Nabataeans continued to flourish throughout the first Christian century. Their power extended far into Arabia, particularly along the Red Sea; and Petra was a meeting-place of many nations, though its commerce was diminished by the rise of the Eastern trade-route from Myoshormus to Coptos on the Nile. Under the Roman peace they lost their warlike and nomadic habits, and were a sober, acquisitive, orderly people, wholly intent on trade and agriculture (Strabo xvi. 4). They might have long been a bulwark between Rome and the wild hordes of the desert but for the short-sighted cupidity of Trajan, who reduced Petra and broke up the Nabataean nationality (105 A.D.). The new Arab invaders who soon pressed forward into their seats found the remnants of the Nabataeans transformed into fellāḥīn, and speaking Aramaic like their neighbours. Hence Nabataeans became the Arabic name for Aramaeans, whether in Syria or Iraḳ, a fact which has been incorrectly held to prove that the Nabataeans were originally Aramaean immigrants from Babylonia. It is now known, however, that they were true Arabs—as the proper names on their inscriptions show—who had come under Aramaic influence.
See especially on this last point (against Quatremère, Journ. asiat. xv., vol. ii., 1835), Nöldeke in Zeit. d. morgenländ. Gesell. xvii. 705 seq., xxv. 122 seq. The so-called “Nabataean Agriculture” (Falāḥa Nabaṭīya), which professes to be an Arabic translation by Ibn Waḥshīya from an ancient Nabataean source, is a forgery of the 10th century (see A. von Gutschmid, Z. d. morgenl. Ges. xv. 1 seq.; Nöldeke, ib. xxix. 445 seq.). Complete bibliographical information is given by E. Schürer in his sketch of Nabataean history appended to Gesch. d. Jüd. Volkes (1901, vol. i.; cf. Eng. edition, 1890, i. 2, pp. 345 sqq.); to this may be added the article by H. Vincent, Rev. bibl. vii. 567 sqq., and, for more general information, R. Dussaud, Les Arabes en Syrie (1907). For early external evidence see H. Winckler, Keil. u. Alte Test.3 p. 151 seq.; M. Streck, Mitteil. d. vorderasiat. Gesell. (1906). pt. iii., and Klio, 1906, p. 206 seq. The Nabataean inscriptions (see Semitic Languages) are collected in the Corpus Inscr. Semiticarum of the French Academy, pt. ii.; see also the Academy’s Répertoire d’épigr. sém.; and the discussions, &c., in the writings of Clermont-Ganneau (Rec. d’archéol. Orient.) and M. Lidzbarski (Handbuch d. nord-semit. Epig.; Ephemeris f. sem. Epig.). For English readers the selection in G. A. Cooke, North-Semitic Inscriptions (Oxford, 1903) is the most useful. (W. R. S.; S. A. C.)
NABBES, THOMAS (b. 1605), English dramatist, was born in
humble circumstances in Worcestershire. He entered Exeter
College, Oxford, in 1621, but left the university without taking a
degree, and about 1630 began a career in London as a dramatist.
His works include: Covent Garden (acted 1633, printed 1638),
a prose comedy of small merit; Tottenham Court (acted 1634,
printed 1638), a comedy the scene of which is laid in a holiday
resort of the London tradesmen; Hannibal and Scipio (acted
1635, printed 1637), a historical tragedy; The Bride (1638), a
comedy; The Unfortunate Mother (1640), an unacted tragedy;
Microcosmus, a Morall Maske (printed 1637); two other masques,
Spring’s Glory and Presentation intended for the Prince his
Highnesse on his Birthday (printed together in 1638); and a
continuation of Richard Knolles’s Generall Historie of the Turkes
(1638). His verse is smooth and musical, and if his language
is sometimes coarse, his general attitude is moral. The masque
of Microcosmus—really a morality play, in which Physander
after much error is reunited to his wife Bellanima, who personifies
the soul—is admirable in its own kind, and the other two masques,
slighter in construction but ingenious, show Nabbes at his best.
Nabbes’s plays were collected in 1639; and Microcosmus was printed in Dodsley’s Old Plays (1744). All his works, with the exception of his continuation of Knolles’s history, were reprinted by A. H. Bullen in his Old English Plays (second series, 1887). See also F. G. Fleay, Biog. Chron. of the English Drama (1891).
NABHA, a native state of India, within the Punjab. Area,
966 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 297,949. Its territories are scattered;
one section, divided into twelve separate tracts, lies among the
territories of Patiala and Jind, in the east and south of the
Punjab; the other section is in the extreme south-east. The
whole of the territories belong physically to a plain; but they
vary in character from the great fertility of the Pawadh region
to the aridity of the Rajputana desert. Nabha is one of the Sikh
states, founded by a member of the Phulkian family, which
established its independence about 1763. The first relations of the
state with the British were in 1807–1808, when the raja obtained
protection against the threatened encroachments of Ranjit
Singh. During the Mutiny in 1857 the raja showed distinguished
loyalty, and was rewarded by grants of territory to the value of
over £10,000. The imperial service troops of the raja Hira
Singh (b. c. 1843; succeeded in 1871) did good service during the
Tirah campaign of 1897–98. The chief products of the state are
wheat, millets, pulses, cotton and sugar. The estimated gross
revenue is £100,000; no tribute is paid. The territory is crossed
by the main line and also by several branches of the
North-Western railway, and is irrigated by the Sirhind canal.
The town of Nabha, founded in 1755, has a station on the Rajpura-Bhatinda branch of the North-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 18,468.
See Phulkian States Gazetteer (Lahore, 1909).
NĀBIGHA DHUBYĀNĪ [Ziyād ibn Mu‛awīiyya] (6th and 7th centuries), Arabian poet, was one of the last poets of pre-Islamic times. His tribe, the Bani Dhubyān, belonged to the district near Mecca, but he himself spent most of his time at the courts of Hira and Ghassan. In Hira he remained under Mondhir (Mundhir) III., and under his successor in 562. After a sojourn at the court of Ghassān, he returned to Hira under Nu‛mān. He was, however, compelled to flee to Ghassan, owing to some verses he had written on the queen, but returned again about 600. When Nu‛mān died some five years later he withdrew to his own tribe. The date of his death is uncertain, but he does not seem to have known Islam. His poems consist largely of eulogies and satires, and are concerned with the strife of Hira and Ghassān, and of the Bani Abs and the Bani Dhubyān. He is one of the six eminent pre-Islamic poets whose poems were collected before the middle of the 2nd century of Islam, and have been regarded as the standard of Arabian poetry. Some writers consider him the first of the six.
His poems have been edited by W. Ahlwardt in the Diwans of the six ancient Arabic Poets (London, 1870), and separately by H. Derenbourg (Paris, 1869, a reprint from the Journal asiatique for 1868). (G. W. T.)
NABOB, a corruption of the Hindostani nawab, originally used
for native rulers. In the 18th century, when Clive’s victories
made Indian terms familiar in England, it began to be applied
to Anglo-Indians who returned with fortunes from the East.
NABUA, a town in the extreme S. of the province of Ambos Camarines, Luzon, Philippine Islands, on the Bicol river, about 22 m. S.S.E. of Nueva Cáceres, the capital. Pop. (1903) 18,893. Nabua is in the district known as La Rinconada—a name originally given to it on account of its inaccessibility. It is connected by road, railway and the Bicol river (navigable for light-draft boats) with Nueva Cáceres. Nabua is the centre of an agricultural region, which produces much rice and some Indian corn, sugar and pepper. The language is Bicol.
NACAIRE, Naker, Naquaire (Arab. naqāra), the medieval name for the kettledrum, the earliest representation of which appears in the unique MS. known as the Vienna Genesis (5th or 6th century). The nacaire was, according to Froissart, among the instruments used at the triumphal entry of Edward III. into Calais. The Chronicles of Joinville describe the instrument as a kind of drum: “Lor il fist sonner les tabours que l’on appelle nacaires.” Chaucer, in his description of the tournament in the Knight’s Tale, line 1653, also refers to this early kettledrum.
NACHMANIDES (Naḥmanides), the usual name of Moses ben Naḥman (known also as Ramban), Jewish scholar, was born in Gerona in 1194 and died in Palestine c. 1270. His chief work, the Commentary on the Pentateuch, is distinguished by originality and charm. The author was a mystic as well as a philologist, and his works unite with peculiar harmony the qualities of reason and feeling. He was also a Talmudist of high repute, and wrote glosses on various Tractates, Responsa and other legal works. Though not a philosopher, he was drawn into the controversy that arose over the scholastic method of Maimonides (q.v.). He endeavoured to steer a middle course between the worshippers
- ↑ Compare 2 Cor. xi. 32. The Nabataean Aretas or Aeneas there mentioned reigned from 9 B.C. to A.D. 40.
