 It stretched south along the Red Sea coast into the Hejaz, up as far north as Damascus, which it controlled for a short period (85–71 BC).Nabataea remained independent from the 4th century BC until it was annexed in AD 106 by the Roman Empire, which renamed it Arabia Petraea.The Nabataeans were one among several nomadic Bedouin tribes that roamed the Arabian Desert and moved with their herds to wherever they could find pasture and water.