Arabia became such a symbol of loyalty to Severus and the empire that during his war against Clodius Albinus, in Gaul, Syrian opponents propagated a rumour that the Third Cyrenaica had defected. That it would matter to an issue in Gallia that a single legion in a backwater province on the other side of the empire would rebel indicates the political sway that Arabia had amassed. Not a land of significant population, or resources or even strategic position, it had become a bedrock of Roman culture. That it was an Eastern Roman culture did not seem to dilute this importance in the west. It is precisely because Arabia had so little that it was able to define itself as Roman and that spurred its loyalty to Imperial Rome.