Iturea
Encyclopedia
Iturea is the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 name of a region in the Levant during the Late Hellenistic and early Roman periods. It is mentioned only once in the Christian Bible, while in historical sources the name of the people, the Itureans (Greek: or ), occurs. The latter are first mentioned by Eupolemus
Eupolemus
Eupolemus is the earliest Hellenistic Jewish historian whose work survives only in five fragments in the Eusebius of Caesarea's Praeparatio Evangelica embedded in quotations from the historian Alexander Polyhistor and in the Stromata of Clement of Alexandria.A sixth passage...

 – as one of the tribes conquered by David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...

 – and subsequently by Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

, Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

, Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...

, and others, and they designate Itureans as an Ismaelite people. They were known to the Romans
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 as a predatory people, and were appreciated by them for their great skill in archery. A southern branch of the Itureans occupied the area around Galilee but were conquered by the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus
Alexander Jannaeus
Alexander Jannaeus was king of Judea from 103 BC to 76 BC. The son of John Hyrcanus, he inherited the throne from his brother Aristobulus I, and appears to have married his brother's widow, Shlomtzion or "Shelomit", also known as Salome Alexandra, according to the Biblical law of Yibbum...

 and forcefully converted to Judaism.

Many Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 theologians, among them Eusebius, taking into consideration the above-cited passage of Luke, place Iturea near Trachonitis
Trachonitis
Trachonitis was a region that once formed part of Herod Philip's tetrarchy. It now lies within the boundaries of modern Syria.It appears in the Bible only in the phrase tes Itouraias kai Trachbnitidos choras, literally, "of the Iturean and Trachonian region"...

; but this seems contrary to all the historical sources. According to Josephus, the Iturean kingdom lay north of Galilee
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...

, and in 105 BCE Aristobulus I, having defeated the Itureans, annexed a part of their country to Israel
Hasmonean
The Hasmonean dynasty , was the ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity. Between c. 140 and c. 116 BCE, the dynasty ruled semi-autonomously from the Seleucids in the region of Judea...

, imposing Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 upon the inhabitants. Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

 (xvi. 2, § 10, p. 753) includes the land of the Itureans in the kingdom of Ptolemy
Ptolemy (son of Mennaeus)
Ptolemy or Ptolemaeus , son of Mennaeus was tetrarch of Iturea and Chalcis from about 85 BCE to 40 BCE, in which year he died. He tried to extend his kingdom by warlike expeditions ; and ruled the Lebanon, threatened Damascus, subjugated several districts on the Phoenician coast, and once had...

, son of Mennaeus (Mennæus), whose residence was at Chalcis
Chalcis, Syria
Chalcis was an ancient city in Syria. Syrian Chalcis was the birthplace of 3rd century Neoplatonist philosopher Iamblichus.It is thought to be the site of the modern town of Qinnasrin, though Anjar in Lebanon has also been suggested as the site of ancient Chalcis....

(?) and who reigned 85-40 BCE. Ptolemy was succeeded by his son Lysanias
Lysanias
Lysanias was the ruler of a small realm on the western slopes of Mount Hermon, attested to by the Jewish writer Josephus and in coins from circa 40 BC. There is also mention of a Lysanias dated to 29 AD in the gospel of Luke. It has been debated whether these are the same person.- Lysanias in...

, called by Dio Cassius
Dio Cassius
Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus , known in English as Cassius Dio, Dio Cassius, or Dio was a Roman consul and a noted historian writing in Greek...

 (xlix. 32) "king of the Itureans." About 23 BCE Iturea with the adjacent provinces fell into the hands of a chief named Zenodorus
Zenodorus son of Lysanias
Zenodorus was the ruler of a small principality in the vicinity of Damascus described by Josephus as the "house of Lysanias", 23-20 BCE. Though Josephus doesn't seem to know it, Zenodorus was actually the son of Lysanias, for a funerary inscription found at Heliopolis was dedicated to "Zenodorus...

 (Josephus, l.c. xv. 10, § 1; idem, B. J. i. 20, § 4). Three years later, at the death of Zenodorus, Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...

 gave Iturea to Herod the Great
Herod the Great
Herod , also known as Herod the Great , was a Roman client king of Judea. His epithet of "the Great" is widely disputed as he is described as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis." He is also known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and elsewhere, including his...

, who in turn bequeathed it to his son Philip (Josephus, Ant. xv. 10, § 3).

That Iturea was in the region of Mount Lebanon is confirmed by an inscription of about the year 6 CE
6
Year 6 was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Lepidus and Arruntius...

 (Ephemeris Epigraphica, 1881, pp. 537–542), in which Q. Æmilius Secundus relates that he was sent by Quirinius
Quirinius
Publius Sulpicius Quirinius was a Roman aristocrat. After the banishment of the ethnarch Herod Archelaus from the tetrarchy of Judea in AD 6, Quirinius was appointed legate governor of Syria, to which the province of Iudaea had been added for the purpose of a census.-Life:Born in the neighborhood...

 against the Itureans in Mount Lebanon. In 38
38
Year 38 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Iulianus and Asprenas...

 Caligula
Caligula
Caligula , also known as Gaius, was Roman Emperor from 37 AD to 41 AD. Caligula was a member of the house of rulers conventionally known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Caligula's father Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius, was a very successful general and one of Rome's most...

 gave Iturea to a certain Soemus, who is called by Dio Cassius (lix. 12) and by Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...

 (Annals, xii. 23) "king of the Itureans." After the death of Soemus (49
49
Year 49 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Longus and Veranius...

) his kingdom was incorporated into the province of Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 (Tacitus, l.c.). After this incorporation the Itureans furnished soldiers for the Roman army; and the designations "Ala I. Augusta Ituræorum" and "Cohors I. Augusta Ituræorum" are met with in the inscriptions (Ephemeris Epigraphica, 1884, p. 194).

Ethnicity

Scholars believe that the Itureans were either an Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

 or Aramaic
Aramaeans
The Aramaeans, also Arameans , were a Northwest Semitic semi-nomadic and pastoralist people who originated in what is now modern Syria during the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age...

 people.

Etymology

Several etymologies have been proposed for the name Iturea:

John Lightfoot
John Lightfoot
John Lightfoot was an English churchman, rabbinical scholar, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and Master of St Catharine's College, Cambridge.-Life:...

 considered possible derivation from the words hittur (wealth), chitture (diggings) or the word for "crowning" (i.e. `ittur) or for "ten" (i.e. the root `-th-r) relating to Decapolis
Decapolis
The Decapolis was a group of ten cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire in Judea and Syria. The ten cities were not an official league or political unit, but they were grouped together because of their language, culture, location, and political status...

 ("ten cities"). He considered the last to be the least likely and favoured the derivation from chitture noting the descriptions of the landscape.

William Muir
William Muir
Sir William Muir, KCSI was a Scottish Orientalist and colonial administrator.-Life:He was born at Glasgow and educated at Kilmarnock Academy, at Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, and at Haileybury College. In 1837 he entered the Bengal Civil Service...

 suggested that the name might be a derived from Jetur (Hebrew Yetur) one of the former Hagrite encampments that had been conquered by the Israelites in the days of Saul, however in Josephus where both names are mentioned, Jetur (Ietour-) is rendered differently in Greek to Iturea (Itour-).

Smith's Bible Dictionary
Smith's Bible Dictionary
Smith's Bible Dictionary, originally named A Dictionary of the Bible, was a 19th century Bible dictionary containing upwards of four thousand entries that became named after its editor, William Smith...

 attempts to equate the modern Arabic region name Jedur with both Jetur and Iturea however the Arabic j corresponds to Hebrew g and not y, nor does the Arabic d correspond to Hebrew or Greek t and the mainstream view is that Jedur corresponds to the Biblical Gedor.
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