Lysanias

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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 Josephus
Lysanias was the ruler of a tetrarchy, centered on the town of Abila.

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Lysanias in Josephus

Lysanias was the ruler of a tetrarchy, centered on the town of Abila. This has been referred to by various names including Abilene

Abilene (biblical)

Abilene or simply Abila was a plain, a district in Coele-Syria, of which the chief town was Abila Lysaniou . The limits of this region are nowhere exactly defined, but it seems to have included the eastern slopes of Anti-Lebanon range, and to have extended south and southeast of Damascus as far as the borders of Galilee, Batanaea, and...
, Chalcis

Chalcis, Syria

Chalcis was an ancient city in Syria. Syrian Chalcis was the birthplace of 3rd century AD Neoplatonism philosopher Iamblichus .It is thought to be the site of the modern town of Qinnasrin, though Anjar, Lebanon in Lebanon has also been suggested as the site of ancient Chalcis....
and Iturea

Iturea

Iturea is the Greek language name of a province, derived from the Bible Jetur, name of a son of Ishmael. The name of the province is mentioned only once in the Christian Bible, while in historical sources the name of the people, the Itureans , occurs....
, from about 40-36 BC. Josephus is our main source for the life of Lysanias.

His father was Ptolemy

Ptolemy (son of Mennaeus)

Ptolemy or Ptolomaeus, 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 Paneas in his hands ....
son of Mennaeus who ruled the tetrarchy before him. Lysanias was cousin of Antigonus

Antigonus the Hasmonean

Antigonus II Mattathias was the son of King Aristobulus II of Judea. In 40 BC he led, along with Barzapharnes, a Parthian-supported invasion of Judea, seized Jerusalem, and sent his uncle Hyrcanus II to Babylon in chains ....
, who he helped during the latter's attempt to claim the throne of Judea

Judea

Judea or Jud?a is the name given to the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel , an area now divided between Israel and the West Bank ....
in 40 BC with the military support of the Parthians.

According to Josephus

Josephus

Josephus , also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu and, after he became a Roman citizenship, as Titus Flavius Josephus, was a first-century Jewish historian and apologist of priestly and royal ancestry who survived and recorded the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70....
(B.J. 1.248), he offered the Parthian satrap Barzapharnes

Barzapharnes

Barzapharnes was a Parthian Empire general during the latter half of the first century BCE. In 40 BCE Barzapharnes commanded a Parthian invasion of the Levant, commanded and aided by Pacorus who allied himself with the Roman outlaw Quintus Labienus and seized Syria....
"a thousand talents and 500 women to bring Antigonus back and raise him to the throne, after deposing Hyrcanus". However, Josephus in his later work, the Jewish Antiquities 14.330-331, relates that it was Antigonus who made the offer to the Parthians. Whichever the case, Lysanias was put to death by Mark Antony

Mark Antony

Marcus Antonius , known in English as Marc Antony, was a Roman Republic politician and General. He was an important supporter and the best friend of Julius Caesar as a military commander and administrator, being Caesar's second cousin, once removed, by his mother Julia Antonia....
for his Parthian sympathies, at the instigation of Cleopatra, who had eyes on the territories of Lysanias.

Coins from his reign indicate that he was "tetrarch and high priest". The same description can be found on the coins of his father, Ptolemy son of Mennaeus and on those of a possible near relative 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 the son of Lysanias the tetrarch" ....
who held the territory in 23-20 BC.

Lysanias in Luke

The Luke

Gospel of Luke

The Gospel of Luke is a Synoptic Gospels, and is the third and longest of the four Biblical canonical Gospels of the New Testament. The text narrates the life of Jesus of Nazareth....
records that a Lysanias was tetrarch

Tetrarch

Tetrarch is a Greek language term for a holder of Roman Emperor office under a Tetrarchy. It was applied earlier to rulers of minor principalities owing allegiance to Rome....
of Abilene in the time of John the Baptist

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was a mission preacher and a major religious figure who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River in expectation of a divine apocalypse that would restore occupied Israel....
.

According to Josephus

Josephus

Claudius

Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus or Claudius I was the fourth Roman Emperor, a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, ruling from January 24, AD 41 to his death in AD 54....
in AD 42

Year 42 was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar....
confirmed Agrippa I

Agrippa I

Agrippa I also called the Great , King of the Jews, was the grandson of Herod the Great, and son of Aristobulus IV and Berenice . His original name was Marcus Julius Agrippa, and he is the king named Herod in the Acts of the Apostles, in the Bible, "Herod " ....
in the possession of Abila of Lysanias

Abila Lysaniou

Abila Lysaniou or Abila Lysaniae or Abila was an ancient city, on the Abana River and capital of ancient Abilene , Coele-Syria. The site is currently that of the village Suk Wadi Barada , circa 20 km northwest of Damascus, Syria....
already bestowed upon him by Caligula

Caligula

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus , more commonly known by his nickname Caligula , was the third Roman Emperor, reigning from 16 March 37 until his assassination on 24 January 41....
, elsewhere described as Abila, which had formed the tetrarchy of Lysanias. The statement appears in the Wars:

"He added to it the kingdom of Lysanias, and that province of Abilene"

and also in Antiquities (Ant. xix.5, 1).

Archaeological Lysanias

Two inscriptions have been ascribed to Lysanias. . The name is conjectural in the latter case.

The first, a temple inscription found at Abila, named Lysanias as the Tetrarch of the locality.

The temple inscription reads:

Inscription		Translation
Huper tes ton kurion Se[baston]		For the salvation of the Au[gust] lords
soterias kai tou sum[pantos]		and of [all] their household,
auton oikou, Numphaios Ae[tou]		Nymphaeus, free[dman] of Ea[gle]
Lusianiou tetrarchou apele[utheors]		Lysanias tetrarch established
ten odon ktisas k.t.l		this street and other things.

It has been thought that the reference to August lords as a joint title was given only to the emperor Tiberius (son of Augustus) and his mother Livia (widow of Augustus) . This reference would establish the date of the inscription to between A.D. 14 (when Tiberius began to reign) and 29 (when Livia died), and thus could not be reasonably interpreted as referring to the ruler executed by Mark Antony in 36 BC. However, Augustus and Livia together were referred to during their lifetimes as SEBASTWI, ie Augusti, so there is no reason to assume this fragment should be dated as late as the reign of Augustus.

Possible identity of the two figures

There is some debate over whether these sources refer to the same person, or two different people.

Some say that the Lysanias whose tetrarchy was given to Agrippa cannot be the Lysanias executed by Antony, since his paternal inheritance, even allowing for some curtailment by Pompey

Pompey

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, commonly known as Pompey /'p?mpi/, Pompey the Great or Pompey the Triumvir , was a distinguished military and political leader of the late Roman Republic....
, must have been of far greater extent. Therefore the Lysanias in Luke (AD 28

Year 28 was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar....
-29

Year 29 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar....
) is a younger Lysanias, tetrarch of Abilene only, one of the districts into which the original kingdom was split up after the death of Lysanias I. This younger Lysanias may have been a son of the latter, and identical with, or the father of, the Claudian Lysanias.

But Josephus does not refer to a second Lysanias. It is therefore suggested by others that he really does refer to the original Lysanias, even though the latter died decades earlier. In BJ 2.215 Josephus refers to the realm as being "called the kingdom of Lysanias", while Ptolemy writing circa 120 AD in his Geography Bk 5 refers to Abila as "called of Lysanias"

The explanation given by M. Krenkel is that Josephus does not mean to imply that Abila was the only possession of Lysanias, and that he calls it the tetrarchy or kingdom of Lysanias because it was the last remnant of the domain of Lysanias which remained under direct Roman administration

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
until the time of Agrippa.