Lysanias was the ruler of a small realm on the western slopes of

Mount Hermon Mount Hermon ( / ALA-LC: ('Mountain of the Sheikh', ), , ) is a mountain, mountain cluster constituting the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. Its summit straddles the Lebanon–Syria border, border between Syria and Lebanon a ...

, mentioned by the Jewish historian

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

and in coins from c. 40 BC. There is also mention of a Lysanias in Luke's Gospel.

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,

Chalcis Chalcis (; Ancient Greek and Katharevousa: , ), also called Chalkida or Halkida (Modern Greek: , ), is the chief city of the island of Euboea or Evia in Greece, situated on the Euripus Strait at its narrowest point. The name is preserved from ...

and Iturea, from about 40-36 BC. Josephus is our main source for his life. The father of Lysanias was Ptolemy, son of Mennaeus, who ruled the tetrarchy before him. Ptolemy was married to Alexandra, one of the sisters of Antigonus, and he helped his brother-in-law during the latter's successful attempt to claim the throne of

Judea Judea or Judaea (; ; , ; ) is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Palestine and Israel. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the pres ...

in 40 BC with the military support of the Parthians. Ptolemy had previously supported Antigonus's unsuccessful attempt to take the throne of Judea in 42 BC. Josephus says in '' The Jewish War'' that Lysanias offered the Parthian satrap Barzapharnes a thousand talents and 500 women to bring Antigonus back and raise him to the throne, after deposing Hyrcanus though in his later work, the '' Jewish Antiquities,'' he says the offer was made by Antigonus. In 33 BC Lysanias was put to death by

Mark Antony Marcus Antonius (14 January 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman people, Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the Crisis of the Roman Republic, transformation of the Roman Republic ...

for his Parthian sympathies, at the instigation of

Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was ...

, who had eyes on his territories. 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 his son Zenodorus who held the territory in 23–20 BC.

Lysanias in Luke

Luke 3:1 mentions a Lysanias () as tetrarch of Abilene in the time of

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

. According to

the emperor

Claudius Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; ; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54), or Claudius, was a Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Nero Claudius Drusus, Drusus and Ant ...

in 42 AD confirmed Agrippa I in the possession of Abila of Lysanias already bestowed upon him by

Caligula Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), also called Gaius and Caligula (), was Roman emperor from AD 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the Roman general Germanicus and Augustus' granddaughter Ag ...

, elsewhere described as Abila, which had formed the tetrarchy of Lysanias: :"He added to it the kingdom of Lysanias, and that province of Abilene"

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: It has been thought that the reference to August lords as a joint title was given only to the emperor

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus ( ; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was Roman emperor from AD 14 until 37. He succeeded his stepfather Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC to Roman politician Tiberius Cl ...

(adopted son of

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

) and his mother

Livia Livia Drusilla (30 January 59 BC AD 29) was List of Roman and Byzantine empresses, Roman empress from 27 BC to AD 14 as the wife of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. She was known as Julia Augusta after her formal Adoption ...

(widow of Augustus). If this analysis is correct, this reference would establish the date of the inscription to between 14 AD (when Tiberius began to reign) and 29 AD (when Livia died), and thus could not be reasonably interpreted as referring to the ruler executed by Mark Antony in 36 BC. However, Livia received suitable honors while Augustus was still alive, such as "Benefactor Goddess" (Θεα Εύεργέτις) at a temple at Thassos, so there would be no clear reason that "August Lords" could not be Augustus and Livia.

Possible identity of the two figures

The reference to Lysanias in Luke 3:1, dated to the fifteenth year of Tiberius, has caused some debate over whether this Lysanias is the same person son of Ptolemy, or some different person. 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 Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey ( ) or Pompey the Great, was a Roman general and statesman who was prominent in the last decades of the Roman Republic. ...

, must have been of far greater extent. Therefore, the Lysanias in Luke (28–29) 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 ''The Jewish War'' Josephus refers to the realm as being "''called'' the kingdom of Lysanias", while Ptolemy writing c. 120 in his Geography Bk 5 refers to Abila as "''called'' of Lysanias"Cited in Hogg, loc. cit., p.42 The explanation given by M. Krenkel (''Josephus und Lucas'', Leipzig, 1894, p. 97) 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 until the time of Agrippa.

References

* WRIGHT, N.L. 2013: “Ituraean coinage in context.” Numismatic Chronicle 173: 55–71
(available online here)
{{New Testament people 1st-century BC monarchs in Asia People in the canonical gospels Gospel of Luke Mount Hermon