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[link]

Lysanias was the ruler of a tetrarchy, centered on the town of Abila. This has been referred to by various names including Abilene, Chalcis and Iturea, from about 40-36 BC. Josephus is our main source for the life of Lysanias.

His father was Ptolemy son of Mennaeus who ruled the tetrarchy before him. Lysanias was cousin of Antigonus, who he helped during the latter's attempt to claim the throne of Judea in 40 BC with the military support of the Parthians.

According to Josephus (B.J. 1.248), he offered the Parthian satrap Barzapharnes "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 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 his son Zenodorus who held the territory in 23-20 BC.^[1]

Lysanias in Luke[link]

The Luke 3:1 records that a Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene in the time of John the Baptist.

According to Josephus the emperor Claudius in AD 42 confirmed Agrippa I in the possession of Abila of Lysanias already bestowed upon him by Caligula, 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" ^[2]

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

Archaeological Lysanias[link]

Two inscriptions have been ascribed to Lysanias.^[3] The name is conjectural in the latter case.^{[citation needed]}

The first, a temple inscription found at Abila, named Lysanias as the Tetrarch of the locality.^[4]

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 (adopted son of Augustus) and his mother Livia (widow of Augustus).^[5] If this analysis is correct, 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, Livia received suitable honors while Augustus was still alive, such as "Benefactor Goddess" (Θεα Εύεργέτις) at a temple at Thassos,^[6] so there would be no clear reason that "August Lords" could not be Augustus and Livia.

Possible identity of the two figures[link]

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^{[citation needed]} 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, must have been of far greater extent. Therefore the Lysanias in Luke (AD 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^{[citation needed]} 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"^[7]

The explanation given by M. Krenkel ^[8] 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[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.