ABILENE (Vulgate: Abilina). - A tetrarchy (Lk 3:1), so named from its capital Abila, often mentioned by Flavius Josephus as Abila of Lysanias.
Abila stood to the east of the Anti-Lebanon, near the river Barada (v. Abana), 26 km northwest of Damascus (cf. Itinerarium Antonini, no. 198, 5-6: Itineraria Romana, ed. O. Cuntz, Leipzig 1929, p. 27), on the road to Heliopolis (Baalbek). Today it corresponds to Stik Wadi Barada, where ancient ruins were discovered; a name survives in the nearby Weli Abil, or the supposed (by the Arabs) tomb of Abel, son of Adam.
Abilene belonged, at least until the death of Herod the Great, to the kingdom of Chalcis, where Ptolemy (85-40 B.C.), son of Menneus, reigned; he was succeeded by his son Lysanias, who was killed by Antony at the instigation of Cleopatra, who took possession of a large part of those domains. After 4 B.C., Abilene was constituted a tetrarchy (as is evident not only from the cited passage of Luke, but also from a recently discovered inscription: cf. Revue Biblique, new series, 9 (1912), pp. 533-540), which during the fifteenth year of Tiberius (14-37 A.D.) we find governed by Lysanias the Younger, then by Herod Agrippa I (37-44), by Roman procurators, and finally by Herod Agrippa II (53-93). At his death, Abilene was definitively annexed to the Roman province of Syria.