CALCHIS. – Centre of a kingdom that already existed in the 14th century B.C. in Upper Syria, as is evident from the Tell el-Amarna letters. At the time of Saul and David, it was an Aramaean kingdom west of Damascus, in the region of Coele-Syria, under the name of Šōbhāḥ (1 Sam 14:47; 2 Sam 8:3 ff.), against whose king David waged and won wars.
This Šōbhāḥ is identified with CALCHIS of the Greeks, the name being explained as an appellative derived from the copper deposits in the region. It seems to correspond to the modern locality of 'Anghar, situated 15 km west of Zebedani in Coele-Syria. In the years 85–40 B.C., CALCHIS was the capital of a state under a certain Ptolemy, son of Mennaeus. His son and successor, Lysanias I, called “king of the Ituraeans” by Cassius Dio, extended his kingdom from the Mediterranean to Damascus; he was killed by the triumvir Antony, at the instigation of Cleopatra, in 36 B.C., in order to annex Coele-Syria to Egypt. The Romans, however, assigned the kingdom to Zenodorus, and in 20 B.C. to Herod the Great. The emperor Claudius gave the kingdom of CALCHIS to Herod, brother of Agrippa I, in A.D. 41, and after his death in 49 to Agrippa II, but only for four years; then Claudius took it back.