ITUREA. — Greek and Roman writers call I. the region occupied by the Itureans, a nomadic tribe descended from the Ishmaelite Jethur (Gen. 25:15), which emigrated through Transjordan (I Par. 5:19) toward the north and settled in the Beqāʾ between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon (Strabo, XVI, 2, 20).
Together with other nomadic Arabs, they recognized the authority of the dynasty of Chalcis (= Hirbet Anġar), Ptolemy son of Mennaeus (84–40 B.C.), and then that of his successor Lysanias I (40–34), and of the Itureans (Dio Cassius, 49, 32). After the latter was killed in 34 by the triumvir Antony, at the instigation of Cleopatra (Fl. Josephus, Antiq. Ind., XV, 4, 1), the kingdom extending from the Mediterranean to Damascus was divided into small states. The southern part, south and southeast of Hermon, comprising Ulatha (= ʿArḍ el-Ḥūleh) and Paneas (= Bānijās), was entrusted to Zenodorus, a relative of Lysanias, who resided at el-Qunejirah, as the fragment of an epitaph discovered there seems to indicate. This portion of territory is the one that Aristobulus annexed to Judaea in 104 B.C., after forcing its inhabitants to be circumcised, and that regained its freedom in 60 B.C. from Pompey, who had resolved to restore the borders of Judaea to the proper limits of Galilee. At the death of Zenodorus (20 B.C.), Augustus united Ulatha and Paneas with the kingdom of Herod the Great; and after his death the Emperor granted this territory, together with Trachonitis, Batanea, and Auranitis, to his son Philip, whom Lk. 3:1 calls “tetrarch of I. and Trachonitis.” Since the Itureans as a homogeneous group are mentioned by Fl. Josephus (Antiq. Ind., XV, 16, 5) with their king Sohaemus (38–49 A.D.), the expression of St Luke must be understood broadly, as referring to the territory of Zenodorus, or of ancient southern I., included by Fl. Josephus (Bell. Ind., I, 33) in the expression “Philip, tetrarch of Trachonitis and the neighboring regions.” After the death of Philip (4–34 A.D.), the emperor Tiberius annexed the territory to the province of Syria.