ITUREA. - Greek and Roman writers call Iturea the region occupied by the Itureans, a nomadic tribe descended from the Ishmaelite Jethur (Gen. 25:15), which migrated across Transjordan (1 Chron. 5:19) to 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 his successor Lysanias I (40-34) and of the Itureans (Dio Cassius, 49, 32). When the latter was killed in 34 by the triumvir Antony, at the instigation of Cleopatra (Fl. Josephus, Antiq. Jud., XV, 4, 1), the kingdom from the Mediterranean to Damascus was divided into small states. The southern part, to the south and southeast of Hermon, including Ulatha (= ʿArḍ el-Ḥūleh) and Paneas (= Bānijās), was entrusted to Zenodorus, a relative of Lysanias, who resided at el-Qunejirah, as the epitaph fragment found there seems to indicate. This portion of territory is the one that Aristobulus annexed to Judea in 104 B.C., after forcing the inhabitants to be circumcised, and which regained its freedom in 60 B.C. from Pompey, who was determined to restore the boundaries of Judea to the proper limits of Galilee. On the death of Zenodorus (20 B.C.), Augustus united Ulatha and Paneas to the kingdom of Herod the Great, and on his death the Emperor granted this territory, together with Trachonitis, Batanea and Auranitis, to his son Philip, whom Luke 3:1 names "tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis." Since the Itureans as a homogeneous group are mentioned by Fl. Josephus (Antiq. Jud., XV, 16, 5) with their king Soemus (38-49 A.D.), St. Luke's expression must be taken in a broad sense, on account of the position of the territory of Zenodorus or of ancient southern Iturea, which Fl. Josephus (Bell. Jud., I, 33) includes 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.
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