ITUR^A is the EV translation of the first term in St. Luke's description of I'hilip's tetrarchy (t^s 'Iroupa/as kclI Tpaxwi'iTiooj X'^P'". Lie 3', AV ' Itura?a and the region of Traohonitis '). But Kamsay has shown (Expositor, 18'J4, ix. pp. 51 «"., U.'itl'., 288 11.) that the word is not used as a noun by any writer before Eusebius in the 4tli cent, after Cluist, and doubtfully even by him (so not even in Jos. Ant. XIII. xi. 3, where Niese reads 'Irofpaioi's ; nor in Alipian, Civ. v. 7 : read rj]ii 'Irovpaiun). Strabo calls it r^v ^iToxipaloiv dpup-^v (XVI. ii. 16), and to. 'Apd^uv fiifrr) nal tQii> 'Irovpalaf (XVI. ii. 20), and Dio Cassius, rrin tiIk 'iTovpaluv tCiv 'kpii^uv (lix. 12). Epiphanius {adv. Ilmres. xix. 1) uses the adjective dT6 T^s XajSoTiK^r x'^P"' i«"' 'Irovpalat, and Itamsay {op. fit. 289 n. 2) argues for the adjectival mean- ing of 'IrovpaiOi even in Euseb. {Oiioin. ed. Lag. 268, 298), and more doubtfully in Jerome's tnins- lation. Elsewhere, in Greek and Latin authors, it is the name of the people which is given, 'iToi'poioi, ltur(ci, Ityrei, etc. 'There remains, then, no single ptussage in ancient literature to justify the noun which has been forced on Luke' (liiimsay, 2S9), which nou'.i, further, would render the .sentence 'degenerate Greek,' 'in utter dis- regard of the rules of Greek ex'jression as observed by the older classical authors' (/''. 1-1-4).
The Ituru-'ans were well known to the Romans as a race of hardy archers, and they frequently appear in the pages of Latin writers. They fought with Ciesar in the African war {.Ikll. AJrir. 2u), and formed a bodj'guard for ^lark Antony when he was triumvir, rattling with their arms through the forum to the indignation of Cicero (I'hilipp. ii. 19, 112, xiii. 18). Virgil sings them, ' Itura,'os taxi torquentur in arcus' (Gcorg. ii. 448), and Lucan, 'Iturieis cursus fuit inuo sagitlis' (/'/«/r4a/. vii. 2.'?()), 'tunc et Itur;ei Med- iquo Arabes(iue soluto arcu turba miiiax ' (I'A. vii. 514). In A.D. 110 there was a ' cohois I Augusta Ituriporum sagittjiriorum ' (t'/X, t. iii. 868). About A.D. 255 we have the statement ' habes sagittarios Ityra-os trecentos'(Vopiscus, Vita Aurdinni^c 11), and in his Gazetteer of the geographical terms of the Latin poets, Vibius .Sequester (c. A.D. 500) names them as ' Ithyrei, vel Itharei, Syrii usu BagittiE periti' (ed. llesselii, 155).
The quotations given above from Strabo, Appian, and Lucan* call them or a.ssociato them with both Arabs and Syrians ; and, as Schiirer points out (HJP I. ii. Aj>p. I. ' History of Chalcis, Itunea, and Abilene, 326), the (iroper names of Ituiiean soldiers, mentioned in Latin inscriptions, are Syrian (cf. Miinter, dc Itdms Iturmurum, 1S24, 8-10, 4011".; CIL t. iii. n. 4371; C. /. Ji/ientm,
* Ct. Arrian, At. An. 18: ti «■%<' r»i§rm «' rit N«/u«)«i a^i
ed. Brambach, 1233 f.). This agieea with the position assigned to them on and about the skirts of the Lebanons ; and considering the incessant drift upon these parts of nomad Arabs from the neighbouring deserts, we ought probably to see in the Ituraans the descendants of JetUF (n!E;i mentioned in (in 25" and 1 Ch 1" as among the sons of Ishmael, i.e. as Arabian desert tribes. Eupolemus (r. n.c. 150), quoted by Eu-sebius {I'ra-p. Evaiig. ix. 30), mentions Itura^ans along with Ammonites, Moabites, Nabata;ans, etc., as among the objects of David's campaigns E. of the Jordan.
Because of this semi - nomadic state and this gradual drift from the desert to the fertile parts of .Syria, the exact territory of the Ituneans is difficult, if not impossible, to define. Josephus l>laces the Itura'an kingdom in or uiion the N. of Galilee in B.C. 105 (Ant. .XIII. xi. 3), when Aristobulus havin<j defeated them added a large part of their territory to Juda'a. Ujion an in- scription of about A.D. Q (Epiicmeris Bpiqraphica, 1881, 537-542) Q. -Emilius Secundus relates that being sent by Quirinius ' a<lversus Ituneos in Libano monte ca.stellum eonun cepi.' Dio Ca.ssius (xlix. 32) calls Lysanias, who ruled Lebanon from Damascus to the sea with his capital at Chalcis, king of the Itura'ans ; and the same writer (lix. 12) and Tacitus (.Inn. xii. 23) call Soemus, who was tetrarch in Lebanon (Jos. Vita, l\), their governor; while Strabo places them in .Anti- Lebanon with their centre at Chalcis in the Beka'. This evidence appears to prove Schiirer's conclusion, that Anti-Lebanon and the valley to the ea.st was the centre of the Ituraans just before and at the beginning of the Christian era ; and Ramsay's con- tention, that ' the true home of such a race is nt7 the long-settled and well-governed land between Leb.'iiion and Anti-Lebanon,' conlliots not only with the data of classicjil writers, but with the constant proof of how rich lands in Syria were being overrun and occupied by nomadic tribes from the desert. It is iirobable, however, that the Ituneans extended their infiuence eastwards and south-eastwards from Anti-Lebanon. Aljout B.C. 25 Zenodorus leased the domains oi Lj'sanias, whom Dio Cassius (.xlix. 32) calls king of the Ituraans, and Zenodorus' territorj- included Ulatlia, I'ancas, and the country round aljout. The question remains, whether the ' Itui':ean region ' extended so far as to include or overlap Traohon- itis, the countrj- around the Tractions, one of which is the modern Lej.'l. Ramsay niaiiitains that, both according to St. Luke's statement and as a matter of fact, it did. But of the latter there is absolutely no evidence before Eusebius in the 4th cent., and in face of such silence his testimony about the east of the Jordan in the beginning of the 1st cent, cannot be allowed to prevail. In the absence of evidence, the following lacts are all we have to "o by. Names have been constantly in drift in that part of Svria, and as I'hilo extended over all Philip's tetrart-liy the name of its eastern portion Trachonitis (Legal. atlGaiitm, 41) it is possible that the adjective ' Ituiican' may likewise have been .sometimes cxleiuled eastward so as to cover Trathonilis, especially as the Itur- a'ans themselves were |irobably driven in that direction after the Romans took their Lebanon territory from them. At the sjvmc time, Strul>«, writing after this wa.s acconiplislie<l, still tn-nts of Itunea and Trachonitis as di.stinct. Whetlier, therefore, St. Luke meant by his phriuse ttji 'Iron- pQ(o! »ai "Cpaxufiriiot \u(ia% 'two ifisiinct Jporliona of I'hilip's tetrarchy or two equivalent or over- lapping names for it; and whether on either of these interpretations of his words he was cirrect — are questions to » Inch the geographical data oi