Herodian Tetrarchy in the context of "Roman Syria"

Roman Syria was an early Roman province annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War following the defeat of King of Armenia Tigranes the Great, who had become the protector of the Hellenistic kingdom of Syria.

Following the partition of the Herodian Kingdom of Judea into a tetrarchy in 4 BC, it was gradually absorbed into Roman provinces, with Roman Syria annexing Iturea and Trachonitis. By the late 2nd century AD, the province was divided into Coele Syria and Syria Phoenice.

Herod Antipas (Ancient Greek: Ἡρῴδης Ἀντίπας, romanized: Hērṓidēs Antípas; c. 20 BC – c. 39 AD) was a 1st-century Herodian ruler of Galilee and Perea. He bore the title of tetrarch ("ruler of a quarter") and is referred to as both "Herod the Tetrarch" and "King Herod" in the New Testament. He was a son of Herod the Great and a grandson of Antipater the Idumaean. He is widely known today for his role in the executions of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 14:1–12, Luke 23:5–12).

Following the death of his father (4 BC in Schürer's 1890 publication, 1 BC according to Jack Finegan, W. E. Filmer, and Andrew Steinmann), Herod Antipas was recognized as tetrarch by Caesar Augustus and subsequently by his brother, the ethnarch Herod Archelaus. Antipas officially ruled Galilee and Perea as a client state of the Roman Empire. He was responsible for building projects at Sepphoris and Betharamphtha, and for the construction of his capital Tiberias on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Named in honour of his patron, the emperor Tiberius, the city later became a centre of rabbinic learning after the Jewish–Roman wars.

Philip the Tetrarch (c. 26 BCE – 34 CE), was the son of Herod the Great and his fifth wife, Cleopatra of Jerusalem. As a Tetrarch, he ruled over the northeast part of his father's kingdom between 4 BCE and 34 CE after Herod's death. He was a half-brother of Herod Antipas and Herod Archelaus. He is not the same person as Herod the Younger, whom some writers call Herod Philip I. To distinguish the two, he is called Herod Philip II by some writers (see "Naming convention").

Batanaea or Batanea was an area often mentioned between the first century BCE and the fourth century CE. It is often mixed with the biblical Bashan, the part of the Biblical Holy Land, northeast of the Jordan River, as its Latinized form.

Bashan was, in biblical context, the whole region east of the Jordan, above Gadara and Abila until the Jabal al-Druze, the old Hauran (Bashan) mountains.

The Hauran (Arabic: حَوْرَان, romanized: Ḥawrān; also spelled Hawran or Houran) is a region that spans parts of southern Syria and northern Jordan. It is bound in the north by the Ghouta oasis, to the northeast by the al-Safa field, to the east and south by the Harrat al-Sham and to the west by the Golan Heights. Traditionally, the Hauran consists of three subregions: the Nuqrah and Jaydur plains, the Jabal al-Druze massif, and the Lajat volcanic field. The population of the Hauran is largely Arab, but religiously heterogeneous; most inhabitants of the plains are Sunni Muslims belonging to large agrarian clans, while Druze form the majority in the eponymous Jabal al-Druze and a significant Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic minority inhabit the western foothills of Jabal al-Druze. The region's largest towns are Daraa, al-Ramtha, and al-Suwayda.

From the mid-1st century BC, the region was governed by the Roman Empire's Herodian and Nabatean client kings until it was formally annexed by the empire in the 2nd century AD. The Hauran prospered under Roman rule (106–395 AD) and its villages functioned as largely self-governing units, some of which developed into imperial cities. The region continued to prosper in the Byzantine era (395–634), during which different Arab tribes ruled the Hauran on Byzantium's behalf, including the Salihids (5th century) and Ghassanids (6th century) until the Muslim conquest in the mid-630s. For much of the Islamic era until Ottoman rule (1517–1917), the Hauran was divided into the districts of al-Bathaniyya and Ḥawrān, which corresponded to the Classical Batanea and Auranitis. Medieval Muslim geographers variously described these districts as prosperous, well-watered and well-populated.