Lysanias

Lysanias appears once in scripture, named in the dating-formula that opens the public ministry of John the Baptist.

Tetrarch of Abilene

The synchronism at Luke 3:1 fixes the moment by stacking the political authorities of the region: "Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene" (Lu 3:1). Lysanias is the fourth ruler in the list, holding the tetrarchy of Abilene alongside Pilate's procuratorship and the two Herodian tetrarchies. The verse uses him as a dating coordinate; nothing further is said of him in the text.