ABSTRACT
The Senate awarded Herod four pieces of territory on elevating him to kingship in 40 bce: Judea, Galilee, Perea, and Idumea. The latter is not in all sources, but Appian (Civil Wars 5.75) mentions Idumea and Samaria and Strabo (Geog. 16.2.46) refers to parts of Judea being “clipped off.” Augustus later added Samaritis, Hulitis, Gaulanitis, Batanea, Auranitis, and Trachonitis, some reallocated from Iturea, some from Nabatea, and some from Syria (see Chapters 2 and 7; Map 4.1). In its final form the kingdom’s extent was roughly comparable to the kingdom of David and Solomon a millennium earlier; after being subdivided on Herod’s death it was reunited for three years under his grandson, Marcus Julius Agrippa I. Most of the sub-regions had substantial numbers of Jews, a majority in the cases of Judea, Galilee, and Perea; if one does not quibble about questions of conversion, this also may have been true of Idumea. But in some areas, such as Auranitis and Trachonitis, a substantial majority of inhabitants would not have been Jewish, either ethnically or religiously.
