ABILENE, the name of a district of country on the eastern declivity of Antilibanus, from twelve to twenty miles N. W. of Damascus, towards Heliopolis, or Baalbeck ; so called from the city Abila, (which see,) and also called Abila, or Abilene of Lysanias, to distinguish it from others. This territory had formerly been governed as a tetrarchate by a certain Lysanias, the son of Ptolemy and grandson of Mennreus, (Joseph. Ant. xiv. 13. 3.) but he was put to death, (A.C. 36) through the intrigues of Cleopatra, who took possession of his province, (lb. xiv. 4. 1.) After her death it fell to.Augustus, who hired it out to a certain Zenodorus ; but as he suffered the country to be infested with robbers, it was taken from him and given to Herod the Great, (Joseph. B. J. i. 20. 4 ; Ant. xv. 10. 1.) At Herod's death, a part of the territory was given to Philip; but the greater part, with the city Abila, seems then, or shortly after wards, to have been bestowed on another Lysanias, Luke iii. 1. He is supposed to have been a descend ant of the former Lysanias, but is no where men tioned by Josephus. Indeed, nothing is said by Josephus,or by any other profane writer, of this part of Abilene, until about ten years after the time referred to by Luke, when Caligula gave it to Agrippa Major as "the tetrarchy of Lysanias," (Joseph. Ant. xviii. 6.10.) to whom it was afterwards confirmed by Claudius, (ib. xix. 5. 1.) At the death of Agrippa it went, with his other possessions, to Agrippa Minor