Ken Olson wrote: ↑Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:31 am
That's certainly plausible, Ben, but I wonder how you could provide more evidence for that, or if the evidence is exhausted at that point. Perhaps providing examples other writers that use the term Tetrarch as one of a set four rulers. Any examples of that in Greek (naturally) would help, but examples close to Luke's time would help more (i.e., examples of authors that continued to use the word that way after the word had taken on the meaning of a ruler who wan't quite a king, regardless of whether he was one of a set of four).
Well, we have evidence that the original meaning of the word was at least still known:
Strabo, Geography 12.5.1: The Galatians, then, are to the south of the Paphlagonians. And of these there are three tribes; two of them, the Trocmi and the Tolistobogii, are named after their leaders, whereas the third, the Tectosages, is named after the tribe in Celtica. This country was occupied by the Galatae after they had wandered about for a long time, and after they had overrun the country that was subject to the Attalic and the Bithynian kings, until by voluntary cession they received the present Galatia, or Gallo-Graecia, as it is called. Leonnorius is generally reputed to have been the chief leader of their expedition across to Asia. The three tribes spoke the same language and differed from each other in no respect; and each was divided into four portions which were called tetrarchies, each tetrarchy having its own tetrarch [ἕκαστον διελόντες εἰς τέτταρας μερίδας τετραρχίαν ἑκάστην ἐκάλεσαν, τετράρχην ἔχουσαν ἴδιον], and also one judge and one military commander, both subject to the tetrarch, and two subordinate commanders. The Council of the twelve tetrarchs consisted of three hundred men, who assembled at Drynemetum, as it was called. Now the Council passed judgment upon murder cases, but the tetrarchs and the judges upon all others. Such, then, was the organization of Galatia long ago, but in my time the power has passed to three rulers, then to two; and then to one, Deïotarus, and then to Amyntas, who succeeded him. But at the present time the Romans possess both this country and the whole of the country that became subject to Amyntas, having united them into one province.
Of course, Strabo is talking about events from much earlier, but he clearly knows the original definition.
In
Antiquities 17.11.4 §317-320, and also in
Wars 2.6.3 §93-94, when Caesar changes the disposition of Herod's kingdom, Josephus specifies that Archelaus receives half of the original kingdom, and calls him an ethnarch, while Antipas and Philip each get half of a half and are called tetrarchs. Elsewhere, obviously, Josephus uses the term in a more generic sense (as a ruler of less importance than a king), and maybe I am imagining things, but it comes across as if in
this case Josephus is conscious, or perhaps the historical personages themselves are conscious, of the original meaning of the term tetrarch, applying it to the holders of quarters and denying it to the holder of the half (while simultaneously being
very specific about their portions in terms of quarters and halves), thus taking advantage of an instance in which the terminology happens to be able to retain its original significance.
In century II, the tactician Aelianus calls four military companies a tetrarchy and their leader a tetrarch (οἱ δὲ τέσσαρες λόχοι τετραρχία, καὶ ὁ τούτου τοῦ τάγματος ἡγούμενος τετράρχης, Aelianus,
Tactica 9.2). He seems to be retaining the vocabulary of earlier tacticians, such as Asclepiodotus, and contemporary tacticians such as Arrian (
Tactica 10.2, for example) retain it, as well.