Kingdom of Chalcis

Chalcis was a small ancient Iturean kingdom situated in the Beqaa Valley, named for and originally based from the city of the same name. The ancient city of Chalcis (a.k.a. Chalcis sub Libanum, Chalcis of Coele-Syria was located midway between Berytus and Damascus. The modern town of Anjar in Lebanon is believed to be the site of ancient Chalcis sub Libanum, although this has not been definitively demonstrated. The ruins of a Roman temple are located a few kilometers south-west of Anjar.

Originally, Chalcis was a city in Coele-Syria. When the Seleucid influence in the area began to dissipate, the Itureans created the Kingdom of Chalcis, which stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to near Damascus. They made Chalcis the capital of their realm, Baalbek was the center of worship. The founder of the kingdom seems to have been Ptolemaeus, son of Menneus, an Ituraean dynast.

During the time of Alexander Jannaeus Hasmonaean king of Judea, Ptolemaeus had to cede part of his territory to the Hasmonaeans. This area was later known as Iturea (Iturea, in an ethnic sense, covered a much larger area). In 64 BCE Ptolemaeus bribed the Roman general Pompeius to refrain from annexing his kingdom and allow him to continue to rule as Tetrarch. Pompey also returned to him the areas lost to Jannaeus when he brought an end to the independent Hasmonaean state in 63 BCE.

Chalcis was a vassal state under Roman rule during the remainder of Ptolemaeus' reign. In 40 BCE He was succeeded by his son Lysanias. Lysanias supported the efforts of the Hasmonean scion Antigonus II Mattathias to take the throne of Judea in 42 and 40 BCE, allying with him against the Roman client king Herod, whom he temporarily supplanted on his Parthian-supported second attempt. Lysanias's anti-Roman sympathies eventually led to his execution by Mark Antony in 33 BCE, at the instigation of Cleopatra VII of Egypt, who had eyes on his territories.

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