Tet´rarch, a prince or sovereign who holds or governs a fourth part of a kingdom, without wearing the diadem or bearing the title of king. Such was the original import of the word, but it was afterwards applied to any petty king or sovereign, and became synonymous with ethnarch.
In the reign of Tiberius Caesar Herod's kingdom of Judea was divided into three parts, which were called tetrarchies, and the sovereigns tetrarchs. His sons were made the heirs to his kingdom. Archelaus became tetrarch of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea; Philip of Trachonitis and Ituraea; and Herod Antipas of Galilee and Peræa (). Herod Agrippa, the nephew of Herod Antipas, who afterwards obtained the title of king (), was in the reign of Caligula invested with royalty, and appointed tetrarch of Abilene; to which was afterwards added Galilee and Peræa, Judea and Samaria; until at length his dominion extended over the whole land of Palestine [HERODIAN FAMILY]. The title of tetrarch was frequently conferred upon the descendants of Herod the Great by the Roman emperors.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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