In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me:
Governor - Greek, 'Ethnarch'-a commandant to whom pagan rulers gave authority over the numerous Jews in large cities. He was in this case under Aretas, king of Arabia. Damascus was in a Roman province. But at this time, 38 or 39 A.D., three years after Paul's conversion, 36 AD, Aretas-against whom the emperor Tiberius, as the ally of Herod Antipas, had sent an army under Vitellius-had gotten possession of Damascus on the death of the emperor, and the consequent interruption of Vitellius' operations. The war of Aretas with Herod arose from the latter having put away, for Herodias, his wife, Aretas' daughter (Neander). Rather, it was granted by Caligula (38 AD) to Aretas, whose predecessors had possessed it. This is proved by our having no Damascene coins of Caligula or Claudius, though we have of their immediate imperial predecessors and successors (Alford).