Fifth Syrian War
The Fifth Syrian War, fought from 202 to 195 BC, transferred Coele-Syria and Palestine from Ptolemaic Egypt to the Seleucid Empire permanently. The occasion was a child. Ptolemy IV died in 204 BC leaving a five-year-old son, Ptolemy V, and a court in chaos — the regent Agathocles had concealed the deaths of both king and queen, was lynched by an Alexandrian mob, and Egypt had a native revolt running in the Thebaid that had lasted two decades. Antiochus III, returning from a seven-year eastern expedition that had taken him to Bactria and India and earned him the title the Great, concluded that the moment had come. Polybius reports a secret pact with Philip V of Macedon to divide the Ptolemaic possessions, which some historians doubt. He overran Coele-Syria in 202 BC, lost most of it to the Aetolian mercenary commander Scopas in the winter, and recovered it decisively at Panium near the sources of the Jordan in 200 BC. The battle is the first in which the Seleucids used cataphracts — fully armoured cavalry — to break a phalanx, and Polybius describes it while sneering at his source. Sidon fell after a siege and Egypt lost the region it had held for a century. The Jewish population of Jerusalem largely welcomed the change, and Antiochus granted the Temple privileges and tax remissions. The war ended in 195 BC with Ptolemy V marrying Antiochus's daughter Cleopatra I. Rome defeated Antiochus at Magnesia six years later. Their son Ptolemy VI inherited a claim to Coele-Syria that Egypt pressed unsuccessfully for a century.
- Year: 201 BCE
- Category: Military
