Antiochus III

Antiochus III rebuilt the Seleucid empire almost to Alexander's borders and then lost the western half of it to Rome in two years. He came to the throne at eighteen in 223 BCE over a state that was disintegrating: Media and Persis in revolt, Asia Minor held by a cousin who had declared himself king, and Egypt holding the Levant. He put down the satraps, invaded Coele-Syria, and was beaten at Raphia in 217 BCE by Ptolemy IV in the largest battle either dynasty ever fought, chiefly because the Egyptians had armed and trained native Egyptian troops for the first time. He then turned east and spent seven years on the march - recovering Armenia, forcing the Parthian king to terms, campaigning to Bactria, and reaching India, where he renewed the old treaty and collected war elephants. He came back with the title Megas, the Great King, and it was not obviously an exaggeration. When Ptolemy IV died he took Coele-Syria properly at Panium in 200 BCE, and Judaea passed to the Seleucids with it. Then he crossed into Greece at the invitation of the Aetolians, which brought him into a war with Rome that his advisers including Hannibal, then in exile at his court, told him he was fighting on the wrong terms. He was beaten at Thermopylae in 191, lost his fleet, and was destroyed at Magnesia in 190 by a Roman army under the Scipios. The Treaty of Apamea in 188 stripped him of Asia Minor, capped his navy and elephants, and imposed an indemnity so large that raising it defined Seleucid policy afterwards. He was killed the next year by a mob while robbing a temple in Elymais for the money.

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