DEMETRIUS II  . NICATOR (first reign 145-140) was a mere boy,' and the misgovernment of his Cretan supporters led to the infant son of Alexander Balas, ANTIOCHUs VI . Dionysus, being set up against him (145) by Tryphon, a magnate of the 'kingdom . Demetrius was driven from Antioch and fixed his court in the neighbouring Seleucia . In 143 Tryphon murdered the young Antiochus and assumed the diadem himself . Three years later Demetrius set off to reconquer the eastern provinces from the Parthians, leaving Queen Cleopatra to maintain his cause in Syria . When Demetrius was taken prisoner by the Parthians, his younger brother ANTIOCHUS VII . SIDETES (164–129) appeared in Syria, married Cleopatra and crushed Tryphon . Antiochus VII. was the last strong ruler of the dynasty (138-129) . He took Jerusalem and once more brought the Jews, who had won their independence under the Hasmonaean family, to subjection (see MACCABEES) . He led a new expedition against the Parthians in 430, but, after signal successes, fell fighting in 129 (see also PERSIA, History) . Demetrius (second reign 129–126), who had been allowed by the Parthians to escape, now returned to Syria, but was soon again driven from Antioch by a pretender, ALEXANDER ZABINAS, who had the support of the king of Egypt .

Demetrius was murdered at the instigation of his wife Cleopatra in 126 . The remaining history of the dynasty is a wretched

story of the struggle of different claimants, while the different factors of the kingdom, the cities and barbarian races, more and more assert their independence . Both Demetrius II. and Antiochus VII. left children by Cleopatra, who form rival branches of the royal house . To the line of Demetrius belong his son SELEUCUS V . (126), assassinated by his mother Cleopatra, ANTIOCHUS VIII . GRYPUS (141–96), who succeeded in 126 the younger brother of Seleucus V., the sons of Grypus, SELEUCUS VI . EPIPHANES NICATOR (reigned 96-95), ANTIOCHUS XI . EPIPHANES PHILADELPHUS (reigned during 95), PHILIP I . (reigned 95-83), DEMETRIUS III . EUKAIROS (reigned 95-88), and ANTIOCHUS XII . DIONYSUS EPIPHANES (reigned 86?-85?), and lastly PHILIP II., the son of Philip I., who appears momentarily on the stage in the last days of confusion . To the line of Antiochus VII. belong his son ANTIOCHUS IX .

CYZICENUS (reigned 116-95), the son of Cyzicenus, ANTIOCHUS X . EUSEBES (reigned 95-83?), and the son of Eusebes, ANTIOCHUS XIII . ASIATICUS (reigned 69-65) . In 83 Tigranes, the king of Armenia, invaded Syria, and by 69 his conquest had reached as far as Ptolemais, when he was obliged to evacuate Syria to defend his own kingdom from the Romans . When Pompey appeared in Syria in 64, Antiochus XIII. begged to be restored to his ancestral ' Some of the indications of our documents would make him older, and these are followed by Niese (iii. p . 276, note 5) . But in that case Demetrius I. must have already had a wife and son when he escaped from Rome, and it seems to me highly improbable that such a material factor in the situation would have been left out of account in Polybius's full narrative . After all, it is only a question of probabilities, and the difficulties of fitting a wife and child into the story seem to be very great, whether we conceive them left behind by Demetrius in Italy, or sent out of the country before him . kingdom or what shred was left of it . Pompey refused and made Syria a Roman province . Antiochus Grypus had given his daughter in marriage to Mithradates (q.v.), a king of Commagene, and the subsequent kings of Commagene (see under ANTIOCHUS) claimed in consequence still to represent the Seleucid house after it had become extinct in the male line, and adopted Antiochus as the dynastic name . The kingdom was extinguished by Rome in 72 .

The son of the last king,

Gaius Julius Antiochus Epiphanes Philopappus, was Roman consul for A.D. too .