The
tightly administered but politically relatively calm century of Ptolemaic
rule over the cities and provinces of the southern Levant ends
when Antiochus III. ("the
Great"),
scion of the Seleucids ruling the Eastern parts of the "spear
won"
lands of Alexander, succeeds in battle. A decisive victory
at Panias (Banyas) in 198 forces the young Greco-Egyptian ruler, Ptolemy
V., to yield. The Seleucid
kingdom had reached
the zenith of its power.
This period is both eventful and amply described in later sources, such as the writings of Josephus Flavius, a Jewish historian flourishing at the time of the Jewish rebellion against the Romans in the second half of the first century CE. Under Seleucid king Antiochus IV "Epiphanes" internal strife and external force culminate in an attempt to suspend the Torah and to convert Jerusalem into a Hellenistic polis (renamed "Antioch in Ioudaia"). These events are often described as the first religious persecution recorded in history.
Image: The coin bears a portrait of Seleukos I., one of Alexander's generals and the founder of the Seleucid kingdom which extended from Asia minor to the Hindukush.