Antiochus the Great rebuilt an empire to India, then lost Asia Minor to Rome
At eighteen, Antiochus III inherited a Seleucid empire falling apart, with rebel governors in Persia and breakaway kingdoms in Bactria and Parthia. He marched east in Alexander's footsteps as far as the Kabul valley, won back province after province, and earned the title 'the Great'. Then he picked a fight with Rome.
Born around 242 BC near Susa, Antiochus may originally have had a different, non-royal name. He took the throne in 223 BC after his brother was murdered in Anatolia. Early on, steered by the minister Hermeias, he attacked Ptolemaic Egypt's Syrian lands rather than face rebels in Media; both efforts failed. He then crushed the revolt himself, arranged Hermeias's assassination, and in 217 BC was beaten by Ptolemy IV at Raphia. His cousin Achaeus, who had proclaimed himself king in Asia Minor, was cornered at Sardis and executed.
The eastern campaigns showed a gift for deals as well as battles. Besieging a tribute-dodging king of Sophene, he waived most of the debt and married his sister to him. He took the Parthian capital in 209 BC, and after a siege of Bactra let its king keep his crown in exchange for a marriage alliance. Crossing into India he renewed ties with King Sophagasenus and came back with elephants, bringing his herd to 150.
Returning west, he beat the Ptolemaic general Scopas at Panium near the Jordan's source in 198 BC, ending Egyptian rule over Judea. Josephus says he lowered taxes there, funded the Temple, and let the Jews keep their ancestral law. His push into Asia Minor and Thrace alarmed Rome, and with the exiled Hannibal at his court he invaded Greece in 192 BC with 10,000 soldiers.
Romans routed him at Thermopylae in 191 BC and at Magnesia in 190 BC. The Treaty of Apamea in 188 BC stripped him of everything beyond the Taurus Mountains, and the eastern provinces broke away again. In 187 BC he was killed in Elymaïs while looting a temple of Bel. One daughter, Cleopatra I, married Ptolemy V of Egypt; his son became Antiochus IV, the villain of the Maccabean revolt.
Source: Antiochus III the Great
