done away with Berenice and her son, thus incurring the enmity of Ptolemy III, Berenice's brother. The Egyptian monarch invaded Seleucid territory and marched victoriously at least as far as Syria and perhaps to the Tigris,[1] though later writers extended his conquests to Bactria and even as far eastward as India. But a revolt in the Delta forced Ptolemy to return home before he could consolidate his position. Sometime in the course of the struggle between Ptolemy and Seleucus, the latter was forced to conclude a peace with his brother which left Antiochus Hierax an autonomous sovereign in Asia Minor. The war with Egypt once ended, Seleucus soon attempted to recover the lost territory; but after some preliminary successes he was completely defeated at Ancyra (Ankara) about 240 b.c.[2] by Antiochus and his Galatian allies. For a time it was supposed that Seleucus himself had perished in the fighting, but he escaped in disguise to Antioch.
About 228 b.c. Seleucus gathered an army at Babylon[3] and marched eastward. Tiridates retreated
- ↑ Professor Olmstead draws my attention to the fact that the Babylonian documents do not mention Ptolemy and that the dates make his rule in Babylonia improbable.
- ↑ The date is very uncertain; see Rapson in CHI, I, 440; Bevan, House of Sel., I, 194 and 285. Tarn in CAH, VII, 720, refuses to commit himself. See also E. V. Hansen, "The Great Victory Monument of Attalus I," AJA, XLI (1937), 53, n. 3.
- ↑ In later times Seleucia and Babylon were often confused by Greek writers, though contemporary tablets show that natives of Babylonia did not make this error. The importance of this confusion in the Parthian period has been exaggerated.
