Antiochus VIII Grypus

Antiochus VIII Epiphanes/Callinicus/Philometor, nicknamed Grypus (, "hook-nose"), was the ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire from 125 to 96 BC. He was the younger son of Demetrius II and Cleopatra Thea. He may have spent his early life in Athens and returned to Syria after the deaths of his father and brother Seleucus V. At first he was joint ruler with his mother. Fearing her influence, Antiochus VIII had Cleopatra Thea poisoned in 121 BC. Political instability affected most of Antiochus VIII's reign. From 116 BC he fought a civil war against his half-brother Antiochus IX. Antiochus VIII's wife, the Ptolemaic Egyptian princess Tryphaena, had her sister and the wife of Antiochus IX, the former Cleopatra IV of Egypt, murdered in 112 BC; Antiochus IX killed Tryphaena in revenge. In 102 BC, Antiochus VIII's aunt Cleopatra III of Egypt, the mother of the two rival queens, gave him the hand of her daughter Cleopatra Selene in marriage. Antiochus VIII was assassinated in 96 BC. Biography Family background and childhood In 193 BC Cleopatra I, a Seleucid princess, married King Ptolemy V of Egypt. Their granddaughter Cleopatra Thea of the Ptolemaic dynasty married the claimant Alexander Balas half a century later in 150 BC. She later married Demetrius II of Syria, and they had two sons. Demetrius II was captured and held as a prisoner by the Parthian Empire. Antiochus VIII's uncle Antiochus VII took the throne and married Cleopatra Thea, but died in 129 BC while fighting against the Parthians; Demetrius II then returned to the throne, and died in 125 BC while waging a war for the Syrian throne against the claimant Alexander II. Demetrius II's eldest son Seleucus V became king after his death, but was soon killed by Cleopatra Thea. She made Antiochus VIII king, ruling as his co-regent.