11. The Shrinking Ptolemaic Kingdom
With Egypt in disarray and ruled by the child king, Ptolemy V, kings Philip V of Macedon and Antiochus III the Great of Seleucia entered into an agreement to seize and divide amongst themselves the Ptolemaic Kingdom’s possessions. Accordingly, Philip V seized the Egyptian kingdom’s holdings in Thrace and Asia Minor, while Antiochus the Great plucked Judea and Coele-Syria – a region stretching northeast from Lebanon, through Syria, to the Euphrates River.
Things got worse for the Ptolemies when Ptolemy V was succeeded in 181 BC by his son, Ptolemy VI (186 – 145 BC), another child ruler, who reigned as a figurehead while power was exercised by courtiers. When the new monarch’s regents demanded the return of Coele-Syria in 170 BC, the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV, beat them to the punch and launched a preemptive strike, with a lightning invasion of Egypt in 169 BC. The Egyptians were routed, and Antiochus IV captured Alexandria, and seized Ptolemy VI, whom he allowed to remain on the throne as a puppet ruler.