Seleucus IV Philopator (Greek: Σέλευκος Δ' Φιλοπάτωρ), ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, reigned from 187 BC to 175 BC over a realm consisting of Syria (now including Cilicia and Judea), Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Nearer Iran (Media and Persia).

He was compelled by financial necessities, created in part by the heavy war-indemnity exacted by Rome, to pursue an ambitious policy. In an effort to collect money to pay the Romans, he sent his minister Heliodorus to Jerusalem to seize the temple treasury. On his return, Heliodorus assassinated Seleucus, and seized the throne for himself.

The true heir Demetrius, son of Seleucus, now being retained in Rome as a hostage, the kingdom was seized by the younger brother of Seleucus, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who managed to oust Heliodorus, even though an infant son, also named Antiochus, was formal head of state for a few years until Epiphanes had him murdered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucus_IV_Philopator

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Selevkos IV Filopator

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Konge av av Selevkideriket

Navn: S??e???? ?' F???p?t??

Regjeringstid: 187 – 175 f.Kr.

Født: Ukjent

Død: 175 f.Kr.

Foreldre: Antiokos III den store (far)

Laodike III (mor)

Barn: Antiokos

Demetrios I Soter

Laodike V

Selevkos IV Filopator (gresk: S??e???? ?' F???p?t??;[1] født ukjent – død 175 f.Kr.) var en konge av det hellenistiske Selevkideriket i tiden 187–175 f.Kr. Han var andre sønn og etterfølger av Antiokos III den store og Laodike III. Hans egen hustru var hans søster Laodike IV som han fikk tre barn med: de to sønnene Antiokos, Demetrios I Soter og datteren Laodike V.Innhold [skjul]

1 Økonomiske vanskeligheter

2 Jerusalem

3 Myrdet

4 Referanser

5 Eksterne lenker

Økonomiske vanskeligheter [rediger]

Det riket Selevkos IV arvet besto av Syria (som da også omfattet Kilikia i nord og Judea i sør), Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Media og Persia.

Selevkos var forhindret av økonomiske vanskeligheter til å utøve en ambisiøs politikk, skapt delvis ved store utgifter i krigen som hans far hadde drevet og ved at han måtte betale krigserstatning til Romerriket. Han forsøkte først og fremst ved hjelp av diplomatiske virkemidler å styrke riket. I 178 f.Kr. giftet han bort sin datter Laodike V til Perseus, konge av Makedonia. Det ble vurdert av Eumenes II av Pergamon som en antiromersk handling. For å berolige romerne sendte Selevkos sin sønn Demetrios som gissel til Roma. Til gjengjeld kunne hans bror Antiokos IV Epifanes reise tilbake til hjemlandet.

Jerusalem [rediger]

Heliodoros-stelen i Israel Museum

I et forsøk for på å samle inn penger for å betale romerne, sendte han en gang rundt i 175 f.Kr. sin minister og rikskansler Heliodoros til Jerusalem, jødenes hellige sted, for å ta tempelskattene. Andre Makkabeerbok forteller at Heliodoros gikk inn i tempelet i Jerusalem, men måtte snu da tre åndelige vesener, som siden har blitt tolket som engler, manifesterte seg selv som mennesker.[2] I Israel Museum i Jerusalem finnes det en gresk inskripsjon på en stele som er datert til 178 f.Kr. hvor det nevnes at Selevkos utpekte Heliodoros som hans visekonge med ansvar for templene i Judea. Mens denne delen av inskripsjonen kommer fra handel med oldtidsgjenstander, ble det i 2005 funnet ytterligere et fragment fra den samme inskripsjonen i kjelleren av et hellenistisk hus i Maresha i Sjefela.[3]

Uansett hva som var den egentlige årsaken til at Heliodoros åpenbart ikke fikk med seg jødenes religiøse skatter, etter han var kommet tilbake fra Judea, deltok Heliodoros i en sammensvergelse mot kongen. Den 3. september 175 f.Kr. ble Selevkos IV Filopator myrdet av Heliodoros, og ministeren tok deretter tronen i eget navn.

Myrdet [rediger]

Den virkelige arvingen til riket, Demetrios I av Soter, Selevkos’ sønn, oppholdt seg på samme tid som gissel i Roma, og kongedømmet ble isteden tatt av den yngre broren til Demetrios I, Antiokos IV Epifanes. Han klarte å fortrenge Heliodoros og en liten sønn av Selevkos, også kalt for Antiokos. Sistnevnte var i navnet overhodet av Selevkideriket i noen få år inntil Antiokos IV Epifanes fikk ham drept i 170 f.Kr. Det er indikasjoner at Antiokos IV Epifanes også giftet seg med Selevkos’ enke Laodike V.[4

Seleucus IV Philopator

Seleucus IV Philopator (Greek: Σέλευκος Δ΄ Φιλοπάτωρ; c. 218-175 BC), ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, reigned from 187 BC to 175 BC over a realm consisting of Syria (now including Cilicia and Judea), Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Nearer Iran (Media and Persia). He was the second son and successor of Antiochus III the Great and Laodice III. Seleucus IV wed his sister Laodice IV, by whom he had three children: two sons Antiochus, Demetrius I Soter and a daughter Laodice V.

He was compelled by financial necessities, created in part by the heavy war-indemnity exacted by Rome, to pursue an ambitious policy. In an effort to collect money to pay the Romans, he sent his minister Heliodorus to Jerusalem to seize the Jewish temple treasury.

The Bible tells of a prophecy given by a messenger angel in Daniel 11:20 (NLT). The text states that Seleucus "will be remembered as the king who sent a tax collector to maintain the royal splendor." The deuterocanonical lends more to this in 2 Maccabees 3:2-3... "It came to pass that even the kings themselves, and the princes esteemed the place [the Temple in Jerusalem] worthy of the highest honour, and glorified the temple with very great gifts: So that Seleucus king of Asia allowed out of his revenues all the charges belonging to the ministry of the sacrifices."

On his return from Jerusalem, Heliodorus assassinated Seleucus, and seized the throne for himself. The true heir Demetrius, son of Seleucus, was now being retained in Rome as a hostage, and the kingdom was seized by the younger brother of Seleucus, Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Antiochus managed to oust Heliodorus and an infant son of Seleucus, also named Antiochus, was formal head of state for a few years until Epiphanes had him murdered.

Source :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucus_IV_Philopator

Antiochus IV Epiphanes

Antiochus IV Epiphanes (/ænˈtaɪ.əkəs ɛˈpɪfəniːz/; Ancient Greek: Ἀντίοχος Δ΄ ὁ Ἐπιφανής, Antíochos D' ho Epiphanḗs, "God Manifest";[1] c. 215 BC-164 BC) was a Hellenistic Greek king of the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his death in 164 BC. He was a son of King Antiochus III the Great. His original name was Mithradates (alternative form Mithridates); he assumed the name Antiochus after he ascended the throne.

Notable events during the reign of Antiochus IV include his near-conquest of Egypt, his persecution of the Jews of Judea and Samaria, and the rebellion of the Jewish Maccabees.

Antiochus was the first Seleucid king to use divine epithets on coins, perhaps inspired by the Bactrian Hellenistic kings who had earlier done so, or else building on the ruler cult that his father Antiochus the Great had codified within the Seleucid Empire. These epithets included Θεὸς Ἐπιφανής 'manifest god', and, after his defeat of Egypt, Νικηφόρος 'bringer of victory'. However, Antiochus also tried to interact with common people by appearing in the public bath houses and applying for municipal offices, and his often eccentric behavior and capricious actions led some of his contemporaries to call him Epimanes ("The Mad One"), a word play on his title Epiphanes.

Rise to power

Antiochus was a member of the Hellenistic Greek Seleucid dynasty and was the son and potential successor of King Antiochus III, and as such he became a political hostage of the Roman Republic following the Peace of Apamea in 188 BC. His older brother Seleucus IV followed his father onto the throne in 187 BC, and Antiochus was exchanged for his nephew Demetrius I Soter (the son and heir of Seleucus). King Seleucus was assassinated by the usurper Heliodorus in 175 BC, but Antiochus in turn ousted him. Seleucus' legitimate heir Demetrius I Soter was still a hostage in Rome, so Antiochus seized the throne for himself with the help of King Eumenes II of Pergamum, proclaiming himself co-regent with another son of Seleucus, an infant named Antiochus (whom he then murdered a few years later).

Wars against Egypt

The guardians of King Ptolemy VI of Egypt demanded the return of Coele-Syria in 170 BC, but Antiochus launched a preemptive strike against Egypt, conquering all but Alexandria and capturing King Ptolemy. To avoid alarming Rome, Antiochus allowed Ptolemy VI to continue ruling as a puppet king. Upon Antiochus' withdrawal, the city of Alexandria chose a new king, one of Ptolemy's brothers, also named Ptolemy (VIII Euergetes). The Ptolemy brothers agreed to rule Egypt jointly instead of fighting a civil war.

In 168 BC, Antiochus led a second attack on Egypt and also sent a fleet to capture Cyprus. Before reaching Alexandria, his path was blocked by a single old Roman ambassador named Gaius Popillius Laenas who delivered a message from the Roman Senate directing Antiochus to withdraw his armies from Egypt and Cyprus, or consider himself in a state of war with the Roman Republic. Antiochus said that he would discuss it with his council, whereupon the Roman envoy drew a line in the sand around Antiochus and said: "Before you cross this circle, I want you to give me a reply for the Roman Senate." This implied that Rome would declare war if the King stepped out of the circle without committing to leave Egypt immediately. Weighing his options, Antiochus decided to withdraw. Only then did Popillius agree to shake hands with him.

Persecution of Jews, Maccabean revolt

The Seleucids, like the Ptolemies before them, held a mild suzerainty over Judea: they respected Jewish culture and protected Jewish institutions. This policy was drastically reversed by Antiochus IV, resulting in harsh persecutions and a revolt against his rule, the Maccabean revolt.

According to the authors of the Books of Maccabees, while Antiochus was busy in Egypt, a rumor spread that he had been killed. In Judea, the deposed High Priest Jason gathered a force of 1,000 soldiers and made a surprise attack on the city of Jerusalem. Menelaus, the High Priest appointed by Antiochus, was forced to flee Jerusalem during a riot. King Antiochus returned from Egypt in 167 BC, enraged by his defeat; he attacked Jerusalem and restored Menelaus, then executed many Jews.

When these happenings were reported to the king, he thought that Judea was in revolt. Raging like a wild animal, he set out from Egypt and took Jerusalem by storm. He ordered his soldiers to cut down without mercy those whom they met and to slay those who took refuge in their houses. There was a massacre of young and old, a killing of women and children, a slaughter of virgins and infants. In the space of three days, eighty thousand were lost, forty thousand meeting a violent death, and the same number being sold into slavery. — 2 Maccabees 5:11–14

Antiochus decided to side with the Hellenized Jews in order to consolidate his empire and to strengthen his hold over the region. He outlawed Jewish religious rites and traditions kept by observant Jews and ordered the worship of Zeus as the supreme god (2 Maccabees 6:1–12). This was anathema to the Jews and they refused, so Antiochus sent an army to enforce his decree. The city of Jerusalem was destroyed (168 BC) because of the resistance, many were slaughtered, and Antiochus established a military Greek citadel called the Acra.

Traditionally, as expressed in the First and Second Books of the Maccabees, the Maccabean Revolt was painted as a national resistance to a foreign political and cultural oppression. In modern times, however, scholars have argued that the king was instead intervening in a civil war between the traditionalist Jews in the country and the Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem. According to Joseph P. Schultz:

"Modern scholarship on the other hand considers the Maccabean revolt less as an uprising against foreign oppression than as a civil war between the orthodox and reformist parties in the Jewish camp."

It seems that the traditionalists, with Hebrew/Aramaic names such as Onias, contested with the Hellenizers, with Greek names such as Jason and Menelaus, over who would be the High Priest. Other authors have pointed to the possibility of socioeconomic motives, as well as religious ones, as having been primary drivers of the civil war.

What began in many respects as a civil war escalated when the Hellenistic kingdom of Syria sided with the Hellenizing Jews in their conflict with the traditionalists. As the conflict escalated, Antiochus took the side of the Hellenizers by prohibiting the religious practices around which the traditionalists had rallied. This could explain why the king banned the traditional religion of a whole people, in a total departure from typical Seleucid practice in other settings.

Final years

King Mithridates I of Parthia took advantage of Antiochus' western problems and attacked from the east, seizing the city of Herat in 167 BC and disrupting the direct trade route to India, effectively splitting the Greek world in two.

Antiochus recognized the potential danger in the east but was unwilling to give up control of Judea. He sent a commander named Lysias to deal with the Maccabees, while the King himself led the main Seleucid army against the Parthians. Antiochus had initial success in his eastern campaign, including the reoccupation of Armenia, but he died suddenly of disease in 164 BC.

According to the scroll of Antiochus, when Antiochus heard that his army had been defeated in Judea, he boarded a ship and fled to the coastal cities. Wherever he came the people rebelled and called him "The Fugitive," so he drowned himself in the sea. According to the second book of maccabees, he died in the following manner : "But the all-seeing Lord, the God of Israel , struck him an incurable and unseen blow. As soon as he ceased speaking he was seized with a pain in his bowels for which there was no relief and with sharp internal tortures - and that very justly, for he had tortured the bowels of others with many and strange inflictions. Yet he did not in any way stop his insolence, but was even more filled with arrogance, breathing fire in his rage against the Jews, and giving orders to hasten the journey. And so it came about that he fell out of his chariot as it was rushing along, and the fall was so hard as to torture every limb of his body."

Jewish tradition

Antiochus IV ruled the Jews from 175 to 164 BC. He is remembered as a major villain and persecutor in the Jewish traditions associated with Hanukkah, including the books of Maccabees and the "Scroll of Antiochus". Rabbinical sources refer to him as הרשע harasha ("the wicked"); the Jewish Encyclopedia concluded that "[s]ince Jewish and heathen sources agree in their characterization of him, their portrayal is evidently correct", summarizing this portrayal as one of a cruel and vainglorious ruler who tried to force on all the peoples of his realm a Hellenic culture, "the true essence of which he can scarcely be said to have appreciated".[24] Whether Antiochus's policy was directed at extermination of Judaism as a culture and a religion, though, is debatable on the grounds that his persecution was limited to Judea and Samaria (Jews in the diaspora were exempt), and that Antiochus was hardly an ideologically motivated Hellenizer. Erich S. Gruen suggests that, instead, he was driven more by pragmatics such as the need to gather income from Judea.

Antiochus has been identified as the "eleventh horn of the beast" in the Book of Daniel (chapters 7 to 12).

Source :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiochus_IV_Epiphanes