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The civil wars that characterized the later years of the Seleucid Empire had their origins in the defeat of Antiochus III the Great in the Roman–Seleucid War, under which the peace terms ensured that a representative of the Seleucid royal family was held in Rome as a hostage.
The Seleucids existed solely because no other nation wished to absorb them—seeing as they constituted a useful buffer between their other neighbours. In the wars in Anatolia between Mithridates VI of Pontus and Sulla of Rome, the Seleucids were largely left alone by both major combatants.
The capture of Demetrius by the Parthians was a great boon for the prestige of the Arsacid dynasty while being a devastating blow to the influence, power, and prestige of the Seleucids. Mithridates proceeded to parade Demetrius from city to city, demonstrating his victory over the Seleucids and as a symbol of his power.
The Seleucid dynasty or the Seleucidae (/ s ɪ ˈ l uː s ɪ ˌ d iː /; Greek: Σελευκίδαι, Seleukídai, "descendants of Seleucus") was a Macedonian Greek royal family, which ruled the Seleucid Empire based in West Asia during the Hellenistic period.
The Seleucids had little desire to entangle themselves in a new war with the Ptolemies. After losing the Roman-Seleucid War, they were forced to pay a huge indemnity that the Roman Republic imposed on them at the Treaty of Apamea in 188 BC. They already controlled Coele-Syria, and were busy with fending off the rising Parthian Empire in the East.
The Seleucid army was the army of the Seleucid Empire, one of the numerous Hellenistic states that emerged after the death of Alexander the Great.. As with the other major Hellenistic armies, the Seleucid army fought primarily in the Greco-Macedonian style, with its main body being the phalanx.
In 245 BC, Andragoras, the Seleucid governor of Parthia ("roughly western Khurasan" [1]) proclaimed independence from the Seleucids, when - following the death of Antiochus II - Ptolemy III seized control of the Seleucid capital at Antioch, and "so left the future of the Seleucid dynasty for a moment in question." [2]
During this period, the legitimized armies of Jonathan fought in these civil wars and border struggles to maintain the favor of allied Seleucid leaders. [38] The Seleucids did send an army back into Judea during this period, but Jonathan evaded it and refused battle until it eventually returned to the Seleucid heartland. [39]