The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s3.7

c10.s3.7

Antiochus IV, third son of Antiochus III, had spent part of his early life in Rome and had acquired rather an excessive admiration for Rome’s power and methods. His brother Seleucus IV died in 175, leaving two young sons; one of them, apparently also named Antiochus,¹ was made king, and Antiochus (IV) was installed in Antioch by Rome's friend Eumenes II of Pergamum as regent for the boy and (as is now fairly certain) married the boy's mother, his brother's widow Laodice.² Laodice, a daughter of Antiochus III, had successively married her eldest brother (another Antiochus who died in 193), and then her second brother Seleucus IV; when she married her third brother Antiochus (IV) she cannot have been very young. After a short interval during which coins were struck in the boy-king's name,³ Antiochus the regent took the crown as Antiochus IV, just as Antigonus Doson in Macedonia was for a little while regent for Philip (V) and then himself took the crown;⁴ and Antiochus IV married the boy-king's mother to secure the boy's succession, just as Antigonus Doson married ‘Chryseis’, the mother of Philip V, and as Attalus II of Pergamum married his brother's elderly widow Stratonice to secure the succession of his brother's son (her son by adoption) Attalus III.⁵ In fact, Antiochus IV went further in the path of correctness than either of the other two kings; while Philip V and Attalus III did not become kings till after the deaths of their respective kinsmen, the boy-king Antiochus was and remained joint-king with Antiochus IV, Babylonian documents being dated by their joint names. But in the winter of 170–69 the boy-king was murdered by one Andronicus, and Antiochus IV, having executed the murderer, remained sole king.