A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Ἀντίοχος), king of SYRIA, surnamed GRYPUS (Γρυπός), or Hooknosed, from gru/y, a vulture, and on coins Epiphanes (Ἐπιφάνης), was the second son of Demetrius Nicator and Cleopatra. His eldest brother Seleucus was put to death by their mother Cleopatra, because he wished to have the power, and not merely the title, of king; and Antiochus was after his brother's death recalled from Athens, where he was studying, byhis mother Cleopatra, that he might bear the title of king, while the real sovereignty remained in her hands. (B. C. 125.) At this time the greater part of Syria was in the power of the usurper Alexander Zebina [see p. 127b.]; but Antiochus, with the assistance of Ptolemy Physcon, the king of Egypt, whose daughter he married, conquered Alexander and became master of the whole of Syria. Cleopatra then became jealous of him and plotted against his life; but her son compelled her to drink the poison she had prepared for him. (B. C. 120.) For the next eight years Antiochus reigned in peace; but at the end of that time his half-brother, Antiochus Cyzicenus, the son of Antiochus Sidetes and their common mother Cleopatra, laid claim to the crown, and a civil war ensued. (B. C. 112.) The remaining history of the Seleucidae till Syria became a Roman province, is hardly anything else but a series of civil wars between the princes of the royal family. In the first year of the struggle (B. C. 112), Antiochus Cyzicenus became master of almost the whole of Syria, but in the next year (B. C. 111), A. Grypus regained a considerable part of his dominions; and it was then agreed that the kingdom should be shared between them, A. Cyzicenus having Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, and A. Grypus the remainder of the provinces. This arrangement lasted, though with frequent wars between the two kings, till the death of Antiochus Grypus, who was assassinated by Heracleon in B. C. 96, after a reign of twenty-nine years. He left five sons, Seleucus, Philip, Antiochus Epiphanes, Demetrius Eucaerus, and Antiochus Dionysus. (Justin, 39.1-3; Liv. Epit. 60; Appian, App. Syr. 69; Joseph. Aniiq. 13.13; Athen. 12.540.) Many of the coins of Antiochus Grypus have the head of Antiochus on one side, and that of his mother Cleopatra on the other. The one annexed must have been struck after his mother's death. (Eckhel, iii. p. 238, &c.)