Ptolemy VIII dies in 116 BCE, leaving…

Antiochus VIII Grypus is a popular king despite political shortcomings.

His ugly, lazy appearance on coins (common among the last Seleucids), together with stories of his lavish banquets, will lead posterity to believe his dynasty was degenerated and decadent.

This is, however a conscious image, an invocation of the Hellenistic idea Tryphe—meaning good life, which the last Seleucids strive to be associated with, as opposed to the exhausting civil wars and feuds which trouble their reigns in reality.

A story of his luxurious parties claims he sent food home with guests who attended banquets, complete with a camel as beast of burden, as well as a with attendant to carry the guest himself.

This should certainly have caused some strain on the already depleted treasury.

In fact, Grypus has reorganized the Seleucid state and for the past several years has provided stability and financial recovery.

This ends in 116 BCE, when the late Cleopatra Thea's other son, Antiochus IX Cyzicenus, returns to Syria to claim the throne and civil war breaks out again, resulting in a further breakup of the already significantly reduced kingdom.

The Jugurthine War takes its name from Jugurtha, nephew and later adopted son of Micipsa, King of Numidia, a kingdom located in North Africa not far from Rome's arch enemy, Carthage.

Micipsa had died in 118 BCE, survived by two natural sons, Adherbal and Hiempsal, and his adopted son, Jugurtha.

It had been Micipsa's wish that all three would share his kingdom after his death.

After King Micipsa's death, Jugurtha has proven to be a ruthless and unscrupulous man who will do anything to achieve what he wants, including murder, bribery, treachery, and assassination.

Jugurtha had learned Roman ways and military tactics while commanding the Numidian army under Scipio Aemilianus at the Siege of Numantia.

After Micipsa died, Jugurtha had ordered Hiempsal assassinated and Adherbal had fled to Rome for assistance against his half-brother.

A Roman commission is sent to Numidia in 116 BCE to make peace and divide the country among the two brothers.

However, Jugurtha bribes the Roman officials in the commission and the best regions of Numidia are given to Jugurtha.

Nevertheless, it is accepted and peace was made.

The mother of Ptolemy IX Lathyros, after compelling the king to divorce his strong-willed sister-queen Cleopatra IV in 115, forces him to marry his younger, more pliable sister, Cleopatra Selene.

Ptolemy Apion, a son by a concubine of the late King Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II of Egypt, has (according to classical sources) received Cyrenaica as his portion of his father's will.

Contemporary documents, however, suggest that Cyrenaica is at least nominally under the suzerainty of the main Ptolemaic house as late as 109-108 BCE.

After Ptolemy X Alexander is sent by his mother to Cyprus as governor in 114, …

…Lathyros now appears with his mother as joint ruler of Egypt.

Laodice VI’s regency over Pontus, which has lasted from 120 BCE to 116 BCE (even perhaps up to 113 BCE), has favored her younger son Mithridates Chrestus over her elder son Mithridates, who had escaped from the plotting of his mother and gone into hiding.

Returning to Pontus between 116 BCE and 113 BCE, Mithridates is hailed as King and is able to remove Laodice and Chrestus from the Pontic throne, thus becoming the sole ruler of the kingdom.

Mithridates shows clemency towards his mother and brother, imprisoning them both.

Laodice VI dies in prison of natural causes.

However, Mithridates Chrestus could have died in prison from natural causes or was tried for treason and was executed on his orders.

Mithridates gives his mother and brother a royal funeral.

He takes as his wife his sixteen-year-old sister Laodice, to preserve the purity of the royal bloodline, to ensure the succession to his legitimate children, and to claim his right as a ruling monarch.

The longsword-wielding Cimbri had left their original lands around the Baltic sea in the Jutland peninsula and Southern Scandinavia for unknown reasons (possibly due to climate change), sometime around 120–115 BCE.

Journeying to the southeast, they were soon joined by their neighbors and possible relatives the Teutones.

Together they had defeated the Scordisci, along with the Boii, many of whom have apparently joined them.

They arrive in 113 BCE on the Danube, in Noricum, home to the Roman-allied Taurisci, who, unable to hold back these new, powerful invaders on their own, call on Rome for aid.

Jugurtha provokes a war with his brother in 113 BCE and corners Adherbal in the latter’s capital city of Cirta.

Adherbal, along with the Italians living there, resists.

A second Roman commission is sent and, after being bribed, allows Jugurtha to take the city.

Jugurtha then executes his brother, along with many of the Italians who had helped Adherbal defend Cirta.

Antiochus VIII Grypus and Tryphaena have five sons: Seleucus VI Epiphanes, the twin Antiochus XI Epiphanes and Philip I Philadelphus, Demetrius III Eucaerus, and Antiochus XII Dionysus.

Tryphaena also has borne her husband a daughter called Laodice, who is to become the wife of Mithridates I Callinicus.

In 112 BCE, Grypus defeats his stepbrother and rival Antiochus IX Cyzicenus, and takes Antioch, where Cleopatra IV, the wife of Antiochus IX, stays.

Tryphaena hates her sister Cleopatra IV, who has taken refuge in the temple of Apollo, and wants her to be killed.

She accuses Cleopatra IV to have interfered with foreign armies in the dispute between the Seleucid stepbrothers and to have again married outside Egypt against the will of her mother.

Grypus asks his wife to spare her sister, stating that his ancestors had never dealt so violently with women.

He adds that the temple where Cleopatra IV has taken refuge, is sacred, and that he has to respect the gods, with whose help he has won, but Tryphaena, unpersuaded by her husband, orders several soldiers to execute her sister.

They penetrate into the temple and kill Cleopatra IV, who before dying curses her murderers and leaves her revenge to the discretion of the dishonored gods.