Antiochus XIII Asiaticus

The Ptolemaic princess Cleopatra Selene I, widow of Seleucid king Antiochus X Eusebes, had traveled to Rome, some time after the conquest of Syria (83 BCE) by Armenian king Tigranes the Great, to have her sons recognized as kings of Egypt, but to no avail.

They are there between at least between 75 BCE and 73 BCE; recognized as "Kings of Syria", they "maintained a royal state" (Bevan, p. 263).

Finally, in 69 BCE, Tigranes besieges Cleopatra Selene I in Ptolemais, seizing and brutally killing her in Seleucia.

The residents of Antioch hail Cleopatra Selene’s son Antiochus XIII as king, and Lucullus approves his appointment as client ruler of Syria (69 BCE).

The Romans have disrupted the Armenian state; Antiochus XIII of the Seleucid dynasty tries unsuccessfully to unify the Syrian state.

Lucullus, having restoring the Seleucid kingdom, now intends to confront Mithridates in Pontus, but comes under attack from powerful interests in Rome whose hopes of profit from the Asian conquests have been thwarted by Lucullus's judicious management of financial matters.

During the winter of 68-67 BCE at Nisibis, Lucullus’ authority over his army is more seriously undermined by the efforts of his young brother-in-law Publius Clodius Pulcher, apparently acting in the interests and pay of Pompey, who is eager to succeed Lucullus in the eastern command.

The long campaigning and hardships that Lucullus' troops have endured for years, combined with a perceived lack of reward in the form of plunder, have led the troops to become gradually insubordinate.

Encouraged by Clodius Pulcher, this discontent has led to three successive outbreaks of mutiny among the legions in 68-67 BCE.

Despite his continuous success in battle, Lucullus has still not captured either Mithridates or Tigranes.

Philip II, son of the Seleucid king Philip I Philadelphus, briefly reigns over parts of Syria in the 60s BCE, as a client king under Pompey.

He competes with his second cousin Antiochus XIII Asiaticus for the favors of the great Roman general, but Pompey will have none of them.

In 64 BCE, Pompey marches into Syria and has Antiochus XIII Asiaticus deposed and killed by a Syrian chieftain, Sampsiceramus I. Antiochus' death is traditionally said to have ended the Seleucid dynasty, but he is survived by Philip II Philoromaeus for a short time.

No coins of Philip II are known, which is unusual for Seleucid rulers (the ephemeral Seleucus V Philometor is the only other king for which this is the case).

This may indicate that Philip did not rule in any of the mint cities.

Pompey now reconstitutes Syria, too, as a Roman province.

Galatia, in the settlement of 64 BCE, becomes a client-state of the Roman empire, the old constitution disappears, and three chiefs (wrongly styled "tetrarchs") are appointed, one for each of the region's Gaulish tribes.

But this arrangement soon gives way before the ambition of one of these chiefs, Deiotarus, the contemporary of Cicero and Julius Caesar, who makes himself master of the other two chiefdoms and is finally recognized by the Romans as 'king' of Galatia.