since Rome interposed, and required the restitution of all conquests.  The war with the Jews had no such rapid termination.  Antiochus, having not only plundered and desecrated the Temple, but having set himself to eradicate utterly the Jewish religion, and completely Hellenize the people, was met with the most determined resistance on the part of a moiety of the nation.  A patriotic party rose up under devoted leaders, who asserted, and in the end secured, the independence of their country.  Not alone during the remaining years of Epiphanes, but for half a century after his death, throughout seven reigns, the struggle continued; Judaea taking advantage of every trouble and difficulty in Syria to detach herself more and more completely from her oppressor; being a continual thorn in her side, a constant source of weakness, preventing more than anything else the recovery of her power.  The triumph which Epiphanes obtained in the distant Armenia (B.C. 166-5), where he defeated and captured the king, Artaxias, was a poor set-off against the foe which he had created to himself at his doors through his cruelty and intolerance.

In another quarter, too, the Syrian power received a severe shake through the injudicious violence of Epiphanes.  The Oriental temples had, in some instances, escaped the rapacity of Alexander’s generals and “Successors;” their treasuries remained unviolated, and contained large hoards of the precious metals.  Epiphanes, having exhausted his own exchequer by his wars and his lavish gifts, saw in these un-plundered stores a means of replenishing it, and made a journey into his south-eastern provinces for the purpose.  The natives of Elymais, however, resisted his attempt, and proved strong enough to defeat it; the baffled monarch retired to Tabae, where he shortly afterward fell sick and died.  In the popular belief his death was a judgment upon him for his attempted sacrilege; and in the exultation caused by the event the bands which joined these provinces to the Empire must undoubtedly have been loosened.

Nor did the removal of Epiphanes (B.C. 164) improve the condition of affairs in Syria.  The throne fell to his son, Antiochus Eupator, a boy of nine, according to Appian, or, according to another authority, of twelve years of age.  The regent, Lysias, exercised the chief power, and was soon engaged in a war with the Jews, whom the death of Epiphanes had encouraged to fresh efforts.  The authority of Lysias was further disputed by a certain Philip, whom Epiphanes, shortly before his death, had made tutor to the young king.  The claims of this tutor to the regent’s office being supported by a considerable portion of the army, a civil war arose between him and Lysias, which raged for the greater part of two years (B.C. 163-2), terminating in the defeat and death of Philip.  But Syrian affairs did not even then settle down into tranquillity.  A prince of the Seleucid house, Demetrius by name, the son of Seleucus IV., and consequently