Soon afterwards the day appointed for the outbreak arrived.  Apparently, no suspicion had been excited.  The Syrian troops were everywhere quietly enjoying themselves in their winter quarters, when, suddenly and without warning, they found themselves attacked by the natives.  Taken at disadvantage, it was impossible for them to make a successful resistance; and it would seem that the great bulk of them were massacred in their quarters.  Antiochus, and the detachment stationed with him, alone, so far as we hear, escaped into an open field and contended for their lives in just warfare.  It had been the intention of the Syrian monarch, when he took the field, to hasten to the protection of the troops quartered nearest to him; but he no sooner commenced his march than he found himself confronted by Phraates, who was at the head of his entire army, having, no doubt, anticipated Antiochus’s design and resolved to frustrate it.  The Parthian prince was anxious to engage at once, as his force far outnumbered that commanded by his adversary; but the latter might have declined the battle, if he had so willed, and have, at any rate, greatly protracted the struggle.  He had a mountain region—­Mount Zagros, probably—­within a short distance of him, and might have fallen back upon it, so placing the Parthian horse at great disadvantage; but he was still at an age when caution is apt to be considered cowardice, and temerity to pass for true courage.  Despite the advice of one of his captains, he determined to accept the battle which the enemy offered, and not to fly before a foe whom he had three times defeated.  But the determination of the commander was ill seconded by his army.  Though Antiochus fought strenuously, he was defeated, since his troops were without heart and offered but a poor resistance.  Antiochus himself perished, either slain by the enemy or by his own hand.  His son, Seleucus, a boy of tender age, and his niece, a daughter of Demetrius, who had accompanied him in his expedition, were captured.  His troops were either cut to pieces or made prisoners.  The entire number of those slain in the battle, and in the previous massacre, was reckoned at 300,000.

Such was the issue of this great expedition.  It was the last which any Seleucid monarch conducted into these countries—­the final attempt made by Syria to repossess herself of her lost Eastern provinces.  Henceforth Parthia was no further troubled by the power that had hitherto been her most dangerous enemy, but was allowed to enjoy without molestation from Syria the conquests which she had effected.  Syria, in fact, had from this time a difficulty in preserving her own existence.  The immediate result of the destruction of Antiochus and his host was the revolt of Judaea, which henceforth maintained its independence uninterruptedly.  The dominions of the Seleucidae were reduced to Cilicia and Syria Proper, or the tract west of the Euphrates, between Amanus and Palestine.  Internally, the state was agitated by constant commotions