Seleucid Dynastic Wars

The Seleucid Dynastic Wars were a series of conflicts that were fought between competing branches of the Seleucid Royal household for control of the Seleucid Empire. Beginning as a by-product of several succession crises that arose from the reigns of Seleucus IV Philopator and his brother Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the 170s and 160s and ending with the eventual collapse of the kingdom and its annexation by the Romans in 63 BC, the wars typified the final years of the empire and were a major cause of its decline as a major power in the east and Hellenistic world.