Antiochus VIII Epiphanes/Callinicus/Philometor, nicknamed
Grypus (hook-nose) was son of
Demetrius II Nicator and was crowned as a boy in
125 BC after his mother
Cleopatra Thea had killed his elder brother
Seleucus V Philometor, ruling jointly with her. After Antiochus defeated usurper
Alexander II Zabinas in
123 BC his mother tried to poison him with wine, but the suspicious king forced her to drink the cup herself. He married the
Egyptian princess Tryphaena, but in
116 BC his half-brother and cousin
Antiochus IX Cyzicenus (see
Antiochus VII Sidetes) returned from exile and a civil war began. Cyzicenus wife, also named Cleopatra was a half-sister of Tryphaena and was eventually killed in a dramatic fashion in the temple of
Daphne outside
Antioch, on the order of Tryphaena. Cyzicenus eventually killed Tryphaena as revenge. The two brothers then divided
Syria between them until Grypus was killed by his minister Heracleon in
96 BC. Five of his sons succeeded him.
Despite political shortcomings, Grypus was a popular king. His ugly, lazy appearance on coins (common among the last Seleucids), together with stories of his lavish banquets, made posterity believe his dynasty was degenerated and decadent. This was however a conscious image, an invocation of the hellenistic idea Tryphe - meaning good life, which the last Seleucids strived to be associated with, as opposed to the exhausting civil wars and feuds which troubled their reigns in reality.