etrius, Philometor was made his enemy, and he joined Attalus, King
of Pergamus, and Ariarathes, King of Cappadocia, in setting up Alexander
Balas as a pretender to the throne of Syria, who beat Demetrius in
battle, and put him to death. Philometor two years afterwards gave his
elder daughter, Cleopatra, in marriage to Alexander, and led her himself
to Ptolemais, or Acre, where the marriage was celebrated with great
pomp.

But even in Ptolemais, the city in which Alexander had been so covered
with favours, Philometor was near falling under the treachery of his new
son-in-law. He learned that a plot had been formed against his life by
Ammonius, and he wrote to Alexander to beg that the traitor might be
given up to justice. But Alexander acknowledged the plot as his own,
and refused to give up his servant. On this, Philometor recalled his
daughter, and turned against Alexander the forces which he had led into
Syria to uphold him. He then sent to the young Demetrius, afterwards
called Nicator, the son of his late enemy, to offer him the throne and
wife which he had lately given to Alexander Balas. Demetrius was equally
pleased with the two offers. Philometor then entered Antioch at the head
of his army, and there he was proclaimed by the citizens King of Asia
and Egypt; but with a forbearance then very uncommon, he called together
the council of the people, and refused the crown, and persuaded them to
receive Demetrius as their king.

[Illustration: 237.jpg COIN OF PTOLEMY V.]

It is interesting to note that Alexander Balas and Demetrius Nicator
each in his turn acknowledged his debt to the King of Egypt by putting
the Ptolemaic eagle on his coins, and adjusting them to the Egyptian
standard of weight: and in this they were afterwards followed by
Antiochus, the son of Demetrius. The Romans, on the other hand,
sometimes used the same eagle in boast of their power over Egypt; but we
cannot be mistaken in what was meant by these Syrian kings, who none of
them, when their coins were struck, were seated safely on the throne.
With them, as with some of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, the use of
the Egyptian eagle on the coins was an act of homage.

Philometor and Demetrius, as soon as the latter was acknowledged king at
Antioch, then marched against Alexander, routed his army, and drove him
into Arabia. But in this battle Philometor's horse was frightened by the
braying of an elephant, and threw the king into the ranks of the