I. ANTIOCHUS. There were many Kings of this name in Syria, from the time of Seleucus Nicanor, who is reckoned the first King of Syria after Alexander the Great, and was Father to Antiochus Soter. This last was sirnamed Soter, or Saviour, for having hindred the invasion of the Gauls, who intended to invade Asia1. It happened probably upon this occasion, as is related in the second book of Maccabees; that the 2 Macc. viii. 20.Galatians having marched to attack the Jews in Babylonia, whose army consisted only of eight thousand men, re-inforced with four thousand Macedonians, the eight thousand Jews fell upon the Galatians so briskly, that they killed an hundred and twenty thousand men. It was perhaps too on this occasion, that Antiochus Soter made the Jews of Asia free of all the Cities belonging to the Gentiles, and permitted them to live according to their own Laws2. The event of this Privilege is recorded under the year of the World 3743, before J. C. 257, before the vulgar Æra 261.
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