The Conquest of Coele-Syria in 218 B.C.

The Conquest of Coele-Syria — Seleucid Empire.

Coele-Syria, Phoenicia and the Beqaa — the long-disputed borderland between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic crowns, overrun by Antiochus in 219–218 BC after the governor Theodotus betrayed it to him. Tyre, Ptolemais and the coastal cities have fallen; the army has stormed down the Phoenician seaboard and pushed toward the Egyptian frontier. But the occupation is unfinished business: Ptolemy IV is rebuilding his army at Alexandria, and the whole prize of Coele-Syria will be staked on a single day at Raphia in 217.