Seleucus

Seleucus was the name of five kings of the Seleucid dynasty that ruled Syria and much of the former Persian Empire after Alexander the Great's death (323 B.C.). Seleucus I Nicator (312–281 B.C.) founded the dynasty, establishing his capital first at Antioch on the Orontes, the city that would later become the missionary base of Paul's journeys. Seleucus IV Philopator (187–175 B.C.) is referenced in the Apocrypha (2 Macc. 3) as having dispatched Heliodorus to plunder the Jerusalem temple treasury — the attempt divinely thwarted.

The Seleucid dynasty is the "king of the north" in Daniel 11's prophecy, and Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164 B.C.), whose desecration of the Jerusalem temple prompted the Maccabean revolt, was the brother and successor of Seleucus IV. The Seleucids were eventually pushed out of Judea by the Hasmoneans and later absorbed by Rome when Pompey organized Syria as a Roman province in 64 B.C.