Antiochus VIII Grypus and Tryphaena have five …
Years: 112BCE - 112BCE
Antiochus VIII Grypus and Tryphaena have five sons: Seleucus VI Epiphanes, the twin Antiochus XI Epiphanes and Philip I Philadelphus, Demetrius III Eucaerus, and Antiochus XII Dionysus.
Tryphaena also has borne her husband a daughter called Laodice, who is to become the wife of Mithridates I Callinicus.
In 112 BCE, Grypus defeats his stepbrother and rival Antiochus IX Cyzicenus, and takes Antioch, where Cleopatra IV, the wife of Antiochus IX, stays.
Tryphaena hates her sister Cleopatra IV, who has taken refuge in the temple of Apollo, and wants her to be killed.
She accuses Cleopatra IV to have interfered with foreign armies in the dispute between the Seleucid stepbrothers and to have again married outside Egypt against the will of her mother.
Grypus asks his wife to spare her sister, stating that his ancestors had never dealt so violently with women.
He adds that the temple where Cleopatra IV has taken refuge, is sacred, and that he has to respect the gods, with whose help he has won, but Tryphaena, unpersuaded by her husband, orders several soldiers to execute her sister.
They penetrate into the temple and kill Cleopatra IV, who before dying curses her murderers and leaves her revenge to the discretion of the dishonored gods.
