The numbers of claimants to the Seleucid throne following the death of Antiochus make a continuous Seleucid policy toward Palestine impossible, because each claimant feels the need to seek support wherever it might be found.

The Roman Senate still keeps Demetrius, son of Seleucus IV and the rightful heir to the throne, as hostage, refusing to release him because they consider it better to have Syria nominally ruled by a boy and his regent than the twenty-two-year-old Demetrius.

The general Lysias, who had been left in charge of Syria by Epiphanes, had collected another army at Antioch, and after the recapture of Beth-zur had been besieging Jerusalem when he learned of the approach of Philip, to whom Antiochus, on his deathbed, had entrusted the guardianship of the first son of Laodice IV and Antiochus III.

This prince, a younger cousin of Demetrius, is only nine years old when he succeeds to the kingship as Antiochus V. Lysias, returning to Syria to claim the regency, defeats Philip in 163 BCE; he is supported at Rome.