Ptolemy VI Philometor is in 145 BCE drawn into a battle in which Demetrius' son defeats Balas in his last desperate attempt to regain his throne.

During the battle, Ptolemy had fallen from his horse and fractured his skull, dying a few days later.

The Egyptian troops march home, leaderless and disillusioned.

Balas had meanwhile fled for refuge to a Nabataean prince, who murders him and sends his head to Ptolemy's court.

The Seleucid prince takes the throne as Demetrius II Nicator (Greek “Victor”).

New troubles soon arise, however.

The pillaging of the Cretan soldiers under Lasthenes cause the Antiochenians to rise in rebellion, and only after terrible massacres can order be restored.

In opposition, Diodotus Tryphon, or Trypho, a general of the Syrian army, promotes the claims of Balas' young son by Cleopatra Thea, Antiochus VI Epiphanes Dionysius.

Demetrius proves unable to retake the capital, instead …

…establishing himself in Seleucia.

Mithridates of Parthia, called also Arsaces VI, the "Great King" of Parthia from about 171 BCE, has made Parthia into a major political power, expanding the empire westward into Mesopotamia around 145 BCE.

A Hellenistic settlement on the ancient citadel of Nimrud is abandoned around this time, probably due to the incursions of Mithridates.

With the battle death of Philometor at the Battle of Antioch, his younger son and, briefly, co-ruler, succeeds to the throne of Egypt in July, 145 BCE, named by his mother as Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator (Greek: Philopator, the Younger). (Classical and even contemporary Egyptian sources are confused concerning the placement of Neos Philopator in the royal sequence because at least one other son of Philometor, also named Ptolemy, had served as co-ruler earlier in the reign. Modern scholars have gathered evidence to show that Neos Philopator became co-ruler in 147 BCE.)

Still a minor, Ptolemy is the ward of his mother, Cleopatra II, who also serves as his co-ruler.

His father's army, however, had been dispersed in Syria; and Neos Philopator and his mother enjoy only limited support.

After the opposition factions invites the return from Cyrenaica of the young king's uncle, Ptolemy Euergetes, also called Physcon (Greek: Potbellied”), he proposes joint rule and marriage to Cleopatra II, his sister.

Neos Philopator is deposed in late August.

Mummius, honored with a triumph on his return to Rome, earns the agnomen Archaicus, the first novus homo of plebeian origin to receive an agnomen for military services.

For the theatrical pageants exhibited by him, he erects a theater with improved acoustical conditions and seats after the Greek model, thus marking a distinct advance in the construction of places of entertainment.

Mithridates takes Babylon from the Seleucids in 144 BCE.

The young king Ptolemy VII is executed in 144 BCE, following his mother's marriage to his uncle, who then takes the throne as "Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II", the name deliberately recalling his ancestor Ptolemy III Euergetes, and has himself proclaimed as pharaoh.

He has meanwhile taken his revenge on the intellectuals of Alexandria who had opposed him, engaging in mass purges and expulsions that include Aristarchus of Samothrace and Apollodorus, leaving Alexandria a changed city.

In 145 BCE, "he expelled all intellectuals: philologists, philosophers, professors of geometry, musicians, painters, schoolteachers, physicians and others, with the result that these brought 'education to Greeks and barbarians elsewhere,' as mentioned by an author who may have been one of the king's victims" (Menecles of Barca, FGrHist 270 F 9).

Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, commonly abbreviated FGrHist or FGrH (Fragments of the Greek Historians), is a collection by Felix Jacoby of the works of those ancient Greek historians whose works have been lost, but of which we have citations, extracts or summaries.

It is mainly founded on Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Müller's previous Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (1841–1870).

The Roman Aqua Marcia, constructed entirely of stone in 144 BCE by the praetor Quintus Marcius Rex, for whom it is named, is the first long, high-level aqueduct. (It still functions today as one of the major water sources to the modern city of Rome.)

Metellus Macedonicus leads his legions in defeating many of the Celtiberian tribes in 144, but the Lusitanians fight on.

The Romans lose most of their reinforcements in Ossuma (near modern Córdoba).

Jonathan captures Ashkelon, which had submitted voluntarily, and …