Molon has meanwhile marched west against the Seleucids, but when Antiochus III moves against him from Syria, Molon's forces desert him, and the revolt ends with the rebel governor's defeat in 220 BCE on the far bank of the Tigris.

(This two-year period is the sole time that the Seleucid kings have lost control of Mesopotamia.)

Antiochus also conquers Atropatene, the northwestern part of Media.

Shortly hereafter, Antiochus has Hermeias killed and is thus rid of most of the influences from the previous By 220 BCE, Antiochus has put down most of the rebellions, but Achaeus will not be defeated until 213 BCE.

Prusias fights a war against Byzantium in 220 BCE, then defeats the Galatians who his grandfather, Nicomedes I, had invited across the Bosporus.

Demetrius of Pharos (the island of Hvar in present Croatia), now Illyria’s leading ruler, in 220 raises a fleet of ninety lembi, or lemboi (native ships of the Illyrians, lacking rams but possessing wider beams than typical warships of the day) and sails south of Lissus, in violation of the treaty of 228 with Rome, resuming piracy.

Demetrius makes several unsuccessful attacks on Pylos; then, taking fifty of the ships, …

…begins pillaging the Cyclades (Polybius, III.16.3-4).

Classical writers depict Ptolemy IV as a drunken, debauched reveler, completely under the influence of his disreputable associates, among whom Sosibius is the most prominent.

Cleomenes, imprisoned by Ptolemy, escapes in 219 and, after failing to raise a revolt in Alexandria, takes his own life.

Antiochus, following the defection of one of Ptolemy’s best commanders, is now free to conduct what will be called the Fourth Syrian War (219–216), and seriously threatens Egypt’s Syro-Palestinian territory, Coele Syria.

When the Seleucid ruler in 219 captures the important eastern Mediterranean sea ports of Seleucia-in-Pieria, Tyre, and …

…Ptolemais, …

…Ptolemy's disreputable associate Sosibius and the Ptolemaic court enter into delaying negotiations with the enemy, while the Ptolemaic army is reorganized and intensively drilled.

The threat that is sufficiently grave that, for the first time under the Ptolemaic regime, native Egyptians are enrolled into the infantry and cavalry and trained in phalanx tactics.

Philip soon wins renown by supporting the Hellenic League in its war against Sparta, Aetolia, and Elis (219-217).