Ptolemy's new army (numbering seventy-five thousand) meets the Seleucid forces (sixty-eight thousand strong) near Raphia in southern Palestine in the spring of 217, however, and with the help of the Egyptian phalanx, Ptolemy is victorious.
The battle is notable for the fact that large numbers of native Egyptian soldiers have for the first time fought alongside the Macedonian and Greek contingents.
The Egyptian king, although holding the initiative, negotiates a peace on Sosibius' advice, and the Seleucid army withdraws from Coele Syria.
