…Stratonospyrgos (Straton's Tower), founded by Straton I of Sidon, likely an agricultural storehouse in its earliest configuration.

Jannaeus captures the site as part of his policy of developing the shipbuilding industry and enlarging the Hasmonean kingdom; the port will eventually become developed as Caesarea Maritima.

Philip I Philadelphus, king of the Hellenistic Seleucid kingdom, had established himself in Antiochia after 92 BCE and has survived attacks from younger brother Demetrius III Eucaerus.

Seleucid ruler Demetrius III had defeated the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus in battle, but the hostility of the Jewish population had forced him to withdraw.

While attempting to dethrone his brother, Philip I Philadelphus, he is defeated by the Arabs and the Parthian Empire, and taken prisoner.

He will be kept in confinement in Parthia by Mithridates II until his death in 88.

Hostilities between the Seleucids and Ptolemies have meanwhile enabled the Nabataeans to extend their kingdom northward and to increase their prosperity based on the caravan trade with Arabia and Syria.

The Nabataeans occupy the Hawran, and ...

…shortly after 85 BCE, their king Aretas III rules Damascus and …

…Coele Syria (Lebanon).

The Syrians, weary of dynastic struggles after a bloody struggle for the Seleucid  throne, decide in 83 BCE to choose Tigranes as the protector of their kingdom and offer him the crown of Syria.

Magadates is appointed as his governor in Antioch.

Tigranes now conquers Cilicia and …

…Phoenicia, effectively putting an end to the last remnants of the Seleucid Empire.

The southern border of his domain reaches as far as Ptolemais (modern Akko).

Tigranes sends many of the inhabitants of conquered cities to his new metropolis of Tigranakert (Latin name, Tigranocerta).