Deals with Jewish history of the period 219-161 B.C.E., against the background of Hellenistic and Roman history, using critical analyses of both Jewish sources and Polybius. The policies of Antiochus Epiphanes are examined in relation to Rome's eastern interests and a prosopographical study demonstrates the direct link between the king's death and the subsequent crisis within the Seleucid kingdom.

Dov Gera is lecturer in Jewish History at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. He has published several articles on epigraphy and historiography in the Hellenistic and Roman period.