Damascus and the valleys of Lebanon had submitted to the Nabataean prince, Aretas of Petra.

Lastly, in Cilicia the pirates or the Romans bore sway.

And for this crown breaking into a thousand fragments the Seleucid princes continued perseveringly to quarrel with each other, as though it were their object to make royalty a jest and an offence to all; nay more, while this family, doomed like the house of Laius to perpetual discord, had its own subjects all in revolt, it even raised claims to the throne of Egypt vacant by the decease of king Alexander II without heirs.
Accordingly king Tigranes set to work there without ceremony.
Eastern Cilicia was easily subdued by him, and the citizens of Soli and other towns were carried off, just like the Cappadocians, to Armenia.

In like manner the province of Upper Syria, withthe exception of the bravely-defended town of Seleucia at the mouth of the Orontes, and the greater part of Phoenicia were reduced by force; Ptolemais was occupied by the Armenians about 680, and the Jewish state was already seriously threatened by them.

Antioch, the old capital of the Seleucids, became one of the residences of the great-king.