Artaxias had been governor of the Greater Armenia under Antiochus, and seized the opportunity afforded by the battle of Magnesia to change his title of satrap into that of sovereign.

No war followed.
Antiochus was too much weakened by his reverses to make any attempt to reduce Artaxias or recover Armenia; and the nation obtained autonomy without having to undergo the usual ordeal of a bloody struggle.

When at the expiration of five-and-twenty years Epiphanes, the son of Antiochus the Great, determined on an effort to reconquer the lost province, no very stubborn resistance was offered to him.

Artaxias was defeated and made prisoner in the very first year of the war (B.C.

165), and Armenia seems to have passed again under the sway of the Seleucidae.
It would seem that matters remained in this state for the space of about fifteen or sixteen years.