Editing Andriscus (section)

===In Syria===
He first staked his claim in Syria. [[Livy]] and [[Cassius Dio]] write that he simply went from Pergamon to Syria and directly staked his claim before the [[Seleucid]] monarch, [[Demetrius I Soter]].<ref>Livy, ''Periochae'' 49.27</ref><ref>Dio, XXI.71</ref> [[Diodorus Siculus]] offers a different account. According to him, Andriscus was already a mercenary in Demetrius' army. Due to his resemblance to the former Macedonian king, his comrades started jokingly calling him "son of Perseus"; these jokes soon began becoming serious suspicions, and at one point, Andriscus himself decided to seize the opportunity and claimed that he was indeed the son of Perseus.<ref>Diodorus, Book 32</ref> Niese attempts to reconcile both accounts, suggesting that he might have travelled to Syria and then enlisted as a mercenary before staking his claim.{{sfn|Niese|1903|p=332}}

He appealed to the king to help him win back his "ancestral" throne, and found great popular support among the Seleucid populace, to the extent that there were riots in the capital, [[Antioch]]. Large segments of the Seleucid population were of Macedonian descent, nurturing strong anti-Roman sentiment since the Roman conquest of Macedon in the [[Third Macedonian War]]; they were eager to help the claimant.{{sfn|Hoover|2000|p=108}}{{refn|group=Note|Inviting Greek and Macedonian settlers to the Seleucid realm, and promoting the Hellenization of the realm, was a common policy of the Seleucids; this was the reason for large populations of Macedonian and Greek descent.<ref name="Steven C. Hause, William S. Maltby 2004 76">{{Cite book |last1=Steven C. Hause |url=https://archive.org/details/westerncivilizat0000haus |title=Western civilization: a history of European society |last2=William S. Maltby |publisher=Thomson Wadsworth |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-534-62164-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/westerncivilizat0000haus/page/76 76] |quote=The Greco-Macedonian Elite. The Seleucids respected the cultural and religious sensibilities of their subjects but preferred to rely on Greek or Macedonian soldiers and administrators for the day-to-day business of governing. The Greek population of the cities, reinforced until the second century BC by immigration from Greece, formed a dominant, although not especially cohesive, elite. |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref name="Victor, Royce M. 2010 55">{{Cite book |last=Victor, Royce M. |title=Colonial education and class formation in early Judaism: a postcolonial reading |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-567-24719-3 |page=55 |quote=Like other Hellenistic kings, the Seleucids ruled with the help of their "friends" and a Greco-Macedonian elite class separate from the native populations whom they governed.}}</ref>}} They proceeded to such an extent that there were even calls for deposing the king if he did not help the pretender. Unmoved, or perhaps frightened, Demetrius had Andriscus arrested and sent to Rome.{{sfn|Hoover|2000|p=108}}{{sfn|Niese|1903|p=332}}{{refn|group=Note|Supporting Andriscus was difficult because Rome was already suspicious of Demetrius; he had been a Seleucid hostage at Rome who had escaped and then become king without the Roman Senate's approval for the first year of his reign. Also, his wife, [[Laodice V]], had been the wife of Rome's former enemy, [[Perseus of Macedon]]; she had married Demetrius after Perseus' defeat and death.{{sfn|Hoover|2000|p=107}}}}