Editing Cleopatra Thea (section)

===Queen of Antiochus VII ===
In 139 BC, Demetrius II was captured in battle against the kingdom of [[Parthia]], which held him prisoner until 129 BC. Diodotus took the opportunity to conquer all of the Seleucid kingdom except the city of Seleucia in Pieria, where Cleopatra sought refuge. She sent for Demetrius's younger brother, [[Antiochus VII Sidetes]], proposing that he should marry her and become the new king. Accepting the offer, Antiochus VII defeated and killed Diodotus in 138 BC, ending the civil wars which had been ongoing since 152. Cleopatra Thea had at least one son with the king, [[Antiochus IX Cyzicenus]]. The names of any other children are uncertain.

During his reign, Cleopatra's third husband reestablished Seleucid authority in the kingdom west of the Euphrates. Between 134 and 130 BC he waged a war to reclaim all the satrapies his predecessors had lost to the Parthians. The Parthian king [[Phraates II]] decided to release Demetrius II, who had been married to his sister Rhodogune, and to send him to Syria, thus provoking a civil war between the brothers and compelling Antiochus VII to retreat. In the winter of 130/129 Phraates killed Antiochus in an ambush near Ectabane, but Demetrius managed to enter his kingdom before the Parthians could retrieve him.

Cleopatra received Demetrius peaceably, but took the precaution of sending Antiochus IX (her son by Antiochus VII) to [[Cyzicus]], out of the king's immediate reach; she was said to be secretly furious at Demetrius taking a Parthian wife and having children with her.<ref name="DH"/><ref name="CB"/> In 128 BC, Demetrius took an army to Egypt to help Cleopatra's mother, Cleopatra II, with her ongoing struggle against her brother and husband [[Ptolemy VIII Physcon]].<ref>[http://www.tyndalehouse.com/Egypt/ptolemies/ptolemy_viii_fr.htm Cleopatra II] by Chris Bennett</ref> He was forced to retreat near Pelousion because his soldiers refused to obey him, and Cleopatra Thea, then in Antioch, rebelled against him and established her son Antiochus as king. In the same year, Antioch was occupied by [[Alexander II Zabinas]], a false child of Alexander Balas sent with troops by Ptolemy to wage war against Demetrius in Syria. Cleopatra Thea fled the city, and probably went to Ptolemais, where she had married Alexander Balas some twenty years earlier.

During the period between 128 and 125, while Demetrius was fighting against Alexander, Cleopatra remained in Ptolemais, probably with her two sons by Demetrius, Seleucus and Antiochus. In 125 Demetrius was completely defeated near Damascus by Alexander and his Egyptian allies, and also fled to Ptolemais. Cleopatra refused to admit him to the city; he went instead to Tyre, where the local Seleucid administrator killed him on Cleopatra's orders.<ref name="DH"/><ref name="CB"/>