Antiochus Epiphanes

Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Antíochos ho Epiphanḗs or "God Manifest", and lived between 215 BC – 164 BC was a Greek Hellenistic king. He ruled the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his death.

He was a son of King Antiochus III the Great. Originally named Mithradates or Mithridates. He assumed the name Antiochus after he ascended the throne. 

Antiochus almost conquered of Ptolemaic Egypt, and did persecute the Jews of Judea and Samaria, and was active during the rebellion of the Jewish Maccabees during the decline of the Roman republic and the rise of what would become the Roman empire..

Judea found itself between these two ruling powers in a weamened condition.

The Seleucid Kingdom of Syria in the north and Ptolemaic Egypt in the south were hold overs of Alexander the Great’s fractured empire.

They warred with each other for over a century while the Jewish nation sat at the center of these conflict including the time of Daniel 11.