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But confrontation, when it arose in the 170s and 160s BCE, was not between the Jews and the Ptolemies; because in 200 BCE power over Jerusalem and its surrounding territory had passed to the Seleucid Empire, Antiochus III (222–187 BCE) having defeated his rival Ptolemy V Epiphanes at the battle of Panion. Josephus (AJ 12.138–146) has preserved a letter and decree of Antiochus III, which seem to confirm certain privileges already accorded to the Jews in the time of the Ptolemies (Bickermann 1980). The letter, addressed to Ptolemy governor of Coele-Syria, refers to the system of government in operation among the Jews: central to this are the priests and scribes of the temple, who are named alongside a gerousia (AJ 12.138, 142). This “council of elders” is mentioned also by Hecataeus of Abdera in his discussion of Jewish institutions in the time of the Ptolemies (Stern and Murray 1973; Mendels 1983); and it may be significant that a gerousia was a distinctive element in the constitution of Sparta, a city with which Jews in the time of Jonathan Maccabee (153–144 BCE) were to claim an affinity (1 Macc. 12:2, 5–23). The decree of Antiochus accords privileges to the Temple and the priests (AJ 12.145–146).