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The reunification of Syria that the Seleucids finally achieved and the possession of Mesopotamia were soon threatened from all directions, from outside as well as inside the kingdom. To the east, ever since the middle of the third century, a people from the North, the Parni, soon to be called the Parthians, occupied the Iranian plateau, cutting the immense Seleucid Empire in two and isolating Central Asia from the whole of Syro-Mesopotamia. By the beginning of the second century, the Parthians controlled a large part of the Iranian plateau, with the exception of the western areas. The campaigns of Antiochus III (187 BCE) and then Antiochus IV (164 BCE) in southwestern Iran cost the lives of their leaders and perhaps slowed down the advance of the Parthians, but the principal cause of the Parthians’ slowed progress toward the west was probably their difficulties in the east of their own empire. The rise to power of an energetic sovereign, Mithridates I (throne name Arsaces V), around 171 BCE was quickly followed by more aggressive politics, which no doubt explains Antiochus IV’s expedition. The difficulties that arose in Iran and the problem of taking control of vast territories to the east of Iran again slowed the progress of the Parthians toward the west, but in July of 141 BCE the documents are dated by the Parthian king in Babylon, proving that the city was under his administration. The Seleucid Demetrius II, dealing with a usurper within Syria itself, Diodorus Tryphon, quickly responded to the call for help from the Greek cities of Mesopotamia (140–139 BCE), not without success, since he led a campaign into Iran, Media, and Persis. But once defeated, he was taken prisoner (138 BCE) and Mithridates took back the lost territories. The brother and successor of Demetrius II, Antiochus VII, launched his own expedition of reconquest in 130–129 BCE, which allowed him to recover Babylon and Media. But firstly Phraates II, the successor of Mithridates I, freed Demetrius II in the hope of producing a rival to Antiochus VII, and secondly the campaign of 129 BCE ended in disaster. With Antiochus VII gone, the Parthians reoccupied first Iran, then Babylon, and soon all of Mesopotamia (122 BCE); in all likelihood, the Parthians were in Dura-Europos in 113 BCE, and around 92 BCE they were at the gates of Commagene.