The Syrian Wars were a series of six wars between the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, successor states to Alexander the Great's empire, during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC over the region then called Coele-Syria, more of less equivalent to modern day Israel, Palestine and the Beqaa Valley. Control of this corridor mattered because it linked Asia to Egypt, threatened the Nile Delta, lay within the natural geographic continuation of the Seleucid Levant, and generated substantial agricultural and mercantile revenue. These conflicts drained the resources and manpower of both parties and led to their eventual destruction and conquest by Rome and Parthia. They are briefly mentioned in the biblical Books of the Maccabees.