And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
And in his estate shall stand up a vile person. Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, i:e., the illustrious, for vindicating the claims of the royal line against Heliodorus, was nicknamed, by a play of sounds, Epimanes, i:e., the madman, for his mad freaks beneath the dignity of a king. He would carouse with the lowest of the people, bathe with them in the public baths, and foolishly jest and throw stones at passers-by (Polybius, 26: 10). Hence, as also for his crafty supplanting of Demetrius, the rightful heir, from the throne, he is termed "vile."
To whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries - the nation shall not, by a public act, confer the kingdom on him; but he shall obtain it by artifice, 'flattering' Eumenes and Attalus of Pergamus to help him, and, as he had seen candidates at Rome doing, canvassing the Syrian people high and low, one by one, with embraces (Livy, 41: 20).