ALEXANDER, surnamed BALAS, a personage who figures in the history of the Maccabees and in Josephus. He professed to be the natural son of Antiochus Epiphanes, and as such, out of opposition to Demetrius Soter, he was recognised as king of Syria by the king of Egypt, by the Romans, and eventually by Jonathan Maccabeus, on the part of the Jews. Demetrius was not long after slain in battle, and Balas obtained possession of the kingdom; but abandoning himself to voluptuousness and debauchery, he soon rendered his reign odious. This encouraged Demetrius Nicator, the eldest son of Demetrius Soter, to claim his father's crown. Alexander took the field against him, but was defeated in a pitched battle, and fled with 500 cavalry to Abene in Arabia, and sought refuge with the emir Zabdieh, who murdered his confiding guest in the fifth year of his reign over Syria. (1 Macc. xi. 13–18; Joseph. Antiq. xiii. 4.)