Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/892

Rh 878 MACCABAEI. provisions. In B. c. 210, D. Quintius was sent with a fleet to convej' provisions to the citadel, Imt was defeated by the Tarentines ; this disaster, however, was counterbalanced by a victory which Livius gained at the same time by land. Livius continued in possession of the citadel till the town was retaken by Q. Fabius Maximus in b. c. 209. In the following year there was a warm debate in the senate respecting Livius Macatus ; some main- taining that he ought to be punished for losing the town, others that he deserved to be rewarded for having kept the citadel for five years, and a third party thinking that it was a matter which did not belong to the senate, and that if punishment was deserved, it ought to be inflicted by the censorial nota. The latter view was the one adopted by the majority of the senate. Macatus was warmly supported on this occasion by his relative M. Livius Salinator ; and a saying of Q. Fabius Maximus in the course of the debate is recorded by several writers. When the friends of Macatus were maintaining that Maximus was indebted for his conquest of the town to Macatus, because he had possession of the citadel, Maximus replied, " Certe, nam nisi ille amisisset, ego nunquara recepissem." (Li v. xxiv. 20, XXV. 9, 10, 11, xxvi. 39, xxvii. 25, 34 ; Appian, Annib. 32 ; Polyb. viii. 27, &c., who calls hira Cuius Livius ; Cic. de Senect. 4, de Oral. ii. 67, who erroneously calls him Livius Salinator ; Plut. Fab. 21.) MACCABAEI (Ma/cKagaiot), the name gene- rally given to the descendants of the family of the heroic Judas Maccabi or Maccabaeus, a surname which he obtained from his glorious victories. (From the Hebrew ^(^O, makkab, " a hammer ;"" see Winer, Biblisches Reahooi-terbiich, vol. i. p. 745.) They were also called Asamonaei {'Aaa/uLw- vaioi), from Asamonaeus, or Chasmon, the great- grandfather of Mattathias, the father of Judas Maccabaeus, or, in a shorter form, Asmonaei or Hasmonaei. This family, which eventually ob- tained the kingly dignity, first occurs in history in B. c. 167, when Mattathias raised the standard of revolt against the Syrian kings. According to Josephus {Ant. xiv. 16) the Asmonaean dynasty lasted for 126 years ; and as he places its ter- mination in B. c. 37, the year in which Antigonus, king of Judaea, was put to death by M. Antony, it would have commenced in B. c. 163, when Judas Maccabaeus took Jerusalem, and restored the wor- ship of the temple. At the death of Antigonus there were only two members of the Asmonaean •race surviving, namely, Aristobulus and his sister Mariamne, the former of whom was put to death by Herod in b. c. 35, and the latter was married to the murderer of her brother, to whom she bore several children. The history of the Maccabees is related at length by Josephus (xii. 6 — xiv. 16), and the war of independence against the Syrian kings down to the time of Simon in the first and second books of Maccabees. It is only necessary here to give a brief account of the founders of this family, since the various members of it, who obtained the kingly dignity, are given under their proper names. A genealogical table of the whole family will be found in Vol. II. p. 543. From the death of Alexander the Great the Greek language, religion, and civilisation, which had been spread more or less throughout the whole of Asia, from the Indus to the Acgaean, had been MACCABAEI. making a certain though slow progress among the Jewish nation also. Under the sovereignty of the early Ptolemies and Seleucidae, who had allowed the Jews liberty of religious worship, an influential party had adopted the Greek religion and Greek habits ; and their example would probably have been followed by still greater numbers, had not the attempts of Antiochus (IV.) Epiphanes to root out entirely by persecution the worship of Jehovah roused the religious patriotism of the great body of the people, who still remained stedfast to their ancient faith. Antiochus IV. had sold the priesthood succes- sively to Joshua, who assumed the Greek name of Jason, and subsequently to Onias, who also changed his' name into that of Menelaus, under the con- dition of their introducing into Jerusalem Greek rites and institutions. Onias, in order to obtain the money to pay for the priesthood, had purloined the sacred vessels of the temple, and sold them at Tyre. This act of sacrilege, united with other circumstances, caused a formidable insurrection at Jerusalem, for which, however, the inhabitants had to pay dearly. Antiochus was just returning from his Egyptian campaign when he heard of the revolt. He forthwith marched against the city, which he easily took (b. c. 170), put to death a vast number of the inhabitants, pillaged the temple, and profaned it by offering a sow on the altar of burnt sacrifices. Two years afterwards, when he was forced by the Romans to retire from Egypt, he resolved to root out entirely the Jewish religion, and to put to death every one who still adhered to it. He again took possession of Jerusalem, and commanded a general massacre of the inhabitants on the Sabbath ; he set fire to the city in many places, and built a strong fortress in the highest part of Mount Sion, to command the whole of the surrounding countrjr. He then published an edict, which enjoined uniformity of worship throughout his dominions ; and the most frightful cruelties were perpetrated on those who refused obedience. The barbarities committed in every part of Judaea soon produced a reaction. At Modin, a town not far from Lydda, on the road which leads from Joppa to Jerusalem, lived Mattathias, a man of the priestly line and of deep religious feeling, who had five sons in the vigour of their days, John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan. When the officer of the S'^rian king visited Modin, to enforce obedience to the royal edict, Mattathias not only refused to desert the religion of his fore- fathers, but with his own hand struck dead the first renegade who attempted to offer sacrifice on the heathen altar. He then put to death the king's officer, and retired to the mountains with his five sons (b. c. 167). Their numbers daily increased ; and as opportunities occurred, they issued from their mountain fastnesses, cut off detachments of the Syrian army, destroyed heathen altars, and restored in many places the synagogues and the open worship of the Jewish religion. Within a few months the insurrection at Modin had grown into a war for national independence. But the toils of such a war were too much for the aged frame of Mattathias, who died in the first year of the revolt, leaving the conduct of it to Judas, his third son. 1. Judas, who assumed the surname of Mac- cabaeus, as has been mentioned above, carried on the war with the same prudence and energy with 1