Hasmonean dynasty
Videos
The Hasmonean dynasty was the Jewish ruling dynasty of Judea during the Hellenistic times of the Second Temple period, from c. 141 BC to 37 BC.
Coin of Antigonus II Mattathias, the last Hasmonean king of Judea (r. 40–37 BC)
Wojciech Stattler's Machabeusze (Maccabees), 1844
Tetradrachm with portrait of Antiochus IV. Reverse shows Zeus seated on a throne. The Greek inscription reads ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΟΧΟΥ ΘΕΟΥ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΟΥΣ ΝΙΚΗΦΟΡΟΥ (of King Antiochus, God Manifest, Bringer of Victory).
Mattathias of Modi'in killing a Jewish apostate, engraving by Gustave Doré
Josephus
Videos
Flavius Josephus was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing The Jewish War, he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of priestly desc
Hasmonean dynasty
…Seleucid army during the Maccabean Revolt of 167 to 160 BC. According to 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, and the first book of The Jewish War by historian Josephus (37 – c. 100 AD), the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (r. 175–164) moved to assert strict control over the Seleucid satrapy of Coele Syria and…
Engraving by John Sartain, 1880
Galilee, site of Josephus's governorship, before the First Jewish–Roman War
The works of Josephus translated by Thomas Lodge (1602)
1581 German translation of Josephus's The Jewish War in the collection of the Jewish Museum of Switzerland