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Message:: [QUOTE="Carl Wilmont, post: 4566254, member: 75496"]Nice write-up, [USER=73473]@Magnus Maximus[/USER]! The persecution of the Jews by Antiochus IV, who regarded himself as Zeus, and thus took the name Theos Epiphanes ("God Manifested"), was severe.  He plundered the temple, banned Judaism, and executed many observant Jews. The temple was desecrated with an altar to Zeus upon which a pig was sacrificed.  This provoked an uprising in 167 BC led by a rural priest named Mattathias the Hasmonean and his sons.  When Mattathias died in 166 BC, his son Judah the Maccabee (the “Hammer”; Latinate: Judas Maccabeus) took his place. He recaptured Jerusalem in 164 BC (at a time when the Seleucid army was preoccupied with a Parthian attack by King Mithridates I), and the temple was purified and rededicated to Yahweh.  A new celebration was instituted to recall the restoration of Jewish worship at the temple- The Feast of Dedication, as it's referred to John 10:22, or Hanukkah, as it's called today [the Hebrew word for "consecration" of "dedication" is "Hanukkah"(חנכה)]. [ATTACH=full]1130702[/ATTACH]Seleukid Kingdom. Antioch on the Orontes. Antiochos IV Epiphanes 175-164 BC.Bronze Æ. 20 mm, 9.02 g. Radiate diademed head of Antiochus right /  ΑΝΤΙΟΧΕΩΝ / ΠΡΟΣ ΔΑΦΝΗΙ, Zeus, wearing himation, standing facing, looking left, holding wreath in outstretched right hand.[/QUOTE]