The Death of Judas

When Demetrius was told of the death of Nicanor and the destruction of the army that had been with him, he sent Bacchides into Judea again with a force. Bacchides set out from Antioch, came into Judea, and pitched his camp at Arbela, a city of Galilee. There he besieged and took the people in the caves of that place, for many had taken refuge in them, and then he moved on and hurried toward Jerusalem. Learning that Judas was encamped at a village called Zetho, he pressed on against him with twenty thousand foot soldiers and two thousand horsemen. Judas had a thousand men in all. When these saw the size of Bacchides’s army, they were afraid, left the camp, and all fled except eight hundred. [a]

Judas, abandoned by his own soldiers, with the enemy pressing on him and giving him no time to gather his forces, was ready to engage Bacchides’s men with his eight hundred. He urged them to face the danger bravely and called on them to advance to the battle. They said they were no match for so great an army, and advised that they withdraw for now and save themselves, and engage the enemy later, when they had gathered their own men. He said, “May the sun never look on such a thing, that I should show my back to the enemy! Even if this hour brings me my end, and I must certainly die fighting, I will stand my ground nobly and endure whatever is coming, rather than bring on what I have already achieved, and on the glory it has won, the disgrace of running away now.” That was what he said to those who were left with him, urging them to despise the danger and close with the enemy.

Bacchides led his force out of the camp and drew it up for battle. He placed the horsemen on both wings and stationed the light troops and the archers in front of the whole line, and he himself took the right wing. When he had ordered his army in this way and come close to the enemy’s camp, he ordered the trumpeter to sound the signal and the army to raise the war cry and advance. Judas did the same and engaged the enemy. Both sides fought hard, and the battle went on until sunset. Then Judas, seeing that Bacchides and the strongest part of the army were on the right wing, took the bravest of his men with him and charged that part of the line. He fell on those who were there, broke their formation, drove into their midst, forced them to flee, and pursued them as far as a mountain called Eza. But when those who held the left wing saw the rout of the right, they surrounded Judas as he pursued: they came up behind him and caught him between them. Unable to escape and hemmed in by the enemy, he stood and fought with those who were with him. After killing many of his opponents, worn out and covered with wounds, he too fell, and gave up his life in deeds like the noble ones he had done before. When Judas had fallen, his men had no one left to look to, and deprived of such a general they fled. Simon and Jonathan, Judas’s brothers, received his body from the enemy under a truce and carried it to the village of Modein, where their father was buried, and there they buried him. The people mourned him for many days and paid him in common the customary honors. Such was the end of Judas. He had been a brave man and a great warrior, who remembered the commands of his father Mattathias and endured everything, both in doing and in suffering, for the freedom of his fellow citizens. Having been a man of such courage, he left behind him the greatest renown and memorial, for he freed his nation and rescued it from slavery to the Macedonians. He died after holding the high priesthood into its third year. [d]