Of course many Maccabean rebels were likely irregular, armed with whatever they could find or capture. But what little evidence we have suggests an army based around Roman equipment and even tactics.2/
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Some military history thoughts for the first night of #Hanukkah...what did a Maccabean/Hasmonean soldier look like? The curious answer is that they likely looked like Roman legionaries. 1/pic.twitter.com/skO4dIKdDk
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A Roman-style gladius hispaniensis has been discovered in Jericho, the site of fierce fighting between Seleucid and Maccabean forces; we do not know which side used it 3/https://www.academia.edu/644700/_A_Hellenistic_gladius_from_Jericho_ …
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But it has been argued that the Aramaic word ʾispānîqê for derives from the Latin hispaniensis, as in a Spanish sword; R. P. Gordon, “The gladius hispaniensis and Aramaic ‘ʾispānîqê,” Vetus Testamentum 35 (1985), 496–500. 4/
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A second/first century BC document produced in Qumran, known as the War Scroll, describes an eschatological army. But this imagined force little resemblance to Hellenistic pike phalanxes: rather it has some noted similarities to a Roman legion 5/
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The heavy infantry is divided into three lines, and fights with oval shields and short swords. Companies of 50 are joined to form battalions of 100 grouped into lines of 1000, roughly parallel to two centuries per maniple w/ 10 maniples in an acies. 6/
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Not precisely a Roman legion, but a Jewish ascetic clearly has a legion in mind as he imagines his own fantasy force. See Russell Gmirkin, “The War Scroll and Roman Weaponry Reconsidered,” Dead Sea Discoveries 3 (1996), 89–129. 7/
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It is quite likely that most Maccabean/Hasmonean forces fought as a type of troop known as thureophoroi, so called because they fought with a Celtic oval shield, *thureos* ("door"), which was closely related to the Roman *scutum* (Stele of Dioskourides from Sidon) 8/pic.twitter.com/yUZnGJd4AL
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This type of soldier had existed in Hellenistic armies since the Gallic invasions of the early third century, but the success of Roman legionaries probably accelerated its deployment, with some Hellenistic thureophoroi adopting Roman-style chain mail armor and gladii 9/pic.twitter.com/CtKOpdmUfQ
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Indeed, the Maccabees/Hasmoneans are probably not borrowing directly from the Romans (despite some diplomatic contacts with Rome, or at least wistful hopes of Roman support). Their Seleucid opponents are also reforming along Roman lines. 10/
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Antiochus IV paraded a special legion of "Romans", 5000 strong, "armed in the Roman fashion, in mail shirts." (Polybius 30.25). 1 Maccabees 6.35 reports Seleucid specialist troops in mail armor. The Jericho gladius may well be Seleucid. 11/
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The key work on the "Romanization" of Hellenistic armies is Nicholas Sekunda, *Hellenistic Infantry Reform in the 160s* (Gdansk 2001). The Hasmoneans were part of this larger trend.
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Roman inflection continues to be seen in Herodian armies, which contained centurions ( Josephus AJ 17.198), as well as some of the centurions encountered by Jesus (e.g. Matt. 8.5-13/Luke 7.1-10), who are likely Herodian, not Roman, but officers in a Roman style army. 12/
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At any rate, to those who celebrate, Happy Hanukkah! 13/
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