Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Transliteration of Hebrew
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue
- PART I HISTORICAL EVALUATION
- 1 Introduction: Deployment and tactics in field battles during the Hellenistic period
- 2 The number of combatants on each side
- 3 The armament and tactical composition of the Jewish army
- 4 The ethnic origin and fighting capability of the Seleucid phalanx
- 5 The Seleucid army and mountain warfare
- 6 The military achievements of the Jewish forces
- 7 The battlefields, tactics and leadership of Judas Maccabaeus
- PART II ACCOUNTS OF THE BATTLES: INTRODUCTION, TEXT AND COMMENTARY
- PART III APPENDICES
- EXCURSUS
- Plates
- Abbreviations
- References
- Indexe locorum
- General index
- Index of Greek terms
- Index of Hebrew words and phrases
3 - The armament and tactical composition of the Jewish army
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Transliteration of Hebrew
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue
- PART I HISTORICAL EVALUATION
- 1 Introduction: Deployment and tactics in field battles during the Hellenistic period
- 2 The number of combatants on each side
- 3 The armament and tactical composition of the Jewish army
- 4 The ethnic origin and fighting capability of the Seleucid phalanx
- 5 The Seleucid army and mountain warfare
- 6 The military achievements of the Jewish forces
- 7 The battlefields, tactics and leadership of Judas Maccabaeus
- PART II ACCOUNTS OF THE BATTLES: INTRODUCTION, TEXT AND COMMENTARY
- PART III APPENDICES
- EXCURSUS
- Plates
- Abbreviations
- References
- Indexe locorum
- General index
- Index of Greek terms
- Index of Hebrew words and phrases
Summary
The Books of the Maccabees, the chief sources for the battles of Judas Maccabaeus, do not specify any Jewish tactical unit that took part in them nor any armament. I Maccabees usually confines himself to the general term ἄνδρες (‘men’, ‘people’: 4.6, 29, 5.20, 7.40, 9.5) and II Maccabees is no less obscure (e.g. 8.1, 22, 10.1, 16,25, 11.6, 13.15), in contrast to the wealth of detail they provide for the enemy army. Such a presentation creates the impression that the arms at the disposal of the Jews were meagre and primitive. The author of I Maccabees even complains more than once of the shortage of basic fighting equipment at the start of the Revolt (3.12, 4.6, 31). The complaints do not recur after the purification of the Temple, and the author incidentally notes the improvement that had taken place in the effectiveness and quantity of the armament at the disposal of the Jewish forces (6.6). But that was only a slip of the pen in the course of an explanation of the death of Antiochus Epiphanes in Persia as being the result of his disappointment at the failure of his Judaean plans. Even here the author is not explicit, and is satisfied with a general and vague statement, and he continues to refrain from mentioning the types of weapons or units in the Jewish army even in descriptions of later battles.
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- Information
- Judas MaccabaeusThe Jewish Struggle Against the Seleucids, pp. 68 - 89Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989