The Villain of Hanukkah // Antiochus IV Epiphanes, 175-164 BCE

Seleukid Kingdom. Antiochus IV Epiphanes, 175-164 BCE. Large bronze AE27 coin, Antioch on the Orontes mint, struck 169-168 BCE. Head of Isis right, wearing tainia / BAΣIΛEΩΣ ANTIOXOY ΘEOY EΠIΦANOYΣ, eagle standing right on thunderbolt, with closed wings. Powerful portrait, very nice detail, thick earthen red patina.

“Hanukkah” derives from the Hebrew verb חנך, meaning “to dedicate.” The festival was established in honor of the liberation of Jerusalem from the occupying forces of the bad Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who launched a massive campaign of persecution against the Jews in Judaea in 168 BCE. He did this because he mistook a Judean civil dispute for an insurgency. But once he banned Jewish religious practices and made the Second Temple into a pagan cult site, the Jews launched a full-scale rebellion under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus. The rebels as a whole would come to be known as the Maccabees, and their actions would be chronicled later in the Bible. The first Hanukkah took place when the Seleucids were defeated and the Second Temple re-dedicated.