Hasmonean Jerusalem: The Maccabees and the City Before Herod

Long before Herod rebuilt Jerusalem in marble, the city belonged to the Hasmoneans, a priestly family whose rebellion gave the world the story of Hanukkah.

In the 160s BCE Judea was ruled by the Seleucid Greeks. When King Antiochus IV banned Jewish practice and placed a pagan altar in the Temple, an elderly priest named Mattathias and his five sons rose up in the hills of Modiin. His son Judah, called the Maccabee or "hammer", led a guerrilla war against far larger armies and recaptured Jerusalem around 164 BCE. The rededication of the Temple is what Hanukkah celebrates.

Judah's brothers carried on, and within a generation Judea was effectively independent for the first time in four centuries. Simon became high priest and ruler, his son John Hyrcanus expanded the kingdom, and later rulers such as Alexander Jannaeus took the title of king. The Hasmoneans combined the crown and the high priesthood, something many pious Jews found troubling, and the tension fed the rise of groups like the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes.

Jerusalem grew in those years from the small City of David into a larger walled city spreading across the Western Hill, today the Jewish and Armenian Quarters. Sections of the Hasmonean "First Wall" are still visible, including in the Tower of David Museum courtyard and in the Jewish Quarter.

The dynasty ended in civil war. Two Hasmonean brothers fought for the throne, Rome stepped in under Pompey in 63 BCE, and within a few decades Herod, married to a Hasmonean princess, took over as Rome's client king.

Your guide can show you the Hasmonean layers of the city on our Jewish Jerusalem or Holy Jerusalem tours. Ask us to plan your day.