[Antiochus], a king.[1] This man seemed at first to be an attempter of great things and daring and able to follow through on his what had been begun, but as he moved along in life he proved much inferior to himself and the general expectation.[2]
For[3] from the sons of Alexander of Macedon came a sinful root, this Epiphanes, son of Seleukos Philopator.[4] He was a terrible man and greedy and he committed many ravagings and lootings and acquired a lot of money and from intemperance and mad passion he fell to mimicking himself in the sight of everyone and doted madly after women. He seized Egypt with a heavy mob and chariots and elephants and a great army and took control of it. Turning back after losing all sense he took Jerusalem and slaughtered 180000. So he dared to go even into the sanctuary and set up an altar and an abominable idol of desolation and defiled the temple with unclean sacrifices and called it the shrine to Olympian Zeus.[5] And thus enthroned on high and with his armed soldiers stationed around him in a circle he commanded the mercenaries to drag in each and every Hebrew and give him pork meat and force him to sacrifice to idols; unless they would eat the forbidden meat, they tortured and killed them. So many were seized, and a certain Eleazar, [one] of the foremost scholars, already advanced in age, would not eat the abominable meat and was flogged and slain with his seven children and their mother Solomonis. (Concerning these matters the Theologian too makes mention in his What the Maccabees did.[6]) The king, struck rather mad and driven out of his senses, took all the sacred vessels and plundered the whole city and butchered its flocks and made slaughter and he returned boasting to Antioch. And after two years of fighting the Persians, he dispatched a commander to levy tribute from the city of Jerusalem. [The commander] neared the city and spoke words of peace to Jerusalem and went in -- and dealt the city a huge blow: he tore down the walls and set the whole city alight, and defiled the temple and killed many and went away with prisoners, having left a commander behind to torture the Jews. A certain Matthias, a priest,[7] had five sons, of which Judas Maccabeus was one; he was full of zeal and struck out against the commander and killed him and tore up the altars of the Greeks. So Antiochus came against him with great force. As the war went on, Eleazar, a brother of Judas, showed courage when he was crushed by the elephant. For he sneaked up on the elephant and struck it in the belly with his sword, hoping to take the king above him. So Antiochos marched out against the Persians and turned out the loser and lost his life foully.
This same Antiochos, when the Jewish people were in revolt against the regular tribute, again enslaved them: he pillaged the offerings of the temple and tracked them all down and found a holy book which held [---] in his hands, and a deep beard-offering;[8] there, of course, a gold-wrought lampstand stood. He smeared these things with pig blood and left them in the temple; and having imposed on the Jewish inhabitants a fine of many talents for extracting the tribute he returned to Syria.