MATTATHIAS B. SIMON:

Son of the Hasmonean prince Simon, whom he accompanied on his last journey, together with his brother Judah and his mother. Simon, with his sons, was invited by his son-in-law Ptolemy to a banquet in the fortress of Docus, near Jericho, where he was murdered, his sons being first put in fetters and then killed. The accounts in I Maccabees and in Josephus do not agree as to whether Mattathias was slain at the same time as his father, or later; Josephus, however, probably reports the affair more correctly, as he refers also to other sources.

Bibliography:
  • I Macc. xvi. 16;
  • Josephus, Ant. xiii. 8, § 1;
  • idem, B. J. i. 2, § 3;
  • C. Werner, Johann Hyrkan, p. 10, note 22, Wernigerode, 1877;
  • Grätz, Gesch. iii. 67 et seq.
G. M. K.
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