The Battle of Beth Zechariah took place around May 162 BC during the Maccabean revolt fought between Jewish rebels under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus (Judah Maccabee) against an army of the Seleucid Empire, the Greek successor state (diadochi) to the Macedonian conquests that controlled Syria and Babylonia. The battle was fought at Beth Zechariah (modern Khirbet Beit Zakariyyah) and was a Seleucid victory, with the rebels driven from the field in retreat. Judas's brother Eleazar Avaran died in combat with a war elephant. The defeat allowed the Seleucids to continue their campaign and besiege the Jewish holy city of Jerusalem.
Primary sources
The Battle of Beth Zechariah is recorded in the book of 1 Maccabees () and in two of Josephus's histories: Antiquities of the Jews Book 12, Chapter 9 and The War of the Jews Book 1.1.41–46. 2 Maccabees also dates the expedition to 149 SE (163 BC), slightly earlier than 1 Maccabees; which date is preferred is disputed by scholars.
Background
In autumn 164 BC, Regent Lysias launched an expedition to Judea to defeat the Maccabean rebellion. The Maccabees under Judas Maccabeus fought the Greeks at the Battle of Beth Zur. Whether from losses in the battle or from news of the death of King Antiochus IV reaching Judea, Lysias left Judea and negotiated a compromise. He returned to the Seleucid capital of Antioch to fend off a political challenge for leadership from Philip (Greek: Philippus), a prominent Seleucid official from Media in the eastern half of the Empire who claimed Antiochus IV had appointed him regent before his death. The Maccabees captured Jerusalem, cleansed the temple, and rededicated the altar for Jewish worship. However, Seleucid forces still controlled the Acra, a strong fortress within the city that faced the Temple Mount. The Maccabees participated in a number of campaigns across greater Palestine while the Seleucid government was concerned with internal politics in the capital. Around April 162 BC (Year 150 of the Ancient Macedonian calendar), Judas laid siege to the Acra, attempting to eradicate the most prominent symbol of Seleucid power in Judea.
An issue both sides would struggle with was food shortages. The sources say that it was a fallow year previously; the exact implications of that statement are unclear, but it appears food supplies were thin if not at famine level. The problem had been exacerbated by a wave of Jewish refugees from outlying regions that had been brought to Judea for their own safety as the outlying regions descended into disorder with raids and civilian violence and murders between the Jewish and Gentile populations. Lysias's expeditionary force was quite large, and armies acquired a substantial amount of their provisions from local foraging and requisitions in antiquity.
According to Josephus, the Seleucids had an army of about 50,000 infantry, about 5,000 cavalry, and approximately 80 war elephants. 1 Maccabees describes an even larger infantry army but only 32 elephants; historians generally take the lesser and assume Josephus was more accurate on his infantry estimate, and 1 Maccabees was more accurate on the number of elephants. The size of the Jewish army is unknown, but they appear to have trained a Hellenistic-style army in the year and a half since taking Jerusalem, as Josephus mentions a Jewish phalanx. The Seleucids would be required to enter via a valley approach, restricting their numeral advantage. Near the end of May 162 BC, the two armies clashed at a narrow pass near Beth Zechariah. According to Josephus, Philip was captured and executed; it is unknown whether Josephus had some unknown and lost source for Philip's eventual fate, or this was simply a conjecture based on the fact that Philip never did attain leadership of the Empire.
Analysis
writes that 300 scythed chariots were deployed as part of the expedition. As scythed chariots were generally used for lowland combat on flat plains, this information is doubtful; the ground in Judea is not very level, and it would be difficult to accelerate the chariots to the speed needed to make them effective. It is uncertain that the Seleucids even had so many chariots to send even if they wanted to. Neither 1 Maccabees nor Josephus mention chariots, both sources more interested in military details than 2 Maccabees is. Polybius describes 140 chariots at the military parade at Daphne in 166–165 BC, but does not indicate scythes on them; it is possible that these were merely ceremonial and utilitarian chariots meant for normal transportation rather than warfare.
1 Maccabees describes a larger army than Josephus does, saying that the expedition consisted of one hundred thousand foot-soldiers, twenty thousand horsemen, and thirty-two elephants. Scholars believe these numbers grossly exaggerated - such manpower likely exceeds the entire Seleucid army, and if actually sent, would have been even more of a logistics nightmare to feed and supply than Josephus's suggestion of 50,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry. The number of elephants is more unclear; Josephus writes that eighty elephants were with the expedition, although historian Bezalel Bar-Kochva argues for a lower figure. He suggests that Josephus might have misread an "8" (, an Eta) as an "80" (, a Pi) and notes that only 36–42 elephants were recorded by Polybius at the Daphne parade. Since elephants do not reproduce while in captivity and new elephants were likely difficult to procure due to losses in Seleucid territories closest to India, it is unlikely the Seleucids would have sent nearly all of those elephants that survived to 162 BCE to Judea, making a lower estimate more reasonable.
A point of uncertainty on the conflict between Eleazar and the elephant is that 1 Maccabees writes that "the king" was on the elephant that Eleazar attacked. The ten-year old king is not described as accompanying the expedition, though. It is possible that king really referred to regent, and Eleazar somehow thought that Lysias or some other important commander must have been on the elephant, perhaps due to some impressive royal seal or decoration; if he did, this belief was likely incorrect, as Hellenistic commanders almost always rode on horses in the style of Alexander the Great. 1 Maccabees also describes the elephant as dying "instantly"; this is likely an exaggeration from the fog of war. The elephant may have eventually died, but as elephant hunters can attest to, they do not die quickly or easily. With the technology of the era, only an arrow fired nearly point-blank from a powerful bow to the brain or heart could instantly fell an elephant, and even a grave abdominal wound could take a few hours to bleed the elephant to death.
Legacy
The use of war elephants was possibly banned by the Treaty of Apamea, the peace treaty that ended the Roman–Seleucid War in 188 BC which had required the Seleucids to give up their war elephants. The Seleucids generally considered the Treaty to only apply to the elephants they handed over at the time, however. The Romans sent a delegation in 162 BC a few months after the battle, and interpreting the treaty in the harshest possible way, they hamstrung the remaining elephants they could find and burnt some Seleucid warships. As a result, this battle was one of the last ones where the Seleucids could deploy a major force of war elephants; their use afterward was rarer.