lethargic_man | Antiquities of the Jews, fit the twenty-second, concluding Book XII

I'd vaguely heard about the Temple of Leontopolis in Egypt. Here's how it came to be (XII.9.387):

Now as to Onias, the son of the high priest, who, as we before informed you, was left a child when his father died, when he saw that the king had slain his uncle Menelaus, and given the high priesthood to Alcimus, who was not of the high priest stock, but was induced by Lysias to translate that dignity from his family to another house, he fled to Ptolemy, king of Egypt; and when he found he was in great esteem with him, and with his wife Cleopatra, he desired and obtained a place in the Nomus of Heliopolis, wherein he built a temple like to that at Jerusalem; of which therefore we shall hereafter give an account, in a place more proper for it.

XIII.2.64 explains further:

When this Onias saw that Judea was oppressed by the Macedonians and their kings, out of a desire to purchase to himself a memorial and eternal fame he resolved to send to king Ptolemy and queen Cleopatra, to ask leave of them that he might build a temple in Egypt like to that at Jerusalem, and might ordain Levites and priests out of their own stock. The chief reason why he was desirous so to do, was, that he relied upon the prophet Isaiah, who lived above six hundred years before, and foretold that there certainly was to be a temple built to Almighty God in Egypt by a man that was a Jew.

I'd previously been told that although the Hasmoneans captured the Temple on the 25th of Kislev, the Seleucids retook it soon after, and it was not recaptured until the 13th of Adar.

Actually, it turns out this is not quite the case. The Temple was captured by the Hasmoneans on the 25th of Kislev of 164 BCE. In 161 BCE Bacchides was sent to Jerusalem and retook it; Wikipedia says "The peaceable Assideans credulously expected friendship from him; but, contrary to oath and covenant, he cruelly slew sixty of them (1 Macc. vii. 16). Leaving Jerusalem, he made a slaughter-house of Bezeth (Bethzecha), and after handing the country over to Alcimus, returned to the king (ib. vii. 19, 20)." The Temple was recaptured and Nicanor captured on 13th Adar 161 BCE.

Incidentally, this shows that in the Book of Maccabees there's yet another movement called the Chassidim, in addition to the spiritual descendants of the Ba`al Shem Tov today, the mystics of mediaeval Germany, and possibly also the חֲסִידִים רִאשׁוֹנִים (ḥasidim rishonim, early pious men) referred to by the Mishna or not. Regarding whether these "Assidaeans" are the same as these last, Wikipedia cites two views, one regarding them as the spiritual ancestors of the Pharisees (i.e. are the same as the Mishna's חֲסִידִים רִאשׁוֹנִים), and one regarding them as developing into the Essenes, based on the transcription into Greek of the Syriac translation of חָסִיד.

By the time of the Maccabees, the legend of the shamir was evidently in place, as the new altar was built of unhewn stone (XII.7.318):

He also took down the altar [of burnt-offering], and built a new one of stones that he gathered together, and not of such as were hewn with iron tools.

One thing I'm surprised we don't learn in cheder is that the Temple service was restored on the anniversary of the day it had been broken off (XII.7.320):

So on the five and twentieth day of the month Casleu, which the Macedonians call Apeliens, they lighted the lamps that were on the candlestick, and offered incense upon the altar [of incense], and laid the loaves upon the table [of shew-bread], and offered burnt-offerings upon the new altar [of burnt-offering]. Now it so fell out, that these things were done on the very same day on which their Divine worship had fallen off, and was reduced to a profane and common use, after three years' time; for so it was, that the temple was made desolate by Antiochus, and so continued for three years.

I mentioned in an earlier post that the Hasmoneans were not actually High Priests in the early years of their rebellion. XII.10.414 describes how they became so:

But now as the high priest Alcimus, was resolving to pull down the wall of the sanctuary, which had been there of old time, and had been built by the holy prophets, he was smitten suddenly by God, and fell down. This stroke made him fall down speechless upon the ground; and undergoing torments for many days, he at length died, when he had been high priest four years. And when he was dead, the people bestowed the high priesthood on Judas

Though this page says this contradicts 1 Maccabees, which says Alcimus died after Judah ha-Maccabi (and does not mention the High Priesthood at all).

[Please comment at my collected Book XII notes post, on Dreamwidth for preference, or on LiveJournal.]

Josephus notes