A son of Mattathias (q. v .), who succeeded his father in the leadership of the Jews against the Syrians in the war of the Maccabees, and who gave name to the movement, a man of chivalric temper, great energy, firm determination, dauntless courage, and powerful physique; who, with the elect of his countrymen of kindred spirit encountered and overthrew the Syrians in successive engagements, till before a great muster of the foe his little army was overwhelmed and himself slain in 160 B.C. See Maccabees .