Then came the shield-bearing infantry: Nicanor was their general.

Between these princes a war soon broke out, and Laomedon was defeated by Nicanor, one of Ptolemy's generals; and Palestine refusing to submit to the king of Egypt, Ptolemy invaded Judaea, besieged Jerusalem, and took it by assault on the Sabbath, when the Jews refused to fight.

Lysias chose Ptolemy, Nicanor, and Gorgias, experienced generals, to conduct the war, with forty thousand foot and seven thousand horsemen, besides elephants, with orders to exterminate the rebels, take possession of their lands, and settle heathen aliens in their place.

This wicked high-priest overran the country with the forces of Bacchides, who had returned to Antioch, but did not prevail; so the king sent Nicanor, already experienced in this Jewish war, with a still larger army against Judas.

The gallant Maccabaeus, however, gained a great victory, and slew Nicanor himself.

Philip quickly pushed the crowd of fugitives past the phalanx into the middle division, and, without waiting till Nicanor had arrived on the left wing with the other half of the phalanx which followed more slowly, he ordered the right phalanx to couch their spears and to charge down the hill on the legions, and the rearranged light infantry simultaneously to turn them and fall upon them in flank.

Nicanor on the other wing, when he saw the king give the attack, ordered the other half of the phalanx to advance in all haste; by this movement it was thrown into confusion, and while the first ranks were already rapidly following the victorious right wing down the hill, and were still more thrown into disorder by the inequality of the ground, the last files were just gaining the height.

It is recorded that Demetrius Nicanor determined, or actually began, to open a canal of above 120 miles in length between the Caspian and Euxine, for the greater convenience of the Indian trade.

V. Victories Over Nicanor.

3:38-41] Now Lysias chose Ptolemy the son of Dorymenes, and Nicanor, and Gorgias, influential men among the king's Friends, and with them sent forty thousand footmen and seven thousand horsemen to go into the land of Judah to destroy it, as the king had ordered.

So the king sent Nicanor, one of his honored princes, a man who hated Israel and was their enemy, and commanded him to destroy the people.

7:27-32] When Nicanor came to Jerusalem with a great army, he sent to Judas and his brother a message of peaceful words with deceitful intent, saying, Let there be no battle between us.

So Nicanor knew that his plan was discovered, and he went out to meet Judas in battle near Capharsalama.

And there fell of those with Nicanor about five hundred men.

7:33-38] Now after these things Nicanor went to Zion.

7:39-48] And Nicanor set forth from Jerusalem and encamped in Bethhoron, and there the army of Syria met him.

So on the thirteenth day of the month Adar the armies joined battle; and Nicanor's army was defeated, and he himself was the first to fall in the battle.

And when his army saw that Nicanor had fallen, they threw away their weapons and fled.

And they took the spoils and the booty, and they struck off Nicanor's head and his right hand, which he had stretched out so haughtily, and brought them and hung them up in the citadel of Jerusalem.

9:1-6] When Demetrius heard that Nicanor had fallen with his forces in battle, he sent Bacchides and Alcimus again into the land of Judah a second time, and the southern wing of his army with them.

V. Victories Over Nicanor.

He succeeded, however, in winning two signal victories over Nicanor, the Syrian general.

In the latter victory Nicanor was slain, and Judas was left for the moment in control of Judea. VI.

Seleucus Nicanor, who in 311 B.C. founded the city of Antioch, like Alexander, granted many privileges to the Jewish colonies whom he thus sought to attract hither.

7. The victories over Nicanor.