to have began on the 312th year before the Christian
sara, from its spring in the First Book of Maccabees, and from its
autumn in the Second Book of Maccabees, so did it not begin at Babylon
till the next spring, on the 311th year. See Prid. at the year 312. And
it is truly observed by Dr. Hudson on this place, that the Syrians and
Assyrians are sometimes confounded in ancient authors, according to the
words of Justin, the epitomiser of Trogus-pompeius, who says that "the
Assyrians were afterward called Syrian." B. I. ch. 11. See Of the War,
B. V. ch. 9. sect. 4, where the Philistines themselves, at the very
south limit of Syria, in its utmost extent, are called Assyrians by
Josephus as Spanheim observes.

[15] It must here be diligently noted, that Josephus's copy of the First
Book of Maccabees, which he had so carefully followed, and faithfully
abridged, as far as the fiftieth verse of the thirteenth chapter, seems
there to have ended. What few things there are afterward common to both,
might probably be learned by him from some other more imperfect records.
However, we must exactly observe here, what the remaining part of that
book of the Maccabees informs us of, and what Josephus would never have
omitted, had his copy contained so much, that this Simon the Great,
the Maccabee, made a league with Antiochus Soter, the son of Demetrius
Soter, and brother of the other Demetrius, who was now a captive in
Parthis: that upon his coming to the crown, about the 140th year before
the Christian sets, he granted great privileges to the Jewish nation,
and to Simon their high priest and ethnarch; which privileges Simon
seems to have taken of his own accord about three years before. In
particular, he gave him leave to coin money for his country with his own
stamp; and as concerning Jerusalem and the sanctuary, that they should
be free, or, as the vulgar Latin hath it, "holy and free," 1 Macc. 15:6,
7, which I take to be the truer reading, as being the very words of his
father's concession offered to Jonathan several years before, ch. 10:31;
and Antiq. B, XIII. ch. 2. sect. 3. Now what makes this date and these
grants greatly remarkable, is the state of the remaining genuine shekels
of the Jews with Samaritan characters, which seem to have been [most
of them at least] coined in the first four years of this Simon the
Asamonean, and having upon them these words on one side, "Jerusalem the
Holy;" and on the reverse, "In the Year of Fr