Nicanor (Seleucid general)

Nicanor (/naɪˈkeɪnər/; Ancient Greek: Νικάνορ, romanized: Nīkā́nōr; died 161 BCE) was a Syrian-Greek general (strategos) that served the Seleucid Empire during the reigns of kings Antiochus IV Epiphanes and Demetrius I Soter. He served during the Maccabean Revolt in Judea, then part of the Seleucid Empire, and served for a time as governor in Jerusalem. Relations between the government and the Jewish rebels eventually turned sufficiently hostile that he threatened the priests at the Second Temple and led an army to find and defeat Judas Maccabeus's followers, but he and his army were defeated at the Battle of Adasa. Nicanor was killed, his corpse was desecrated, his head and right hand hung for public display back in Jerusalem, and a new festival was declared to celebrate his defeat.

As Seleucid literature was ultimately not preserved, almost all of what is known of Nicanor comes from the Jewish books 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees. These books were preserved by becoming part of the Septuagint, a collection of Jewish writings in Greek that would serve to become the basis of the Christian Old Testament.