MODIN (MAE& ; Alex. MceSeeiv, and Mwoccip.; Media), the native city of the Maccabees. It is not mentioned in the canonical Scriptures; but it occupied a distinguished place in Jewish history during the rule of the Asmonean family. This family was of the noblest blood of the priests (1 Maccab. ii. i; cf. i Chron. xxiv. 7). When Antiochus Epiphanes was cruelly persecuting the Jewish nation, Mattathias, the head of the Asmo nean family, left Jerusalem and took up his resi dence at Modin. The emissaries of the tyrant visited that city and ordered the people to sacrifice to the gods. Mattathias refused, and even went so far as to kill a Jew who attempted to present a sacrifice. This was the commencement of the war against Syria, and of the rule of the Asmoneans (p.c. 167 ; Joseph. Antiq. xii. 6. i and 2; see art. MACCABEES). Mattathias died and was buried at Modin, after giving to his sons a solemn charge to uphold the law and faith of their fathers with their lives (I Maccab. ii. 5o, seq.) His warlike son Judas, after a brilliant career, fell in battle and was also buried at Modin (Joseph. Antiq. xii. II. 2; Maccab. ix. 19) ; and the bones of Jonathan, who fell by treachery, were committed to the family tomb (Joseph. Antiq. xiii. 6. 6). Over the graves of his father and brethren, Simon, who succeeded them as ruler of the Jews, erected a splendid mausoleum of white stone, surrounded with cloisters, and surmounted by seven pyramids, corresponding to the number of the departed. It was so high as to be visible from the sea (Joseph. 1. r.: i Maccab. xiii. 25-3o), and it remained standing as late as the 4th century (Onomast., s. v. Aladin). Modin was on more than one occasion the place where the Jewish patriots assembled in the hour of danger around their warlike Asmonean leaders, and, as if inspired with fresh courage by the proximity of the illustrious dead, they marched thence to victory (I Maccab. xvi. 1-to; 2 Maccab. xiii. 14, seq.) The site of Modin has occasioned some contro versy. No ancient writer has accurately described it, and the name appears to have perished like the mausoleum that once adorned it. Josephus calls it a village of Judea (Bell. ,ucl. i. 1. 3). An inci•
dental remark of the author of the first book of Maccabees shows that it lay close to the plain of Philistia (xvi. 4. 5). Eusebius and Jerome appear to have known it. They state that it was situated near Diospolis, or Lydda, and that the mausoleum of the Maccabees still existed in their time (Ono mast, s. v.) We learn farther, that the town stood on a hill (1 Maccab. ii. I). This is all that is known. A comparatively recent tradition, ap parently not older than the 13th century (Brocar• dos, x. ; see also Robinson, B. R., ii. 7 ; and authorities cited there), fixes the site of Modin in the commanding peak of Saba, six miles west of Jerusalem, but at least ten from the plain, and nearly twenty from Lydda. This site has, conse quently, no just claim to the honour. Modin ap pears to have been known to William of Tyre, as he mentions it as one of the ancient towns betweer Jerusalem and Joppa, but he does not state its position (Hist. viii. i) farther than grouping it with Noba and Niro/So/is., now identified with Nfiba and Amwis, at the foot of the mountains. It seems highly probable that Robinson is correct in fixing the site of Modin at the ruin called Latron. In the mouth of Wady 'Aly, where it opens from the mountains of Judwa into the plain, is a high conical tell, crowned with the ruins of a large for tress, and a poor village. This is Latron. The foundations of the fortress appear to be of the Roman age, or perhaps earlier, though the upper parts exhibit pointed arches and light architecture of a much later date. The view from the summit is commanding, and embraces the whole plain to Joppa and the Mediterranean beyond. Here may have stood the monument of the Maccabees. The road from Jerusalem to Joppa passes close by the base of the tell, and Amwas, the ancient Nicopolis, is about a mile to the north. The name Latron appears to have arisen in the i6th century, from the legend which made this the birth-place of the penitent thief—' Castrum boni Latronis (Robinson, B. R., iii. 151; Quaresmius, ii. p. 12 ; Handbk., p. 285 ; Tobler, Dritte Wanderung, 185, seq. ; Reland, 900.—J. L. P.