leadership of two of Mattathias' other sons (Jonathan and Simon), the Jews finally achieved independence and the liberty to worship freely. In the arts Pre-19th century As warrior hero and national liberator, Judah Maccabee has inspired many writers, and several artists and composers. In the Divine Comedy, Dante sees his spirit in the Heaven of Mars with the other "heroes of the true faith". In Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, he is enacted along with the other Nine Worthies, but heckled for sharing a name with Judas Iscariot. Most significant works dedicated solely to him date from the 17th century onwards. William Houghton's Judas Maccabaeus, performed in about 1601 but now lost, is thought to have been the first drama on the theme; however, Judas Macabeo, an early comedia by crucial Spanish playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca is extant. Fernando Rodríguez-Gallego details its history in his critical edition: the play was performed in the 1620s in different versions and finally published as part of an anthology by Vera Tassis in 1637. Following on its heels is El Macabeo (Naples, 1638), a Castilian epic by the Portuguese Marrano Miguel de Silveyra. Two other 17th century works are La chevalerie de Judas Macabé by French poet Pierre Du Ries, and the anonymous neo-Latin work Judas Machabaeus (Rome, 1695). Handel wrote his Judas Maccabaeus oratorio (1746) on the subject. 19th century There has been interest in Judah in every century. Giuda Macabeo, ossia la morte di Nicanore... (1839), is an Italian "azione sacra" based on which Vallicella composed an oratorio. One of the best-known literary works on the theme is Judas Maccabaeus (1872), a five-act verse tragedy by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. A Hebrew version of Longfellow's play was published in 1900. Two later 19th-century interpretations of the story are Judas Makkabaeus, a novella by the German writer Josef Eduard Konrad Bischoff, which appeared in Der Gefangene von Kuestrin (1885), and The Hammer (1890), a book by Alfred J. Church and Richmond Seeley. 20th century Several 20th-century Jewish authors have also written works devoted to Judah Maccabee and the Maccabean Revolt. Jacob Benjamin Katznelson (1855–1930) wrote the poem, "Alilot Gibbor ha-Yehudim Yehudah ha-Makkabi le-Veit ha-Hashmona'im" (1922); the Yiddish writer Moses Schulstein wrote the dramatic poem, "Yehudah ha-Makkabi" (in A Layter tsu der Zun, 1954); Jacob Fichman's "Yehudah ha-Makkabi" is one of the heroic tales included in Sippurim le-Mofet (1954). Amit Arad's historical novel "Lions