The Maccabees, also spelled Machabees (Hebrew:מכבים or מקבים‎, Maqabim; Latin:Machabi or Machado; Greek:Μακκαβαῖοι, Makkabaioi), were the leaders of a Jewish rebel army that took control of Judea, which at the time had been a province of the Seleucid Empire. They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 164 BCE to 63 BCE. They reasserted the Jewish religion, partly by forced conversion, expanded the boundaries of Judea by conquest and reduced the influence of Hellenism and Hellenistic Judaism.