It is ironic that the only gentile to get it so far is named after a Hellene.
Then again how many people have read the Book of the Maccabees these days much less Histories.
The first book of Maccabees has some curious items in it--for example, a sketch of the rise of the Roman empire in chapter 8, and a letter from a king of Sparta to the Jewish high priest about 150 years earlier which claims that the Spartans were descended from Abraham (12.21).
The feast of dedication is dated to the 25th of Chislev, the ninth month (4.52)--that is, they were still using the Mosaic calendar which started the new year in the spring, rather than the Babylonian year adopted by the Jews later, which has the new year in the fall.