Josephus - Oxford Worlds Classics

Josephus was a controversial figure in his own lifetime, and controversy continues to the present day. Was he a traitor to the Jews, an opportunist, or simply a realist? How far can we trust his motives, his judgement, and his accuracy in the account he gives of the Jewish revolt against Roman domination and his analysis of the factors and factions which led to the fall and total destruction of Jerusalem in ad 70? Where, on the spectrum from freedom fighters to rebels to partisans to terrorists, should we place the various groups whose activities from ad 66 to 70 Josephus describes in ever more denunciatory terms? The belligerent tone of much of Josephus unusually long preface (1.130), and his insistent claim to accuracy and truth in his unusually short final paragraph (7.4545), perhaps indicate his consciousness that there was controversial matter within.

What is beyond doubt is that The Jewish War, written by a participant and an eyewitness (or at least an ear-witness) to much of the action, and published only a few years after the events, is a fundamental text constituting our prime source, and sometimes our sole source, for the history of the Jewish revolt and its disastrous outcome, and also an important source for the long reign of Herod the Great and the increasing corruption and oppression of subsequent Roman rule in Judaea. And, though Greek was not Josephus first language, The Jewish War is an accomplished literary work, skilfully written in the traditions of Greek historiography (there are some splendid speeches imagined in the Thucydidean manner), and enlivened by personal interests and a rich variety of digressions and byways. Josephus writes well, in an easy flowing style, rising on occasions to an emotionally charged eloquence, and he knows how to keep his audience. He has a keen eye for drama, and a sensitive and patently genuine response to the pity of things.

Throughout there is ambivalence and the pull of contrary emotions. Josephus is clearly fascinated by Herod the Great, but admiration turns to revulsion as he describes the increasingly deranged king wading through slaughter (of his own family) to keep his throne. Josephus clearly admires the Romans, especially their precision-tooled military machine, but gives good reason for the provocation of the initial revolt from Rome and his own participation in it. His recognition of the inevitability of Romes ultimate victory has him castigating the blindness of the rebel combatants and dwelling on the fate of the non-combatants in Jerusalem who were the victims of that blindness and that victory. His capture by the Romans and subsequent release to act as Titus intermediary in the final assault on Jerusalem blackened his name among many Jews, and once established in Rome as an imperial pensioner he probably never revisited his native land: though granted Roman citizenship, and under an obvious obligation to his Flavian patrons to present their campaign and victory in Judaea in a favourable light, he does not always do so, and he leaves no doubt that his ultimate sympathies, despite all, are rooted in his Jewish birth and upbringing. Josephus has much to say, either directly or in speeches given to others, about the virtues and faults of the Jewish character: the virtues begin his book with the triumphant reclaiming of independence under the Maccabees, but in his view the perversion of those virtues into faults was the main cause of the final catastrophe. In the end Josephus can only blame the disaster on this particular generation of Jews (6.408).