The Jewish War: First half of Book 1
Feb. 14th, 2026 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnI am super not promising to always have this on Saturday, but yay long weekend!
Last week: I know some of you reading this study Talmud -- Josephus asserts at the very beginning that the "sufferings of the Jews" (presumably, in context of Josephus' writing, Titus destroying the temple, etc. though we won't get there for a while) are their own fault: "no foreign power is to blame." It was pointed out that the Talmud may (?) have its own opinion(s) as to whether the destruction of the Temple and the resulting diaspora was divine punishment? And regardless of the former, may also blame Titus? (I also don't know yet, because we haven't gotten there yet and won't for a while, whether Josephus himself thinks it's divine punishment or just plain old temporal consequences. My vague recollection of Feuchtwanger's Josephus is that he was thinking more of the latter, which is also very much borne out by this week's reading.)
This week: First half of Book 1 (Ch 22 / Par 444):
Okay, I must say the first part of this was a slog for me -- flitting between a lot of people I didn't know. Good thing we have this reading group or I might not have got through it. As it was, I had to take copious notes to even make a stab at writing up a summary (I won't promise I'll do this every week, but I had a little extra time and quite frankly I knew I wouldn't remember who any of these people were next week if I didn't), and I'm going to put them in comments so this post doesn't get super long. At least Josephus felt it was "inappropriate to go into the early history of the Jews," which would have made it really long. Anyway, it got substantially more interesting once Herod showed up!
Next week: Finish book 1.
Last week: I know some of you reading this study Talmud -- Josephus asserts at the very beginning that the "sufferings of the Jews" (presumably, in context of Josephus' writing, Titus destroying the temple, etc. though we won't get there for a while) are their own fault: "no foreign power is to blame." It was pointed out that the Talmud may (?) have its own opinion(s) as to whether the destruction of the Temple and the resulting diaspora was divine punishment? And regardless of the former, may also blame Titus? (I also don't know yet, because we haven't gotten there yet and won't for a while, whether Josephus himself thinks it's divine punishment or just plain old temporal consequences. My vague recollection of Feuchtwanger's Josephus is that he was thinking more of the latter, which is also very much borne out by this week's reading.)
This week: First half of Book 1 (Ch 22 / Par 444):
Okay, I must say the first part of this was a slog for me -- flitting between a lot of people I didn't know. Good thing we have this reading group or I might not have got through it. As it was, I had to take copious notes to even make a stab at writing up a summary (I won't promise I'll do this every week, but I had a little extra time and quite frankly I knew I wouldn't remember who any of these people were next week if I didn't), and I'm going to put them in comments so this post doesn't get super long. At least Josephus felt it was "inappropriate to go into the early history of the Jews," which would have made it really long. Anyway, it got substantially more interesting once Herod showed up!
Next week: Finish book 1.
Paragraphs 31-120: Mattias and a few generations under him
Date: 2026-02-15 06:38 am (UTC)- I understand he needs to give some context for what's going to happen, but I was rather amused that after that whole preface of "obviously it's better to write about history you actually saw" he started out with a bunch of history that he absolutely was not a part of!
- Josephus starts right away on the theme of divisions within the Jews: another faction expelled the sons of Tobias, who went to Antiochus and got him to invade Judaea (this is NOT in the books of the Maccabees to the best of my knowledge!!)
- The Hasmonaeans (Matthias and his five sons, of whom the oldest was Judas Maccabeus) drove Antiochus out (this and a couple of the following bullets are, I think, in the books of the Maccabees, which I didn't really have time to read but paged briefly through)
- After Mattias dies, Judas and his brothers kept fighting Antiochus's son, also OF COURSE named Antiochus (the text says Judas allied with Rome, but the footnotes say that didn't actually happen at this point)
- The brothers don't do so well against Antiochus Jr. and keep dying, up until Simon, who drove Antiochus out of Judea and became high priest
- Then Simon's son-in-law Ptolemy killed him (no reason is given) but his third son, John Hyrcanus, escapes
- Hyrcanus fought various people and was pretty successful at this time, according to Josephys, although he "was resented at home and provoked factional hostility." (sensing a theme)
- His oldest son, Aristobulus, became king, killed his fave brother, and died of remorse (this part was super gossipy)
- Another of Hyrcanus' sons, Alexander, became king (and prompty killed one of his remaining brothers)
- He had various conflicts, including one in which his entire army got trapped in a ravine "and was trampled to death by a mass of camels," which I find much funnier than maybe I should
- Some rebels against Alexander get help from Demetrius the Unready, whom the notes say is actually known as Demetrius the Ready, which I feel like is a rather profound difference
- Alexander killed a ton of people but eventually I guess wins over Demetrius and gets peace, but the brother of Demetrius, confusingly also named Antiochus, attacks him
- Alexander dies; his wife Alexandra (really??) ruled for a while, then his sons, confusingly named Hyrcanus (the heir) and Aristobulus (not the heir, but at least has a unique name) duke it out. "Most of Hyrcanus' troops deserted him and went over to Aristobulus." Whoops! (Aristobulus wins.)
Re: Paragraphs 31-120: Mattias and a few generations under him
Date: 2026-02-15 09:12 am (UTC)What this summarizing does is show the entanglement of Judea and the Jews in the Hellenistic world and its strife, which is part of the point, I suspect, i.e. Josephus wants the make clear (especially to his Greek reading audience with a snobbish attitude towards the Jews that they were not some weird outliers, they were often the center of the action. The action being the endless series of rivalries and wars between the successor kingdoms of Alexander the Great's generals. As a reminder to you, the three most important kingdoms established in the fallout of the "Successor Wars" (what Stealing Fire is about) after AtG's death were: 1) Macedon. (Its kings tend to be called Philip, Alexander or a combination thereof. Will eventually get mopped up by the Romans who get to demonstrate the legendary Macedonian phalanx is no more the best military tool it was when AtG defeated everyone else with it.) Macedon is also ruling the rest of Greece, and rest of Greece is never really happy about this. They won't be thrilled by the Romans taking over, either, but there you go. 2.) Egypt. Where the Ptolemies reign (when they don't have civil war against each other). Usually not the largest but the richest of the successor kingdoms, the breadbasket of the Ancient World. Has the best natural defense lines which usually, but not always, makes it hard to conquer. 3) The Seleukid Kingdom. The largest of the lot. Persia plus a few other Middle Eastern states (at its height, up and including Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. Would have been the most powerful all the time except they also have a lot of internal succession strife, plus they have an ongoing rivalry with Ptolemaic Egypt, though they're also intermarrying frequently. The Seleukid Empire repeatedly breaks up into smaller kingdoms and reunites, too. Their Kings during the relevant time period tend to be called Mithridates and Antiochus. Both the Ptolemies and the Seleucids think Syria should be theirs, which is, of course, there Judea comes in and why there are such a lot alliances of Jewish High Priests with either dynasty, depending on the tactical situation.
On to what Josephus actually writes: His paragraphs on Alexandra struck as the first but not the last example of Josephus following the general tendency of Ancient (male) historians: women in power are by default bad news. In varying degrees. I mean, he even grudgingly admits Alexandra did a pretty good job as regent but simultanously declares she was just a tool for the Pharisees. (Who interestingly get bad press from him. I didn't expect this out of the gospels, whose authors have their own grudge match with the Pharisees.) It will get worse when he gets to Cleopatra, and there are others. Like I said, though, this is anything but unusual. Reading through Suetonius and Plutarch reminded me of this all over again. If you're a woman, and you're not Cornelia Mother of the Gracchi, you should not be famous at all, you should be unseen and unheard, because if you are famous and forced historians to take note of you, you are bad news, and must be written thus.
Re: Paragraphs 31-120: Mattias and a few generations under him
Date: 2026-02-16 02:59 am (UTC)Yeah! I admit that I kind of have "the Jewish world" and "the Roman world" in two bins in my head, and they interact in certain specific places like "the Romans destroyed the Temple." So this really combatted that tendency.
As a reminder to you
Ha, thank you, that's useful. I'm still working very slowly on Alexander.
I mean, he even grudgingly admits Alexandra did a pretty good job as regent but simultanously declares she was just a tool for the Pharisees.
Heh, yeah, he's actually pretty good about Alexandra although he can't resist getting in that Pharisees dig. And yeah, I also had the general impression that the Pharisees were well respected outside of the Gospels. I'll be interested to see if they show up again in Josephus' narrative.
Paragraphs 121:239: Hyrcanus and Antigonus and Antipater!
Date: 2026-02-15 06:39 am (UTC)- The Romans eventually get involved, Pompey the Great in particular.
- After some everyone-is-annoying-here, Pompey lays siege to the temple and breaks in. "Pompey could only admire the resilience of the Jews." Romans are very admiring of the Jews in this book, as the footnote points out. I guess Pompey was on Antipater's side?
- After Pompey's death, Antipater hangs out with (Julius) Caesar. Okay. So Caesar likes Hyrcanus and Antipater, and in a dramatic scene lets Hyrcanus (instead of Antigonus, the son of Aristonulus, so, Hyrcanus' nephew, and who also, I think, has a unique name?) be high priest and Antipater "procurator of all Judaea." (The footnote does not know what that means.)
- Josephus says that Antipater was "already taking the administration of the country into his own hands, aware that Hyrcanus was a laid-back character too flabby for kingship" (203), which I think is hilarious and good job translator too! He sends two of his sons, Phasael and Herod, to be governor of Jerusalem and Galilee respectively. Herod has entered the chat!
- Hyrcanus doesn't like all of this and he and Herod clash. Menwhile, "Caesar was treacherously killed by Cassius and Brutus"(218). (It occurs to me that the only thing I know about all this is Shakespeare, and would like a crash course in what the Romans thought of Caesar's assassination, please?)
- There's a whole subplot with this guy Malichus who kills Antipater and then Herod kills him
Re: Paragraphs 121:239: Hyrcanus and Antigonus and Antipater!
Date: 2026-02-15 09:35 am (UTC)Aka Josephus not so subtly making a point to his Roman readers. It did occur to me that likely what he wants to achieve is an image change for the Jews among Romans from "one of many people we defeated" to "the new Carthaginians", i.e. the Great Worthy Opponent Who Only After A Titanic Struggle Submitted".
It occurs to me that the only thing I know about all this is Shakespeare, and would like a crash course in what the Romans thought of Caesar's assassination, please?
Which Romans and when? Because of course that makes a huge difference. Evidently opinion was divided directly after the event, hence years and years of Civil War, though obviously Cassius and Brutus had been kidding themselves if they thought they'd be greated as liberators by universal acclaim. Once Octavian/Augustus emerged as the final victor and started the Principate, he could present himself as a generous victor and blame all the proscriptions of the Second Triumvirate and the ca. 3000 dead Senators and Knights on Antony instead of himself as well, though writing too complimentary about Brutus and Cassius could get you side eyed and could end your career under the divine Augustus, too. The next few Emperors did not want to encourage assassinations, especially since assassinations and attempted assassinations, usually by the same senatorial class that produced Brutus & Cassius, happened anyway, so boo, hiss, on the conspirators. Once the Julian-Claudian dynasty was over, Brutus in particular got good PR (especially in Plutarch, which is what Shakespaere mainly drew on), though some remaining criticism, too, but the general consensus among ancient historians comes across as: even if you ascribe to them the best motives and believe they truly wanted to save the Republic, well, they achieved the exact opposite.
One footnote to (Julius) Caesar as liking Hyrcanus and Antipater: Suetonius backs Josephus up in his Caesar biography; remember, he mentions Caesar being a patron of the Jews and thus them mourning for him in particular after his assassination. Suetonius, writing under Hadrian who will turn Jerusalem into rubble, does not mean this as a compliment to Caesar. (It's mentioned as a minus much as Caesar multitasking by reading and replying to letters during gladiator games and having sex with adult men is.)
Re: Paragraphs 121:239: Hyrcanus and Antigonus and Antipater!
Date: 2026-02-16 03:05 am (UTC)Yes, thank you! :D
But really, this was great, thanks.
but the general consensus among ancient historians comes across as: even if you ascribe to them the best motives and believe they truly wanted to save the Republic, well, they achieved the exact opposite.
Because of the years of civil war?
he mentions Caesar being a patron of the Jews and thus them mourning for him in particular after his assassination. Suetonius, writing under Hadrian who will turn Jerusalem into rubble, does not mean this as a compliment to Caesar.
Oh, I like that. The first sentence, that is, not the second (although I do find it funny as well that it falls in the same category as multitasking and sex with adult men)
Re: Paragraphs 121:239: Hyrcanus and Antigonus and Antipater!
Date: 2026-02-17 11:21 am (UTC)No, because they had no plan after killing Caesar, especially not for the very real problems the Roman Republic had before Caesar already, and because the net result was Augustus establishing the Principate and thereby ending the Republic for good and starting the Monarchy. You have to consider that at this point, there had been more or less a century of civil war with brief interruptions of peace already. One can argue when the Republic starts to get into its ever increasing downslide as a state system (which btw doesn't mean the Empire is also downslising - the Romans might be fighting each other a lot, but they're also busy expanding Roman territory), but usually the Senate conservatives deciding beating Tiberius Gracchus to death (literally, with cubs made of the armchairs of their Senate stools because weapons in the Senate were not allwoed) for pushing for a land reform act to help with the ever increasing poor/rich divide is seen as when violence as a solution to political problems became cool in Roman politics. And even if you don't take the Gracchi (brother Gaius takes up the reformer mantle a decade later and also gets killed) as the starting point, it's usually the Marius vs Sulla civil war that's seen as the beginning of the end. It certainly establishes the precedent of a general marching on Rome itself and taking over and the troops being loyal to said general, not the Republic anymore. The winner Sulla eventually retiring from being a Dictator (and then dying in bed 2 years later) means the Republic goes back to being an oligarchy, but all the social problems the Gracchi wanted to address still are there, unsolve, and thus you get Catilina, then you get Clodius vs Milo on the Roman streets, you get the first Triumvirate and then Caesar vs Pompey and the Senate resulting in a win for Caesar. (Oh, and before the Catilinarian conspiracy, there is also Spartacus and the last big Slave Revolt.) Like I said - this was one bloody century. The Pax Romana Augustus gets praised for doesn't mean Rome no longer fights wars with other people, it means Romans no longer fight with each other. Anyway, back to my main point: the Republic in the way it had been established - centuries earlier, for a city-state - clearly wasn't working anymore for what had become the biggest gorilla of an Empire in their world, with only the Parthians (later Persians) competing anymore. Caesar and Augustus were ruthless powermongering autocrats, but they did have a variety of laws and reforms prepared. The conspirators did not. In fact, one of their chief mistakes was to let Antony talk them into upholding every single law Caesar had ushered through. Why did they do that? Because our aristocratic gang did not want to loose the juicy offices Caesar had given them. Why was this such a big mistake? Because when the Senate had murdered the Gracchi, the Gracchi had been then declared enemies of the state, their laws nullified, and their murder legalized as a just measure. This could not be done to Caesar as long as his laws and appointments were still kept up. But if he wasn't an enemy of the state, then clearly his killers were murderers. Cue funeral speech and the brief time where the conspirators had the upper hand in Rome itself over.
Re: Paragraphs 121:239: Hyrcanus and Antigonus and Antipater!
Date: 2026-02-18 05:23 pm (UTC)the Senate conservatives deciding beating Tiberius Gracchus to death (literally, with cubs made of the armchairs of their Senate stools because weapons in the Senate were not allwoed) for pushing for a land reform act to help with the ever increasing poor/rich divide is seen as when violence as a solution to political problems became cool in Roman politics.
Wow! That's something else.
Caesar and Augustus were ruthless powermongering autocrats, but they did have a variety of laws and reforms prepared. The conspirators did not. In fact, one of their chief mistakes was to let Antony talk them into upholding every single law Caesar had ushered through. Why did they do that? Because our aristocratic gang did not want to loose the juicy offices Caesar had given them. Why was this such a big mistake? Because when the Senate had murdered the Gracchi, the Gracchi had been then declared enemies of the state, their laws nullified, and their murder legalized as a just measure. This could not be done to Caesar as long as his laws and appointments were still kept up. But if he wasn't an enemy of the state, then clearly his killers were murderers. Cue funeral speech and the brief time where the conspirators had the upper hand in Rome itself over.
This is also super interesting, that it sounds like they didn't think things through enough and didn't want to lose their offices... but... that really backfired on them. Presumably they should have realized this? (I mean, I imagine if I was going around planning assassinations, I might not be able to figure out good long-range plans either, but...)
More classics 101 questions: So was Caesar Augustus generally considered a good thing for the Empire, then? Although/except that monarchies seem like a bit of a backslide from republics, at least in principle?
Re: Paragraphs 121:239: Hyrcanus and Antigonus and Antipater!
Date: 2026-02-18 06:48 pm (UTC)My own take is that yes, for the Empire, he was a good thing. As in, the old Republic was not sustainable anymore for a territory of this size, for starters. To pick but one tiny detail: in a city state, voting two new consuls into office each year to rule said city state is no problem. You can hold these elections, especially if the only people allowed to vote a male citizens above a certain age and income. But as the city state expands to swallow up the rest of Italy, you already have the problem of expanding citizenship to the rest of Italy as well, yes or no? Wars are fought over this. And fine, now the rest of Italy are Roman citizens. But what about everyone else? I.e. the people from all those conquered, annexed or bought realms around the Mediterranean? Renember a bit from the bible: Paul (the apostle) insisting he is a Roman citizen during his trial. This is why he gets beheaded and Peter, who wasn’t, gets crucified. That’s because by this time, more than a century after the end of the Republic, Roman citizenship was possible if you were a Jew, but not automatic, you had to apply and use connections (Josef in Feuchtwanger’s trilogy also gets told by Dorion she won’t marry him unless he becomes a Roman citizen first). Of course, once you have that citizenship, your children are automatically also Roman citizens. And this is true for Syrians, and North Africans etc. as well. Now imagine all these people demanding the right to vote when it comes to the top offices of the Roman state, which they would have had in the old Republic. How would you even organize such an election with the technical means of the first century AD?
Going back to Augustus: what he managed, and what Caesar did not, was to create the Principate in a way that was face saving for the Senate (i.e. the remaining Roman aristocrats). I mean, no one was fooled by his declaration that he was simply the first among equals (which is what Princeps means), but they could pretend to, and as opposed to a great many of his successors, he managed to keep the balance between making the occasional soothing noise and rubbing it in (once he had removed all the serious competition, that is). He stabilized what had been an incredibly unstable system, and gave it a frame work that endured centuries beyond the end of his own dynasty. Now obviously, the downsides were also there. Never mind having no choice in your head of state - Again, to pick but one detail: The system he created suddenly interfered in the private lives of people in a way the state never had before. Suddenly, adultery wasn’t just a private business you could and should deal within the family, it was something the state could prosecute you for. And of course, for every competent and sensible Princeps, you got two not so competent ones and the occasional possibly insane narcissist. (Though one could argue the last ones usually came to a sticky end, i.e. the monarchy as a self regulating system?) But without Octavian becoming Augustus, it’s very likely the Roman Empire would have broken up into a bunch of smaller realms. (The narrator in Hand of Isis thinks Caesarion could have ruled a better Empire, had he lived and Octavian died. I really don’t think so, because there is no way the majority Romans would have accepted him. In a world where Octavian loses and Cleopatra and Antony win, Caesarion might or might not end up leading an Eastern Empire, but Italy, Gaul, Spain etc., no.) Now whether this would have better or worse for the rest of the world, who knows. It certainly would have been different.
(Not in the sense of being freer, just to make that clear. There were only monarchies around at this point. And the big, big competition of the Romans in the Empire business, their one rival who’d stick around for the next few centuries having an Empire of often equal size, were the Parthians/Persians. Who are a monarchy all the way. And the Romans vs Persians thing will continue until the 7th century AD which is when after first the Persians nearly manage to defeat the Eastern Romans/Byzantium, who then manage an incredible comeback driving them back and nearly defeating them, these two utterly exhausted and war weary realms suddenly are facing a bunch of Arabs who just adopted a new religion and proceed to run over one of them. They aren’t Republicans, either.)
Caesar Augustus (Re: Paragraphs 121:239: Hyrcanus and Antigonus and Antipater!)
Date: 2026-02-23 05:17 pm (UTC)Hee, fair. Also the villain in Tarr's book. I'm looking forward to the compare and contrast, as I love the Tarr too! Uh, I guess I should get on reading Alexander so I can go on to Isis, I got distracted.
He stabilized what had been an incredibly unstable system, and gave it a frame work that endured centuries beyond the end of his own dynasty. Now obviously, the downsides were also there.
Ah, that makes a lot of sense.
I really don’t think so, because there is no way the majority Romans would have accepted him. In a world where Octavian loses and Cleopatra and Antony win, Caesarion might or might not end up leading an Eastern Empire, but Italy, Gaul, Spain etc., no.
Oh, that's interesting -- because he wasn't Roman, presumably?
Not in the sense of being freer, just to make that clear. There were only monarchies around at this point.
Ah, right!
Caesarion (Re: Paragraphs 121:239: Hyrcanus and Antigonus and Antipater!)
Date: 2026-02-23 05:30 pm (UTC)Paragraphs 240-444: Herod!
Date: 2026-02-15 06:40 am (UTC)- D'you remember Antigonus, Aristobulus' son? OK, so, there's this whole plot to put him on the throne with the help of the Parthians. The Parthians capture Herod's brother Phasael and Hyrcanus. The former kills himself bravely and the latter is a "miserable coward," lol.
- Herod tries to get the Arabs to help. Nope. "Herod gave the king's messengers an answer prompted by his feelings" (277) -- I also find this hilarious
- Mark Antony likes Herod (liked the late Antipater). Caesar Augustus likes him too, and they agree Herod can be king. Antigonus is still around, so they fight some.
- Herod's brother Joseph goes up against Antigonus while Herod's away (against Herod's order) and is killed.
- Herod avenges him, lays siege to Jerusalem, takes "time off from the siege to get married"(344) (which Josephus cites as Herod being so sure of himself, although the footnotes point out that it was an important political alliance), finally gets in, Antigonus is taken prisoner.
- "Those who had taken [Herod's] side had their loyalty confirmed by the distribution of favours, while the partisans of Antigonus were simply liquidated." Whoa. Sucks to be you!
- Herod fights Arabs for Antony
- There's an earthquake and Herod makes a stirring speech that I am told by the footnotes that Josephus totally made up
- Antony got defeated by Caesar Augustus .
Herod: Caesar, remember I was a good friend to Antony? Well, I could be a good friend to you!
Caesar: It makes more sense to be friends with me than with him!
- Anyway, Caesar is cool with him staying king, and Herod builds a lot of stuff and sponsors the Olympics
- About Mariamme, his wife. His son Antipater by his first wife gets banished. He kills her grandpa Hyrcanus (d'you remember him? gosh, you gotta imagine Herod's dad Antipater is rolling in his grave) and her brother Jonathan bc he was jealous of him. After all that, she is not a big fan of his, to put it mildly. He's really into her, though.
- The footnote to this says that Caesar Augustus apparently said that it was better to be Herod's pig (Greek: hus) than his son (huios), as the pig was less likely to be killed
- And, as I mentioned last week, in one of those epic miscommunications that really ought to be a romance novel or an opera (is it an opera? It should be), Herod kills Mariamme (as well as his brother-in-law Joseph).
Re: Paragraphs 240-444: Herod!
Date: 2026-02-15 10:15 am (UTC)She also claimed descent from the house of David, which Herod could not, which isn't immaterial to both the reason for their marriage and its eventual fate.
When reading all the passages about Antony, it's worth remembering that ancient historians had a problem there. Immediately after his defeat, he was the bad guy in official histiography. But starting with Gaius Caligula, the rest of the Julio-Claudian Emperors weren't just descended from Augustus, they were descended from Antony as well, and so some pro-Antony sources resurfaced. Which of course had to be combined with Augustus praise, but how? Blaming Cleopatra was part of the solution. These are some of the sources Josephus draws on. He has the additional problem that Herod started out as a client of Antony, who was instrumental in making him King, and ended up as a client of Octavian/Augustus, but he doesn't want Herod to look like a complete ungrateful opportunist who switched sides once Antony is falling. So not only is it said that Antony AND Octavian told the Senate that Herod would make a great King, but Herod is excused from not coming to Antony's aid militarily in his final showdown with Octavian by virtue of being tied down with the Arabs militarily, and then we have the "I was a friend to Antony and could be a good one to you!" "You're so awesome as a friend!" exchange with Octavian/Augustus placed after Antony's death. In between, we also get some Cleopatra badmouthing for taking Herod's sandalwood forest and destroying Antony's judgment because he supposedly was so infatuated with her.
Now, a recent historian I've read was also critical of Cleopatra but for the opposite reason: Herod, he argues, managed to keep his kingdom as a Roman client kingdom within his life time instead of it being made into a Roman province by changing sides in time, deserting Antony for Octavian, and it paid off for him. Cleopatra was the lesser monarch in the opinion of this historian for not dumping Antony in time and achieving the same result, thereby ending up as the last monarch of Egypt in the ancient world and getting her kingdom conquered and reduced to a Roman province. I find the comparison interesting but also unfair, because Cleopatra's and Herod's situations were not the same, and not just because Egypt was far more wealthier and strategically important than little Judea (and hence more of a must have, must directly control for Romans). Cleopatra, to make a long argument short so we don't get distracted, could not have allied with Octavian instead of Antony once Octavian's overall victory was on the horizon without sacrificing her oldest son (who among so many other things was her official co-ruler). She had insisted (and there is no reason to doubt it) that Caesarion was (Gaius Julius) Caesar's son throughout his life. Antony had backed her up on this. Octavian's main claim on the formerly Caesarian legions rested on being the adopted son of GJC - the only legitimate true son. As Octavian himself would put it when giving the order to kill Caesarion (and Antony's oldest son by Fulvia): "Too many Caesars." There could only be one.
Speaking of killing relations, it's a rich that Josephus goes on about Cleopatra having killed all her family and naming this as a uniquely evil trait of hers (never mind the Ptolemies offing each other through various generations and the fact the siblings of this generation had been at it when Cleopatra was still a child) in an overall story where he described the Jewish priestly and then royal dynasties doing the very same thing to each other.
Mariamme: did make it into opera. And drama. A lot of drama. Including one by Voltaire. Who, being Voltaire, managed to use the drama for more drama because it was part of a feud with his rival who also wrote a drama about Mariamme, and with Rousseau. More here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9rode_et_Mariamne
Byron (as in, the poet, Lord Byron) collaborated with a Jewish composer, Isaac Nathan, in a song "Herod's lament for Mariamne".
Herod building a lot of stuff is what his extra biblical main claim of fame rests on, because all these Herodian buildings include Masada in its final shape, Caesarea as a founded city, and of course, the Second Temple (i.e. the wall of tears remaining in Jerusalem). In terms of this book, I would say he's the first memorable character who emerges. So far, Josephus has presented him mainly in positives, though you may have guessed Mariamne won't be the last death. If you want a short and witty summation of Herod based mainly on his portrayal by Josephus, Extra History did one here.
Re: Paragraphs 240-444: Herod!
Date: 2026-02-16 04:13 am (UTC)but he doesn't want Herod to look like a complete ungrateful opportunist who switched sides once Antony is falling.
I was wondering about that a little! Because that does rather sound like the most economical explanation, but he sure was not saying that out loud.
Cleopatra, to make a long argument short so we don't get distracted
Oooooh. Well when I read Hand of Isis and rereadThrone of Isis I expect to hear the long argument :D :D
rich that Josephus goes on about Cleopatra having killed all her family and naming this as a uniquely evil trait of hers
...yeah.
A lot of drama. Including one by Voltaire. Who, being Voltaire, managed to use the drama for more drama
LOL. VOLTAIRE! Of course he did. And of course he made it into contemporary as well as historical drama!
Byron (as in, the poet, Lord Byron) collaborated with a Jewish composer, Isaac Nathan, in a song "Herod's lament for Mariamne".
Ooh. I couldn't find this song but I did find some of the other poems here. I wonder if the book has the Lament as well.
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Date: 2026-02-16 03:07 am (UTC)One thing that surprised me a bit was the degree to which Josephus writes about a large and sophisticated diaspora, envisioning his Aramaic work being read all over the Middle East, discussing the number of Greek translations of Jewish works by Greek-speaking Jews that his readers will already be familiar with, and even writing about a mini-temple that someone built in Egypt. (I had not heard of this and am curious to find out more, but am prioritizing actually posting at least something on this thread!)
On the other hand, there are a lot of places within modern-day Israel that are not ethnically Jewish: Samaria and the Greek colonies in the north were not a surprise, but I had not realized that this was also true of the coastal cities of the Gaza Strip and north to modern Caesariya (my grandparents lived not too far from there; it is possible to tour the Roman port facilities, but I had assumed the cities were Romanized after the war).
Alexander's mercenary troops are from the southern part of modern Turkey (Cilicia and Pisidia), which I think would have been Seleucid territory at the time (selenak will presumably correct me if I am wrong?). It's curious that they are supplying mercenary troops to sometime enemies of the Seleucids. My understanding is that ancient mercenaries are often in a long-term relationship with their sponsor (Carthage's Iberian mercenaries) and/or come from a tribal society that has excess fighting men (Caesar's Germans)--- I'm not sure what the situation is with these guys.
Finally, it's interesting to learn that the High Priest is clearly the main political leader in Josephus's understanding of the early Hasmonean kingdom. The High Priest certainly doesn't have this role in the Torah (there's a separate king), and seems to lose it fairly soon into the Hasmonean era as well. Why put him in charge, then? Or is this just based on I Maccabees and perhaps not actually true?
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Date: 2026-02-16 06:14 am (UTC)Ah, yeah, I am geographically challenged enough that the scale of the diaspora didn't stand out to me the way it did to you (I was mostly frustrated by how much geography/peoples I couldn't keep track of, ha), so I'm glad you mentioned that. (I am not going to be able to correct you about anything, but hopefully
About the High Priest: yeah, I went back and looked at the footnotes and they seemed a little confused about this too: the note to 1.70 says "On their coins, Hasmonaean rulers frequently used the Greek term basileus ('king'). In Hebrew, melekh ('king') is sometimes used, but so too is hokohen hagadol ('high priest')."
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Date: 2026-02-17 02:17 am (UTC)The Egyptian temple was built by a guy named Onias. Wikipedia says it is really not well documented outside Josephus, but seems to have really existed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Onias
The Talmud (Megillah 10a, https://www.sefaria.org/Megillah.10a.4?lang=bi) says:
GEMARA: Rabbi Yitzḥak said: I heard that one sacrifices offerings in the temple of Onias in Egypt at the present time. The Gemara cites the basis for the statement of Rabbi Yitzḥak. He maintains that the temple of Onias is not a house of idol worship but rather a temple devoted to the service of God, and he maintains that the initial consecration sanctified Jerusalem for its time and did not sanctify Jerusalem forever.
...
The other Sages said to Rabbi Yitzḥak: Did you say this halakha with regard to the temple of Onias? He said to them: No, I did not say that. Rava said, reinforcing his assertion with an oath: By God! Rabbi Yitzḥak did in fact say this, and I myself learned it from him, but he later retracted this ruling.
The Gemara asks: And what is the reason he retracted his ruling? The Gemara explains: It is due to the difficulty raised by Rav Mari, as Rav Mari raised an objection from the mishna: With regard to the sanctity of Shiloh, after the Tabernacle was destroyed there is permission to sacrifice offerings on improvised altars. But with regard to the sanctity of Jerusalem, after the Temple was destroyed there is no permission to sacrifice offerings on improvised altars. And furthermore, we learned in a mishna (Zevaḥim 112b): Once they came to Jerusalem, improvised altars were prohibited, and they did not again have permission to do so, and Jerusalem became the everlasting inheritance.
Apparently archaeologists have put forward a few modern Egyptian sites as potential locations of the temple of Onias, but none of them seems to be universally accepted.
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Date: 2026-02-17 06:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-16 04:49 am (UTC)So I can't speak to Josephus at all, not having read him, but I can give a general overview of the rest of it, without knowing how Josephus's own opinions go into it, and which sect, if any, he might have aligned himself to.
The Rabbis in the Talmud work under an understanding of the world in which God controls everything. Therefore, if the Jews suffer, then God is allowing it. How can that be? Why is that happening? It must be for our sins.
For the exiles, this must require Big Sins. The Big Sin of the destruction of the first temple was idolatry. The Big Sin of the destruction of the second temple was sinas chinam, which we can translate here to internal divisions, factionalism, etc. I feel this also has the side benefit of being likely along the lines of why it actually happened, too.
But even with it being divine punishment, it's still free will. There's at least one (I recall one, there might be more?) story of someone being sent to destroy the Jews, realizing this, and completely noping out of it. So the people who do it are at fault as well.
The Talmud has a bunch of stories about Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, and my own feelings on those stories is that I don't necessarily assume any historical accuracy of the stories themselves -- but are of interest that "these are the stories that these people were telling about the people who conquered them/oppressed them".
So when it comes to "stories about the rabbis dealing with caesar" (of which there are many), I don't put any faith in their actual historical accuracy, just that it shows their opinions of those dealings. There's the very famous story of "Yavheh and its sages" -- R' Yochanan ben Zakkai gets smuggled out of the city to talk to Vespasian and convinces Vespasian to let the Rabbis go to a completely different city, but doesn't ask him to spare Yerushalayim. So the question is, hey, he should have done that! But the answer is "okay but that was never going to happen, might as well get what you can from them".
And when it comes to putting the actual blame to the destruction, one of the few things that we're allowed to learn on Tisha B'av, a time when learning isn't allowed because learning Torah makes you happy, is the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, a story that poses the question of "which of these specific Jews is the one responsible for the destruction. No, the people who actually did it are not being considered the ones responsible (because, remember, it's because of our sins). One of these dudes are."
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Date: 2026-02-16 06:30 am (UTC)Ah, yeah, Josephus definitely is pushing internal divisions, factionalism, etc. as something that was constantly going on and which led to Bad Things happening (though we won't get to the actual destruction of the temple for a few more weeks, I think). But that's super interesting about it being both divine punishment and free will. I see that right after the story of Yavheh and its sages it talks about Titus -- which as
Thank you for the link to Yavheh and its sages, and Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, and the commentary. Those were really fascinating to read.
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Date: 2026-02-16 02:57 pm (UTC)In other topics, the Rabbis are not generally speaking fans of the Hasmoneans. There may be somewhere someone saying something nice about them, but it doesn't come to mind. I think this can be down to several issues, including the very long spread of time we're talking about here and what feelings still linger after a long time.
I haven't studied it specifically but I feel the enmity stems from a few possible sources. 1) religious-moral: the Hasmoneans were kohanim, and thus were not of the correct tribe to be kings. So they shouldn't have kinged themselves, it was Wrong. 2) religious-political: I don't actually know how far into the past the Tzedukim/Perushim divide went (it vanished after there stopped being a temple service to fight over, but I don't know when it started), but the Talmud preserves a lot of fights over how things should be done in the temple, and I have no idea how many kohanim were tzedukim vs. perushim, but there were a lot of arguments over how things should be done, and the perushim felt like they had the correct religious framework for how things should go, and that the tzedukim did not. And the Talmud is a bit "written by the victors" here because the rabbis are Perushim, and they're the ones who worked out how post-apocalypse Judaism would work, and the Tzedukim didn't, so the Perushim won. 3) general-political: they likely had different views on how to deal with non-religious political matters, and who would suffer for those decisions.
The gemara brings up a ton of kings here and there and there was also one king who massacred a bunch of rabbis but I'm not sure if that king was a Hasmonean or not. But there were several seperate massacres, which all led to the decision that an oral tradition must be written down or otherwise it will get lost -- I don't think the Rabbis were very happy to have to write things down but it was a decision they made, knowing that a lot had already been lost (there are several parts of the gemara where there's an argument about something that certainly used to be known, but the chain of transmission was broken and so they have to work it out from first principles). For instance, one of the 10 martyrs was a translator and disseminator of teachings, who translated teachings into the vernacular. So there's also a post-apocalypse feelings of loss permeating everything.
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Date: 2026-02-17 05:36 am (UTC)1) religious-moral: the Hasmoneans were kohanim, and thus were not of the correct tribe to be kings. So they shouldn't have kinged themselves, it was Wrong.
Ah,
So there's also a post-apocalypse feelings of loss permeating everything.
Gosh. That makes a lot of sense.
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Date: 2026-02-17 03:25 pm (UTC)Not necessarily written by someone different (although I'm sure it was; I just don't know who wrote that one, and of course the Talmud compiles hundreds of rabbis across centuries), but also which people/events are being discussed. The Rabbis of course like the rededication of the Temple and fixing things up, that was a good thing (like bsaically the only good things they ever say about Herod is him improving the Temple, for instance). However, there really isn't much about Chanuka in the Talmud and the impression that I have about why is because of anti-Hasmonean sentiment.
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Date: 2026-02-18 05:15 pm (UTC)