The Jewish War: First half of Book 1

[cahn]

I 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.

Comments

Re: Paragraphs 121:239: Hyrcanus and Antigonus and Antipater!

[selenak]

Because of the years of civil war?

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!

[cahn]

Ah, thank you for this! (I feel like this is probably the kind of thing everyone knows or is supposed to know, but hey, what is classics salon for if not for telling me very simple Classics 101 stuff :D )

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!

[selenak]

LOL, as with everything, it’s a question of who you ask. I mean, he (Augustus, in his younger incarnation as Octavian) is the villain in “Hand of Isis”. But not because he does what remains of the Republic in.

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!)

[cahn]

I mean, he (Augustus, in his younger incarnation as Octavian) is the villain in “Hand of Isis”. But not because he does what remains of the Republic in.

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!)

[selenak]

Because he wasn't Roman and more importantly, not educated and raised in (or around) Rome. I mean, one or two centuries later this would not have mattered so much - that's when we get Emperors from Spain, from Africa, from Syria, and yet another century later from the Balcans - but the first century BC is still when Cicero is regarded as a "new man" because he's not from Rome itself but from nearby Arpinum. Caesarion would have been the son of much loved (and much hated) Gaius Julius Caesar, sure, but not by a Roman mother, and he would have been raised in far away Egypt in a monarchical system as by people treating him and his mother as living gods. The majority of Romans would have been absolutely horrified by the idea of him as a ruler.