The Jewish War: Second half of Book 2

[cahn]

Last week: Lots of discussion of various contemporary Roman emperors and their families: Claudius, Agrippina, Nero, Britannicus. Quinctilius Varus and Arminius make an appearance as well. Also Josephus wants to tell you ALL about the Essenes, and none of us knows why but maybe we will find out sometime in the future?? (ugh, I haven't finished replying to comments yet on this either, sorry! -- hopefully will get to that tomorrow)

This week: The Jewish war starts! It's a mess. We do finally meet our hero Josephus, who is just the most heroic, clever, and brave guy. (Probably devilishly handsome too, although this is admittedly not in the text.)

Next week: where shall we read to in Book 3? ETA: All of book 3 for this week!

Comments

[cenozoicsynapsid]

I've been exhausted this week and done my reading late, I'm afraid. Florus the terrible governor reminds me of Cicero's speech "In Verrem" (Against Verres); Verres also notoriously beat and crucified Roman citizens during his tenure as governor of Sicily. As a nearer and more important Roman province, Sicily was not to be mishandled in this way, and moreover his great patron Sulla had retired at this point. (Cicero made his initial mark prosecuting one of Sulla's freemen in his defense of Sextus Roscius, who was accused of killing his father, if I recall correctly.)

Agrippa's speech is (besides portraying him sympathetically) an amazing opportunity for Josephus to flatter the Romans. But it is also true; the Jews aren't going to win this.

The sack of the "Syrian" towns is remarkably rapid, and suggests that these colonies are not deeply rooted--- they've been settled on Jewish land and are surrounded by Jews. This sort of intercommunal violence (covering the same territory as the present-day war) is miserable to read about. There's also the predictable descent of the rebellion itself into infighting and banditry. It's unsurprising to anyone who has ever had an administrative job that Josephus's attitude seems to be "we would have done a lot better if everyone had presented a united front against the Romans instead of arguing with each other."

[selenak]

Great point re: the Verres parallel. Mind you, it's one thing for Cicero (yes, a new man, but a Roman Senator with plenty of cash himself, otherwise he couldn't afford being of senatorial rank) to go after corrupt governors, and another for an ex-Jewish pow to present a Roman governor this way. Neither Josephus nor wiki tell me what became of Florus after he helped starting a revolt via his awful governorship, but even if he has died by the time Josephus is publishing, presumably he has a surviving family who could be insulted. Mind you, wiki also tells me Josephus in "Jewish Antiquities" but not in this book mentions Florus got his job via his wife being friends of Poppea (the second Mrs. Nero), and if that is so, it might indicate either his own gens isn't so influential or that they are now in the Flavian age compromised by their close association with Nero, so aren't likely to go after Josephus.

This sort of intercommunal violence (covering the same territory as the present-day war) is miserable to read about.

Indeed. One of my professors at the university decades ago said in a bitter jest mood that this entire territory is cursed and the only solution would be to forbid anyone at all to live there, and I don't think he was entirely joking.

But it is also true; the Jews aren't going to win this.

I think one of the most depressing things is that it comes as a no win situation. 100% agree that a military victory was impossible; but not doing anything except sending petitions to Rome and hope for a better governor would have meant more cruelty and oppression in the meantime (assuming that at some point such a petition is heard, which isn't a given).

I'm trying to think whether an alliance with the only non–Roman Empire still around would have been possible for the Jews, but what were the Parthians/Persians even doing at this point, and would they have been interested in tweaking the Romans by sending some troops to Judea?

[cenozoicsynapsid]

The Parthians have just fought the Romans in a five-year campaign over Armenia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman%E2%80%93Parthian_War_of_58%E2%80%9363) which ended in a mildly pro-Parthian compromise: they get to make their guy king of Armenia but he has to go to Rome to be crowned by the emperor. The war had been bloody and expensive for both sides. The Romans lost two legions in a humiliating defeat, but the Parthians had gotten lucky (according to Wikipedia, exploiting mis-coordination between two Roman generals--- shades of Tannenberg). So no, this is a bad time to hope the Parthians will start something. The *next* two Jewish wars will apparently see some Persian interventions.

[cahn]

Ah, this is interesting, thank you!

[cahn]

and another for an ex-Jewish pow to present a Roman governor this way.

Ah, that didn't register for me. Interesting.

[cenozoicsynapsid]

The notes say that Albinus (the other bad governor) dies in the civil war between Otho and Vitellius "which may explain J's hostility" (note to 2.272) and that Florus (note to 2.531) was "no longer important in Roman society" when J was writing, but doesn't say why.

The Oxford Classical Dictionary doesn't say what happened to him either. I have no idea what evidence was behind the translators making this claim.

[cahn]

Oh, ha, I must have missed those notes. Thank you!

[cahn]

No worries, this was totally me last week and you aren't particularly late! I'm so happy to be getting your comments as you clearly are much more knowledgeable than I am (uh, not that this is at all hard, but anyway) and it's so fun to see you and selenak talk about stuff :D

What happened to Verres? (Not necessarily aimed at you, if you're busy/tired; also aimed at selenak :D )

Agrippa's speech is (besides portraying him sympathetically) an amazing opportunity for Josephus to flatter the Romans. But it is also true; the Jews aren't going to win this.

Ah, yes, he's really laying it on, isn't he? But yeah, also true :/

This sort of intercommunal violence (covering the same territory as the present-day war) is miserable to read about.

:/ I guess I didn't quite realize how much the geography overlaps, so thank you for pointing that out. Ugh :(

It's unsurprising to anyone who has ever had an administrative job that Josephus's attitude seems to be "we would have done a lot better if everyone had presented a united front against the Romans instead of arguing with each other."

He did say that in the preface, and I guess we didn't have to wait too long to see it... heh, my job gets close enough to administrative at times that I laughed ruefully at that.

[(Anonymous)]

Verres saw the writing on the wall during Cicero's prosecution of him in the Senate--- this is one of the situations where the fact that the trial is even taking place is a really bad sign--- and went into exile at Marseille, France. He was perhaps later proscribed (put on a death list and his property marked for confiscation) by Marc Anthony, but this is apparently not entirely certain.

[cahn]

Ah, thank you!! That all makes a lot of sense.