The Jewish War: Book 3

[cahn]

Last week: The Jews are basically in an abusive relationship with Rome and have no good options; they choose the particular bad option of picking a war with Rome that they can't win. The Romans are terrible. Also continuing discussion here about Britannicus, Messalina, and the Praetorians.

This week: Vespasian comes down like a ton of bricks. That whole !!!! part of Josephus happens, where he gets stuck in the cave with a bunch of others and invents and wins the Josephus problem (well, in the text it says they draw lots, so he doesn't actually really cite what developed into the problem) (*) and surrenders to the Romans once he and another guy are the only ones left, and prophesies to Vespasian that he will become emperor. (selenak: Is it Feuchtwanger's invention to add the nomenclature of Messiah in there too? That definitely... upped the ante.)

(I'll comment more on this tomorrow -- I got done with the reading late and obviously barely got this written.)

Next week: first part of book 4, to "Despite the Zealotes didn't exactly behave as if they disbelieved the prophecies, they themselves contributed to their fulfillment" (Josephus describing the Zealotes as the worst!) (388)

(*) E. wanted to know what I was reading, so I told her about the Josephus problem, and she said, "Real-world applications of math!"

Comments

Re: How Antonia and Caenis saved the Empire (sort of)

[cahn]

WOW. Well, I see that my days of getting wild drama and gossipy sensationalism have surely reached a middle.

Antonia decides to write to Tiberius along the lines of "your bff murdered your son and wants to become the next Emperor, are you blind!" with the message disguised as a chatty family letter about the kids.

So how does she do this in a way that Sejanus thinks is harmless but Tiberius knows exactly what's going on?

Because the girl is a twelve years old virgin, and Roman law forbids executing virgins, she gets raped first, then executed.

This is both awful and also seems to be kind of a problem with this law...

Re: How Antonia and Caenis saved the Empire (sort of)

[selenak]

Unfortunately, Cassius Dio, who provides us with the Antonia and Caenis write the letter story, doesn't mention just how she made it sound harmless to Sejanus yet clear to Tiberius. (Hence Robert Graves inventing the detail that Antonia makes her son Claudius travel to Capri ostensibly to ask Tiberius for permission to dedicate his latest historical book to him, but in reality to deliver her secret letter which she has put inside of the petition to dedicate the book, and because Claudius has the harmless idiot reputation and is his brother-in-law, Sejanus lets him pass.

Here's the exact passage by Cassius Dio:

It was at this time that Caenis, the concubine of Vespasian, died. I mention her because she was exceedingly faithful and was gifted with a most excellent memory. Here is an illustration. Her mistress Antonia, the mother of Claudius, had once employed her as secretary in writing a secret letter to Tiberius about Sejanus and had immediately ordered the message to be erased, in order that no trace of it might be left. Thereupon she replied: "It is useless, mistress, for you to give this command; for not only this but as whatever else you dictate to me I always carry in my mind and it can never be erased." And not only for this reason does she seem to me to have been a remarkable woman, but also because Vespasian took such excessive delight in her. This gave her the greatest influence and she amassed untold wealth, so that it was even p289 thought that he made money through Caenis herself as his intermediary.

Re: How Antonia and Caenis saved the Empire (sort of)

[cahn]

Oh, okay! That's too bad. Why not give me exactly the details I want, ancient writers! :)

(Although okay they do all seem to give lots of sensational gossip, whether it's true or not, so I guess they do give me some details I want!)