The Jewish War: First half of Book 4

[cahn]

Last week: Josephus really hypes Vespasian up! Galilee is also very nice! Discussion of Josephus' prophecy of Vespasian, both in Josephus and in Feuchtwanger's novelization, with detours into Antonia and Caenis.

This week: Internal strife in Jerusalem! Lots of internal strife!

Next week: Last half of book 4.

Comments

[cahn]

but I'm not sure all descendants of priestly clans would have been taught to do sacrifices or conduct blessings. So J's shock is perhaps not just elitism, but also might be really worried about the "blatant impiety" of a man like that wearing the vestments and trying to conduct religious services.

Ahhhh yeah okay I can see how that would be bothersome in a way that's not just elitism, as you say.

the Bosporus means it can't be starved out unless the besiegers have a superior fleet. And the Arabs have to hold their rear area in Anatolia, something the Muslims are not going to manage--- the frontier stabilizes on the Armenian border, just around where the old Persian border was--- until centuries later when the Turks take it over. Vespasian is playing on easy mode: Jerusalem is not just bordering a Roman province, but sandwiched between two of them (Syria and Egypt) so he has no worries about supply lines..

Ah, this really brings home Constantinople's better position, thank you!

the Greek apparently says "lestes", which Friedman says is used in this era to mean bandits but also "troublemakers" more generally. I remember reading a quite similar article about "latrones" in Latin back in college ("now Barrabas was a robber"; "erat autem Barabbas latro")--- the meaning is anywhere from "Barabbas mostly stole stuff in an apolitical way, but he had a kind of Robin Hood reputation which is why they wanted to free him" to "Barabbas was a violent revolutionary against the Romans, and the crowd preferred his approach to Jesus's mostly non-violent one".

Ooooh this is an interesting translation note! I didn't know that about Barabbas either. "Terrorists" did seem like a slightly odd word choice.