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

[selenak]

It is indeed an issue in Feuchtwanger's novel. I did check Josephus' wiki entry to be sure and while I see LF for the trilogy cut down the number of wives down to two, both of these have a basis in reality - he was married to a war captive from Caesarea on Vespasian's orders, and then married a woman from Alexandria. Both of these circumstances are mentioned in the brief autobiography Josephus wrote which I think originally came together with either "Antiquities" or in his last book, "Against Apion", but these days is printed/posted separately, i.e. the marriages are not mentioned in "The Jewish War". The wiki entry mentions the names of none of the wives are given (as per custom), so Feuchtwanger invented the names "Mara" and "Dorion". Being thorough and because wiki can be misleading, I did check the relevant autobiography paragraph itself, and it's in typical defensive and self agrandizing Josephus style:

"For when the siege of Jotapata was over, and I was among the Romans, I was kept with much care, by means of the great respect that Vespasian showed me. Moreover, at his command, I married a virgin, who was from among the captives of that country yet did she not live with me long, but was divorced, upon my being freed from my bonds, and my going to Alexandria. However, I married another wife at Alexandria, and was thence sent, together with Titus, to the siege of Jerusalem, and was frequently in danger of being put to death; while both the Jews were very desirous to get me under their power, in order to haw me punished. And the Romans also, whenever they were beaten, supposed that it was occasioned by my treachery, and made continual clamors to the emperors, and desired that they would bring me to punishment, as a traitor to them: but Titus Caesar was well acquainted with the uncertain fortune of war, and returned no answer to the soldiers' vehement solicitations against me."

Now, in Feuchtwanger's novel, poor Mara is decidedly not a virgin, because she got raped by Vespasian himself, and him ordering Josephus to marry her is both for Vespasian a joke and a way to get rid of her. This is of course Feuchtwanger's invention and speculation, but what are the chances a war captive was a virgin, as Josephus here to his readers insists she was, especially since it would have been forbidden to him to marry her if she wasn't? And his insistence that Vespasian showed him respect during his time as a pow does conflict with Vespasian ordering him to marry a war captive, so I can see where Feuchtwanger got the idea that this taboo marriage was to Joseph(us) an exercise in humilation when it happened from.

BTW, when Josephus writes the next wife was "a woman from Alexandria", I guess most likely he means a woman from the Jewish community of Alexandria, but as he doesn't say so explicity, LF made her a Greek Alexandrian (who for the marriage to be legal converts to Judaism nominally but inwardly never accepts it and as the marriage breaks down refutes it.

ETA: Upon further thought, the Alexandrian wife may have actually been a non-Jew, because the last wife, the one Feuchtwanger left out and replaced by the re-marriage to Mara, is introduced as a woman from Crete
AND a Jewess from birth, and since he doesn't say that for the Alexandrian wife, chances that she was Greek are pretty high. (Alexandria was a multicultural city, but as a Macedonian foundation the Greeks were the dominating people.)

The exact quote: "...I also received from Vespasian no small quantity of land, as a free gift, in Judea; about which time I divorced my wife also, as not pleased with her behavior, though not till she had been the mother of three children, two of whom are dead, and one whom I named Hyrcanus, is alive. After this I married a wife who had lived at Crete, but a Jewess by birth: a woman she was of eminent parents, and such as were the most illustrious in all the country, and whose character was beyond that of most other women, as her future life did demonstrate. By her I had two sons; the elder's name was Justus, and the next Simonides, who was also named Agrippa. And these were the circumstances of my domestic affairs."

(None of the sons are the ones from Feuchtwanger's novels, partly, I suspect, because real life always offers more characters than you need in an novel, partly because the three sons in the novel are used by Feuchtwanger to say something very specific thematically in line with his "how to exist as a Jew and a world citizen at the same time" question, and partly because dead offspring of an ambitious Jewish father who die at least partly through his ambition are a life long red thread in his novels ever since his one and only own child died.)