The Jewish War: Second half of Book 4
Mar. 29th, 2026 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnLast week: Mass suicide (canonical), Constantinople (not present in canon), pro-surrender factions, the translation of "bandits/terrorists/troublemakers" (apparently "lestes" in Greek). Anyone familiar with the Talmud want to weigh in about the question of marrying a raped-by-a-Roman woman in Jewish society?
This week: Jerusalem continues to be torn apart by various factions. Simon son of Gioras makes his appearance. The Year of the Four Emperors happens, with Vespasian finally making his bid for emperor.
Next week: Half of book 5? To where? Fromselenak: until the tale of Kastor duping Titus has concluded: “…for they believed nothing but that their opponents had thrown themselves into the fire."
This week: Jerusalem continues to be torn apart by various factions. Simon son of Gioras makes his appearance. The Year of the Four Emperors happens, with Vespasian finally making his bid for emperor.
Next week: Half of book 5? To where? From
selenak: until the tale of Kastor duping Titus has concluded: “…for they believed nothing but that their opponents had thrown themselves into the fire."
no subject
Date: 2026-03-30 05:04 am (UTC)Right. So this starts with John, that infinitely guileful person, taking control of a faction of the Zealots. (The worst ones, natch.) The Sicarii take possession of the Masada fortress. Vespasian marches on Gadara, which sells out to the Romans; the opposition kills the man thought to be the leader of negotiations with the Romans and then runs away; Vespasian's guy Placidus destroys them and the village where they were hiding out. Meanwhile Vindex revolts from Nero.
Also Josephus talks about the history of a spring near Jericho and about Joshua and Elisha, which was a nice little moment. Also what sound like very yummy dates. Also the Dead Sea, "so when Vespasian arrived and wanted to test the properties of the lake, he had some non-swimmers thrown into the deep water with their hands tied behind them, with the result that they all floated on the surface as if forced up by a column of air." The footnote says, "a remarkably casual reference to this ordeal, imposed solely out of scientific curiosity" which I thought was a bit funny, because Josephus does in fact have a tendency to go on about lots of various horrible things happening without always pausing to reflect about how terrible it is!
Anyway, next Nero meets his end, apparently because he was so terrible as to get freedmen to be his administrators. Galba is proclaimed emperor and then "assassinated in the middle of the Roman forum," then Otho is his successor but gets defeated. Meanwhile, Vespasian may be watching too closely to actually take the time to munch popcorn but that's basically what he's doing. "Some divine prompting sent Titus sailing back from Greece to Syria and hurrying to join his father in Caesarea." The footnote says, "or the beginnings of the conspriacy which was to lead Vespasian to make his bid for supreme power in July of the same year?"
Now there's another dude, Simon son of Gioras, who "could not match the pure deviousness [of John]... but he was a man of remarkable physical courage and audacious ambition." He joins the Masada guys, then gets his own guys to do banditry and it looks like he's gonna attack Jerusalem, so the Zealots decide to do battle with him. Simon then decides he'll conquer Idumaea, and with the help of the turncoat Jacob he does that. The Zealots capture Simon's wife in hopes this'll calm him down, but in fact he gets worse and they are like, never mind, uhh, have your wife back. "Mollified for the time being, Simon made a brief pause in the relentless run of killings." Wow, Simon.
(Vespasian: is going to run out of popcorn at this rate!)
Back to Italy! Josephus reminds us about Otho, and now Vitellius is descending on Rome.
Back to Jerusalem: Vespasian is destroying everything around Jerusalem. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem itself, Simon on the outside, John on the inside. And John's Zealots are so bad that not only do they murder men and rape women, which is bad enough, they "went all effeminate, doing up their hair, wearing women's clothes, drenching themselves in scent, and applying eyeliner to make themselves pretty." (I laughed at the eyeliner. REALLY, Josephus.) But apparently eyeliner is not good enough for these guys; John's army turns on him and decides they'll let Simon inside instead. So Simon "became master of Jerusalem."
Vespasian is not super excited about Vitellius becoming emperor, where by "not super excited" I mean "really angry." His officers are like, hey, you should be emperor yourself! Vespasian is all, aww, nah, I really couldn't... oh, you really think so? If you insist! The footnote here says, "the dating of documents from Egypt suggest a carefully orchestrated coup, with the governor of Egypt already committed to support Vespasian before he was acclaimed emperor by his soldiers."
Anyway, all this is working out for Vespasian, who then remembers that awesome, smart, good-looking guy who prophesied he'd be emperor, and frees him. He goes up against Vitellus and eventually Vitellus is killed.
...okay, so this is clearly the long-promised Year of the Four Emperors and I want everything about it please!
no subject
Date: 2026-03-30 05:38 pm (UTC)To be fair to Josephus: so many terrible things happen that the book would be twice as long if he were to dwell on how terrible they were. Mind you, he does have time to dwell on the horrors of guyliners, so....
And he has time for landscapes. This is not a complaint on my part! I love the landscape descriptions! I'm also wondering whether he's writing them with a certain diaspora longing. I mean, Feuchtwanger has him return to Judea a couple of times post war since the Flavians gave him some estate there, and he totally could have done that in rl, but it's not mentioned he did in his short autobiography and we don't know either way, so it's also possible he writes all of this in Rome describing the country he at the very least won't see again in the near future.
Returning to the men drenching themselves in perfume, wearing women's clothes and eyeliner: this is standard ancient Roman code for BAD GUYS, whether in the Republic or in the Empire. Not all of the Emperors classified as evil were accused of it - for example, Caracalla and Commodus get acccused of crimes galore, but with their soldier and gladiotor fetish not of that - , but many. (Including recently to Josephus Caligula and Nero.) So if he accuses John's followers of doing that, he wants to make really sure his Roman readers despise them.
I did find it interesting that according to Josephus both Titus and Herod Agrippa take off in the direction of Rome when the news about Nero's death and Galba's accession reaches them, but while Titus goes back upon the update on the Switch-an-Emperor situation Agrippa travels on and thus gets to experience the second half of the Year of the Four Emperors in Rome. Might he have been one of Josephus' sources? And let's not forget Titus and Agrippa's sister Berenice are in the process of becoming an item at this point.
"Divine inspiration"/conspiracy : there's also this letter reaching Vespasian from totally one of the other Emperors telling him he's the best and should avenge him. Josephus phrases it carefully so he doesn't 100% say it's from the guy, just that it sure looked that way. To appreciate what's going on here, it might be helpful to read Suetonius' biography of Titus where it's mentioned that not only could Titus write shorthand as fast as a professional secretary (shorthand already existed and had been invented by Cicero's secretary), but he could imitate just about any handwriting and "had it in him to be a master forger". (Feuchtwanger makes that connection in his novel, too.)
Now, we'll never know when exactly Vespasian decided to go for broke, but once Galba had proven that you could indeed become Emperor without being related to the Julio-Claudians at all, neither through blood or adoption, just based on your legions, well, then he may have indeed recalled a certain prophecy. The scene where Vespasian's officers have to urge him is another Roman trope, though in all fairness, I think it's about to become one and may not yet have been. It has staying power, though. A couple of centuries later when Constantine's Dad Constantius Chlorus dies in York, his British legions absolutely INSIST, you know, that young Constantine should replace him in the Tetrarchy not just as Caesar but Augustus. They INSIST. What's Constantine supposed to do, eh?
The Four Emperors:
Nero: What an artist dies with me! (or, newly translated by Tom Holland): That I should die a mere artisan!
*commits suicide assisted by his freedman because he can't manage on his own*
Galba: Before this year, I am basically described as everyone's favourite reliable old warhorse cliché. My legions already wanted me to become Emperor when Caligula was killed, but I sat it out on this occasion. Which was why Claudius appreciated and trusted me. Wasn't keen on Nero, but didn't join the first few conspiracies until Vindex' uprising. Everyone tells me that after those crazy and effiminate Claudians and Julians, Rome needs a soldier bringing back good old fashioned Roman virtues! Rome clearly wants and needs a Man's Man, and it is going to get one!
Praetorians: So, Galba, our prefect told us you'd give us 30 000 sesterces as a welcome donation. That's why we finally abandoned Nero! Hand over the money!
Galba: Nope. Firstly, I already could only pay my own legions through borrowing money from Nero's former bff and crony Otho, secondly, I'm all about bringing back manly virtue! No extra money for you, Praetorians! Also, I have this great idea of how to fill the depleted by Nero treasury again. Firstly, all of those towns who didn't declare for me but remained loyal to Nero get extra taxed. Secondly, all of Nero's buddies have to hand back the gifts he have them! This includes you, Oracle of Delphi! Nero gave you 40 000 Sesterces as a donation!
Galba: *is surprised when he's being ganged up on by the Praetorians, Otho and chums, as well as his own unrewarded soldiers and killed on the Forum*
Otho: I'm a man's man, too, to wit, Nero's man. If Nero had a bff, it certainly was me. By which you can bet I have a reputation as a dandy, to put it mildly. Famously I married Poppea back when Nero was still afraid of his Mom finding out he wanted to ditch Octavia for Poppea, and thought I could be his and her beard. But then I fell in love with Poppea, and things got awkward for a while, providing opera material for later generations of musicians. Still, Nero really liked me, so I didn't end up dead, just made a governor in faraway Lusitania while he killed Octavia and married Poppea. I then surprised people by actually being a good Governor and staying in Lusitania for the next ten years, until things went crazy and I thought, hey, why not? I mean, Galba was 73 already, and when I lend him that money, I naturally thought he'd adopt me - remember, Nero and me, we were just in our early 30s - and I'd be his successor. But no. I had a little chat with the Praetorians and then finally could try out what it was like to be called Caesar. Incidentally, I was still feeling a bit sentimental about Nero, so I revoked the damnatio memoriae the Senate had put on Nero's name and executed that traitor of a Praetorian prefect Tigellinus who had betrayed him. Time to start my reign!
Vitellius: Not so fast, pretty boy! Galba had the right idea in that Rome needs a manly soldier, but naturally no one is manlier than me, so I'm declaring myself Emperor with the help of my German legions and starting my march on Rome!
Suetonius Senior, Dad of the future Biographer: Err, Boss, I as your military tribune have to tell you we can't recruit an army against Vitellius fast enough, I mean, Galba's guys aren't keen, and you only have the Praetorians at hand! New recruits would have to be trained and Vitellius has trained soldiers already!
Otho: How about Gladiators? They're trained killers, too! Recruit 2000 Gladiators, faithful tribune!
Otho and new Praetorian/Gladiator army: actually win the first three skirmishes against Vitellius followers, but lose the first big battle.
Otho: I could fight on, but I always hated the Civil War chapers in our history. And I can see the writing on the horizon. So if I'm going to die anyway, I'm going to do so now so my soldiers and Vitellius' soldiers can live. *commits suicide unassisted*
Suetonius Junior, the biographer: "Nothing in Otho' sappearnce or lifestyle had ever suggested that he was a man of such courage. (...) It was for this reason, I think, that his death startle dpeople so much more than it would otherwise have done: the fact that it was so at odds with his life. Many of the soliders present in the camp, their faces wet with tears, rained kisses on his hands and feet as he lay before them, crying out that he was the bravest of men, their one true Emperor, before promptly immolating themselves next to his funeral pyre."
Vitellius: Time for a man's man AT LAST! Pray remember the Austrians will give FW the code name "Vitellius" in Seckendorff Jr.'s secret diary. I drink like a fish, I swear, my soldiers love me for it, naturally. My first wife Petronia divorced me, so naturally I killed our oldest son, because how very dare! Also her second husband. She still didn't marry me again for some reason, so I married someone else. BTW, Suetonius claims as a boy I was one of Tiberius' sex toys, but Suetonius was the son of an Otho fan, so feel free to ignore this.- Anyway, any cities who didn't applaud me when I went through them en route to Rome lived to regret it, as I had my guys whip anyone disrespecting me. Anyway, Otho having proved that there were still Nero fans in Rome after all, I thought I might get them by ordering Nero's compositions to be played again at banquets. Speaking of banquets: I eat like a pig. Yeah, Roman historians really don't like me.
Sporus: They aren't the only ones. Allow me to interrupt these egotists with my own tale. I started out as a good looking boy resembling the late Poppea. So Nero ordered me castrated and married me during his big tour through Greece. Ever after, I wore only female clothing and jewelry and was supposed to be addressed as a woman. Whether I saw myself as a woman, man or neither, no one will ever now, because none of these guys cared to note down my opinions, safe the last one. I was among the four people still with Nero when he killed himself. Then the Praetorian Prefect - the one promising his troops all that money which Galba never paid - told me I was supposed to be his wife next. Thankfully, he didn't live long, and Galba didn't bother with me one way or the other. But Otho was still hung up about Poppea, so guess what happened? But at least Otho was clean and smelled nice. Next came Vitellius. UGGh. He thought it was funny if I was to starr in a public performance of "The Rape of Persephone" as the lead, with gladiators playing Hades and raping me in public. At this point, I committed suicide. I was just one of many that bastard Vitellius delighted in tormenting.
Vitellius: Eunuchs can't take jokes, I guess. Anyway. Here I am, partying in Rome and having fun, when news arrives Vespasian's legions have declared HIM to be Emperor. WTF!
Domitian: Yeah, so while Dad and Titus were in the East, having fun plotting in Alexandria, me and Uncle Sabinus were actually in Rome when things went up in flames, and I mean that literary - teen me and Uncle S were hiding in the Temple of Jupiter because we didn't want to be killed by bloody Vitellius, and his followers torched the temple! Uncle died, I disguised myself as a priest of Isis, and then hid with the mother of a school pal until our guys had the upper hand in Rome. Did I get a triumph like Dad and Titus? I did not. You try surviving staying in a torched Temple! Oh, yeah, about Vitellius - naturally at this point most people hated his guts, plus his troops were getting beaten by Dad friendly troops, so Vitellius thought he'd better run, only he didn't have any friends to hide with. Instead...
Suetonius the biographer: "Instead the soldiers tied his hands behind (Vitellius') back, slung a noose round his neck and ripped off his clothes, before dragging him half naked past people who amused themselves by raining down blows and jeers at him, along the entire length of the Sacred Way and to the Forum. (...) Finally, he was tortured to death by having his flesh delicately and methodically sliced from his body on the Gemonian Steps, from where his corpse was then dragged on a hook to the Tiber."
Domitian: I found out Dad had won for good when people started hailing me as Caesar. And that was the Year of the Four Emperors.
On Josephus' text plus Constantine
Date: 2026-03-31 05:13 am (UTC)Well, right, exactly! I thought it was weird to get on his case about this particular random terrible thing. (Although lol to guyliners!)
I also love the landscapes, although it's a bit funny to me when he just stops the action cold to give a little landscape lecture, and then a couple of pages later we're back to various violent acts...
To appreciate what's going on here, it might be helpful to read Suetonius' biography of Titus where it's mentioned that not only could Titus write shorthand as fast as a professional secretary (shorthand already existed and had been invented by Cicero's secretary), but he could imitate just about any handwriting and "had it in him to be a master forger". (Feuchtwanger makes that connection in his novel, too.)
Ohhhhh! Right, I'd forgotten about that! I should really reread after we finish this (although I should probably get through all this other stuff first, lol)
They INSIST. What's Constantine supposed to do, eh?
Ha!
Re: On Josephus' text plus Constantine
Date: 2026-03-31 07:35 am (UTC)I'm trying to think of what his writerly role model was there. It's been so many decades since I read Caesar's Gallic War at school that I cannot recall whether or not he did some landscape description between battles, but he might have done. And I haven't yet read Herodetus or Thukydides on the Greek-Persian Wars. (Plutarch and Suetonius in their respective biographical works don't do landscapes, but then they're not writing histories of eras or wars, they're describing specific lives.)
Titus knowing shorthand, btw, and being extremely good at it (and at forging other people's handwritings) is an interesting hint about his early education and where at this point his father thought it should be going. Because your usual Roman aristocrat doesn't need to know shorthand. 'That's what you have your secretaries for. Reading and writing, yes, obviously, but not shorthand. HOWEVER, remember, Vespasian had managed to get Titus being chums with Britannicus, i.e. the Emperor Claudius' son (my own guess is that he managed it via Caenis, who after all was the much trusted freedwoman of Claudius' Mom), so maybe Titus was being taught shorthand in order to later work as a kind of secretary/administrator for Britannicus (with Vespasian this early thinking Britannicus and not Nero would end up as Emperor post Claudius).
Titus shorthand
Date: 2026-04-03 12:09 am (UTC)Ooh, yeah, I was wondering how Titus got to be a master shorthand...er and forger but it makes sense if Vespasian had the idea that he would work with Britannicus! That would be an interesting AU (or, alternatively, angst for Titus as he's investigating Britannicus' murder... just saying... :) )
On the Year of the Four Emperors
Date: 2026-03-31 05:14 am (UTC)So what's the deal with Nero? Is it really elevating freedmen that got him here?
Galba: *is surprised when he's being ganged up on by the Praetorians, Otho and chums, as well as his own unrewarded soldiers and killed on the Forum*
WHOOPS. (What does the Oracle of Delphi have to do with it, or is it just that they lend some legitimacy to Galba's enemies?)
If Nero had a bff, it certainly was me. By which you can bet I have a reputation as a dandy, to put it mildly.
...oh!
Famously I married Poppea back when Nero was still afraid of his Mom finding out he wanted to ditch Octavia for Poppea, and thought I could be his and her beard. But then I fell in love with Poppea, and things got awkward for a while, providing opera material for later generations of musicians.
...I should really watch/listen to this!
Otho: I could fight on, but I always hated the Civil War chapers in our history. And I can see the writing on the horizon. So if I'm going to die anyway, I'm going to do so now so my soldiers and Vitellius' soldiers can live. *commits suicide unassisted*
I mean... good for you, in the best Roman way! For someone who's now dead, anyway.
Pray remember the Austrians will give FW the code name "Vitellius" in Seckendorff Jr.'s secret diary.
Oh right!
My first wife Petronia divorced me, so naturally I killed our oldest son, because how very dare! Also her second husband. She still didn't marry me again for some reason
LOL! Yeah, can't imagine why.
Sporus: They aren't the only ones. Allow me to interrupt these egotists with my own tale.
OMG, this poor kid!
Vitellius: Eunuchs can't take jokes, I guess.
This was hilarious and I am going to the Bad Place :P
Finally, he was tortured to death by having his flesh delicately and methodically sliced from his body on the Gemonian Steps
Wow, yeah, okay, that's. Something.
Re: On the Year of the Four Emperors
Date: 2026-03-31 08:26 am (UTC)Nah, not really. I mean, this is another trope, already used against Claudius who had made two of his freedman his most prominent and powerful ministers (Narcissus and Pallas; Narcissus was the one who organized Mesallina's demise, while Pallas later championed Agrippina as the next wife), and not for nothing had Seneca written young Nero a speech for his first big address to the Senate where he promised that no longer would the Empire be ruled "from the household" (i.e. no more women like Mom and freedmen like Pallas and Narcissus). The Senatorial class, from whom all the Roman historians derive, certainly hated influential freedmen and found it outrageous when they got to have the kind of influential, money-making positions that were supposed to be reserved for the Roman aristocracy only. And despite Nero's Seneca penned "no women and freedmen influencing MY politics, I promise!" plea in his inaugural address, he would end up with some influential freedmen (and a freedwoman, his first love Acte) in his circle and government as well. Which isn't surprising, because a former slave whom you personally have freed owes his complete loyalty to you and only to you, he doesn't have an influential family or faction to promote, and he can never, ever, be a rival (at this point in time; there are some later Emperors, notably Diocletian, who were possibly the sons of freedmen). Making a Roman aristocrat your right hand man means possibly fostering a potential rival, or at the very least someone whose interests do not necessarily align with your own. Not so much a freedman.
So promoting freedmen to high positions didn't make either Claudius or Nero more popular, BUT I don't think it was ever a deciding factor in Nero's downfall despite Roman historians bitching about it (and Josephus who hears the tale from same echoing it). Why not? Because naturally the Flavians employed them as well! And a freedwoman, Caenis, wasn't just Vespasian's life partner but an enormously successful businesswomen who like Narcissus and Pallas became a millionairess not just through wise investments but because she could sell her influence and ability to get your son or cousin a good job. (With the rumor being that she acted as Vespasian's agent in this and shared the cash with him.) Of course Josephus wouldn't dare to write critical stuff about this since he depends on the Flavian patronage, but years after all three Flavian Emperors are dead, Roman historians don't use it to describe Vespasian as a bad Emperor, either.
(Mind you, it's arguable whether or not Josephus himself counts as a freedman. He was a war captive, and war captives were sold as slaves usually; Vespasian seems to have kept him as a personal servant until he freed him, and like a freedman, Josef ben Matthias then took his patron's name, hence Flavius Josephus.)
=> Promoting freedmen is only deemed a reason for an Emperor's downfall if there are other things going on as well. In the case of Nero, many things were. After a promising start (from the Senatorial pov) and a first few years where Seneca, Burrus and intially also Agrippina were seen as dictating policies the point where ancient historians see Nero's policies go bad (as opposed to his personal conduct, which they see as bad from the get go) happens when in short order, Nero kills his mother Agrippina, Burrus dies, Nero divorces Octavia and has her killed, and Seneca withdraws into retirement, Then you have the Great Fire of Rome and while Nero actually was good in organizing disaster relief when it happened, the fact he used some of the now free space to build his famous Golden House on contributed to the rumors contributed to the rumors he was responsible, which he tried to squash by blaming the Christians. (Not that there is any sympathy for the Christians in early Roman historians, who get described as yet another untrustworthy Eastern cult.) Nero actually appearing as an actor and singer in public for all the world to see (i.e. not just playing the lyre and singing on aristocratic banquets) is a major breach of social decorum from the Senatorial pov and while the general public probably didn't mind that (as opposed to wanting someone to blame for havng their houses burned), Senatorial historians certainly see it as a major sin of his. And then he behaves more and more like a Hellenistic monarch - you can see this in the way his image on coin changes from Augustus clone like all the Julio-Claudians (we have no idea whether any of the laters actually resembled Augustus, but their portrait busts and coin image of course was modelled on his) to looking like one of the later Ptolemies. He grows a beard! And goes to Greece and stays there for over a year because he's such a Philhellene! This is all deemed v.v. bad for later historians.
(Famously, a century later Hadrian who is one of the Five Good Emperors of legend also grows a beard, is a total Philhellene, spends most of his reign travelling through the Empire, including and especially Greece, ignores his wife in favour of his boyfriend Antinous - and gets away with it. The Senate isn't crazy about Hadrian either, and in fact his successor Antonius Pius has to fight to get the Senate to deify Hadrian, but there was never a question of anyone deposing Hadrian when he was still alive. Why not? Because Hadrian had the army under control, he had put people in charge of administring the various provinces and Rome itself who remained loyal to him, and he didn't deplete the treasury despite building a lot as well. (Rome is cool with walls in faraway Britannia!) )
There were some aristocratic conspiracies against Nero through his reign, but he squashed them rather easily. The combination of the Year Long Absence in Greece together with the fact that Nero during the squashing of the latest conspiracy ordered a very popular general, Corbulo, to commit suicide really got things going. Not least because now all the other generals had to wonder whether Nero wouldn't distrust them as well and get rid of them. And then suddenly you had military uprisings, which were a very different thing from just some aristocrats conspiring in Rome itself. Nero started to panic, and when he lost the Praetorians (because of that never fulfilled pledge in Galba's name), he fled from Rome, was promptly declared by the Senate to be an enemy of the Roman people and committed (with some help) suicide.
(What does the Oracle of Delphi have to do with it, or is it just that they lend some legitimacy to Galba's enemies?)
It's just that Galba on his quest to get money and estates back from people whom Nero had given both to really did go after the Oracle of Delphi for the money Nero had donated to them during his big tour of Greece, and I thought that detail was funny and noteworthy. Especially since I can't imagine going after the most famous religious institution of the ancient world added to his popularity.
Sporus: OMG, this poor kid!
Indeed. It's easy to see the entire Imperial power struggle saga as a black comedy, and I do that often myself, but a lot of real lives were destroyed in the process, and Sporus' fate brings that home.
On Nero and his end
Date: 2026-04-03 12:09 am (UTC)Haha it did have the air of "Freedmen, they are the WORST amirite?"
Why not? Because naturally the Flavians employed them as well!
Ha! And I guess Joseph never clued into this?
And a freedwoman, Caenis, wasn't just Vespasian's life partner but an enormously successful businesswomen who like Narcissus and Pallas became a millionairess not just through wise investments but because she could sell her influence and ability to get your son or cousin a good job.
Okay... I guess the nepotism part of this maybe ought to worry me a bit but mostly I'm like you go girl, use the flaws in the system to your advantage! :D
(Mind you, it's arguable whether or not Josephus himself counts as a freedman. He was a war captive, and war captives were sold as slaves usually; Vespasian seems to have kept him as a personal servant until he freed him, and like a freedman, Josef ben Matthias then took his patron's name, hence Flavius Josephus.)
Oh HUH. I bet that did not grind Josephus' gears at all!
Nero actually appearing as an actor and singer in public for all the world to see
Definitely a sin against decorum!
but there was never a question of anyone deposing Hadrian when he was still alive. Why not? Because Hadrian had the army under control, he had put people in charge of administring the various provinces and Rome itself who remained loyal to him, and he didn't deplete the treasury despite building a lot as well.
Ah, this is a nice contrast, thank you!
Indeed. It's easy to see the entire Imperial power struggle saga as a black comedy, and I do that often myself, but a lot of real lives were destroyed in the process, and Sporus' fate brings that home.
Yeah, a lot of this is rather blackly comic at the remove of thousands of years (and it feels like Nero deserved his own sticky end) but Sporus :/
Re: On Nero and his end
Date: 2026-04-03 11:36 am (UTC)Re: On Nero and his end
Date: 2026-04-05 04:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-30 10:32 pm (UTC)Sporus, btw, faces further posthumous indignity from Alexander Pope... he's the one mentioned in the famous quote:
Let Sporus tremble—"What? that thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?"
Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt that stinks and stings...
I'd read the poem years before I learned who the original Sporus was. Pope's target was a bisexual courtier he didn't like very much.
I wonder whether it's significant that Vespasian's primary support (outside his own legionary command) is Egypt, and in particular Alexandria. We know Alexandria has a large Jewish community, and perhaps having a specifically Jewish prophet as part of the propaganda package was intended to play well there. Josephus might have been very lucky that Vespasian wasn't looking to Spain or Germany instead.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-31 05:17 am (UTC)...I was wondering about whether it was common to have whole swathes of people with eyeliner!
Let Sporus tremble—"What? that thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?
I don't think I've read this, huh. (My Pope is very scattered.)
no subject
Date: 2026-03-31 07:12 am (UTC)Do you think this passage was in the Aramaic version, or is it added for the Roman audience only? I suspect the latter just because it is so tropey, and might be hard for his Jewish audience to believe without further comments on why they'd want to do this. (There's no comment about the Jewish religious stance towards cross-dressing, for example.)
I could imagine this being a Roman/Greek version only passage, or rather, than he says something else equally uncomplimentary about John's followers in the original Aramaic, however, we will never know. And alas I have no idea what the Jewish stance towards cross dressing ca. 70 AD was. The only thing I recall is absolutely useless in this context and hails from fiction, to wit, Avigdor's immediate reaction before he pulls himself together in "Yentl" when Yentl finally tells him the truth, i.e. that she's a woman disguised as a man - he does call her evil and an obscenity then, and Avigdor like Yentl herself is supposed to be an orthodox Jew. But one living in the early 20th century in Eastern Europe, so absolutely not comparable to one living in Judea in the first century AD.
Of course, I guess it would be hard to find historical evidence for what the majority Jewish attitude towards cross dressing was at that time other than Josephus, because the works of his rivals like Justus of Tiberias don't survive, and anything else written about the Jews at this point which did survive hails from non Jews and is usually limited to a few terse remarks in other contexts, like Suetonius' account of the
MessiahAll Important Powerful Figure coming from Judea prophecy in his Vespasian biography. (Come to think of it, Suetonius who uses the crossdressing and effeminate slurs for historical figures he deems bad as well at no point mentions whatever, if anything, the Jews thought of it.)no subject
Date: 2026-04-03 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-03 02:31 pm (UTC)BTW, if Hervey resembled anyone in Nero's circle, personality-wise, I'd pick Petronius Arbiter, the writer and Dandy who wrote one of the earliest novels in literature featuring the famous satirical banquet of Trimalchio (a superrich and super tasteless freedman who may or may not also be a satire on Nero himself) and who in the end invevitably had to kill himself when Nero got extra paranoid and insulted)
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Date: 2026-04-03 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-04 09:01 am (UTC)(Inevitable Sylvia Plath quote is inevitable on this topic.)
While we're talking about Nero-caused suicides, I dimly recall Seneca's took eons as well, with him supposedly covering all the bases by first opening his arteries, then drinking Socrates-style poison, and finally going for death by Sauna.
I note Otho, deciding to committ suicide rather than engage in more pointless battles he's going to lose costing soldlier's lives, does this much faster and more efficiently.
no subject
Date: 2026-04-05 04:50 am (UTC)That is indeed the perfect quote for this!
Wow, that does seem rather overkill, so to speak, by Seneca. Heh on Otho being more efficient...
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Date: 2026-04-05 04:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-08 06:51 pm (UTC)I suspect most modern Jews don't know or care about this. Reform Judaism (where I am, more or less) is gender egalitarian and people wear what they want. At least some Orthodox Jews do care. I only remember it because it was cited in a recent discussion by an Orthodox rabbi as one reason why (in his opinion) women shouldn't wear tallit or put on tefillin (prayer shawl and "phylacteries").
no subject
Date: 2026-04-09 04:55 am (UTC)I suspect the commandment originates in wanting to differentiate the Jews from other ancient cultures, which sometimes had temple eunuchs in women's clothing/jewelry.
This is fascinating.
I also find it interesting to read about how the opinions differ between Reform Judaism and (some of?) Orthodox Judaism, thank you!
no subject
Date: 2026-04-10 07:42 am (UTC)If there is an anti-crossdressing commandment in the Torah, though, then Josephus is portraying John of Gishala's followers not just negatively for his Roman and Greek readers but as actively blasphemous to his Jewish ones, which adds layer of bashing!
Suggestion for book 5:
Date: 2026-03-31 09:19 am (UTC)Chag sameach
Date: 2026-04-01 01:20 pm (UTC)Re: Chag sameach
Date: 2026-04-03 12:07 am (UTC)Re: Chag sameach
Date: 2026-04-03 01:42 am (UTC)Re: Chag sameach
Date: 2026-04-06 04:54 am (UTC)(I'll put up the new post tomorrow :) )
Re: Chag sameach
Date: 2026-04-08 07:20 pm (UTC)Re: Chag sameach
Date: 2026-04-08 08:27 pm (UTC)Re: Chag sameach
Date: 2026-04-09 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-08 07:19 pm (UTC)You remember how Vitellia in Clemenza makes a big deal about how she's the daughter of the rightful emperor and Tito stole her throne? Vitellia is the daughter of Vitellius, who reigned for a very short time and had no right to the throne whatsoever. :P Vitellia does appear very briefly in Suetonius's Life of Vespasian, in connection with Vespasian's tendency not to take revenge or hold grudges. It was something like: Vespasian arranged a very splendid marriage for the daughter of his enemy Vitellius and even provided her dowry and "equipped" her (paid for her wedding clothing, maybe?). (I was literally just writing about this in a ficlet, as a conversation between fictional lesbian opera singers. Coming soon to an AO3 near you.) There's also a line in the Life of Titus about how Titus forgave two young noblemen who conspired against him.
Also, The Coronation of Poppea is a cool opera and I recommend it (though I was kinda boggling when I realized that Ottone was Year-of-the-Four-Emperors Otho). It includes Seneca's forced suicide, and I think it handles it well. I also got to see am amazing production of a German-language opera called Octavia by a composer named Reinhard Keiser at the [City] Early Music Festival. Not at all historical, but very dramatic. (Sporus appears as a minor character, which is what reminded me.) Nero was sung by a countertenor and he was played as appropriately terrifying -- like, the kind of crazy where you can't tell what he'll do next or who he'll order murdered. And several of the women's hairstyles were recognizably based on specific Roman busts or statues, which I appreciated. :D
La Clemenza di Tito
Date: 2026-04-09 05:05 am (UTC)Okay so I guess I should have known for ages now, but particularly when all the discussion on this post happened, that Tito is TITUS who is like a major character in this book (and in the Josephus trilogy I read a while back)???? But I DID NOT because I am an idiot. In my defense I'm used to everyone in history having the same name :P Vitellia is the daughter of VITELLIUS, HUH. OF COURSE SHE IS.
ahahaha yessss let me know when this ficlet is up! :D fic about lesbian opera singers is a Good Thing :D
Ahhhhh I do keep thinking I should watch The Coronation of Poppea! I see there's a DVD with Kate Lindsey, whom I absolutely adore... hmm. Octavia also sounds really neat!
Re: La Clemenza di Tito
Date: 2026-04-09 01:52 pm (UTC)Yes! Tito is Titus!! There's even some discussion of Berenice, but it's in the secco recitative and it's easy to miss if you're there for the music. And the secco recitative usually gets cut down a lot.
Vitellia's first recitative at the very beginning of the opera, complaining to Sesto that he hasn't killed Tito yet:
S'aspetta forse che Tito a Berenice in faccia mia offra d'amor insano l'usurpato mio trono, e la sua mano?
"Are you waiting perhaps until Titus, mad with love, offers Berenice my usurped throne and his hand before my very eyes?"
And "He could at least have chosen a rival worthy of me from among the beauties of Rome!" But no, Titus has chosen a "barbarian" and an "exile." :D And then when Annio enters, he tells them that Titus has sent Berenice away, so Vitellia gains hope again and tells Sesto to wait on the assassination plot.
Then after Tito's entrance with the march and chorus, as soon as the chorus is gone, the first thing Sesto says to Titus:
SESTO
My lord, your beautiful princess--how were you able . . .
TITO
Ah, Sesto my friend, what a terrible moment! I wouldn't have believed . . . Enough; I was the victor; she left.
And then he goes on to say that he had to send away Berenice because the Romans were starting to think he would marry her. He'll fulfill their wishes by marrying a daughter of Rome. Since he can't marry for love, at least he'll marry for friendship. So he's going to marry: Sesto's sister Servilia! And that's how that plot point comes up. :D
There's also a reference to the historical eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, in a section of secco recitative that's often cut. But yeah, when you have time, re-listen to the opera with the knowledge that these characters are Titus and Berenice and the daughter of Vitellius . . . :D
I'll let you know about the ficlet! :) The lesbian opera singers are from The Count of Monte Cristo.
Re: La Clemenza di Tito
Date: 2026-04-11 10:55 pm (UTC)