The Jewish War: Second half of Book 4

[cahn]

Last 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? 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."

Comments

[selenak]

The bisexual courtier was none other than Friend of Frederician Salon Lord Hervey; you can read my write-up of his tremendously entertaining bitchy memoirs here and of a biography about him plus ensueing discussions between cahn, mildred_of_midgard and myself here. (cahn, as a reminder of the context of Pope attacking Hervey; this was part of the escalating feud between Pope and Lady Mary (Wortley Montagu), because Hervey sided with his pal Lady Mary and both of them had lampooned Pope (who had earlier gone from friends with Lady Mary to attacking her) in rhyme as well. Now both aristocrats were occasional poets as well - though I would say both of them were far better prose writers, and in fact brilliant in prose as Lady Mary's Embassy Letters and Hervey's Memoirs show, but they were of course no match for Pope in terms of acid poetry.) Though the first time I came across the Pope quote in question wasn't when reading through Georgian writings but when reading up on the 1960s from a Beatles and thus inevitably also some Rolling Stones angle decades earlier, because "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" was the quote with which the Times opened an article about Mick Jagger getting arrested for drug possession in 1968.

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 Messiah All 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.)

[cahn]

IT WAS LORD HERVEY? I am dying here. This is the most hilarious thing ever! (I had forgotten about the feud with Pope, though, so thank you for the reminder.) Hervey also is, um, about the most non-Sporus-like character I can imagine??

[selenak]

Hervey certainly wasn't anyone's tragic victim (safe for the general endangerment of living as a bisexual man in the 18th century with a preference for the gay side - though he did have notoriously a mistress when he really did not have to, since he was a) married, b) in a long term affair with Stephen Fox and c) having his circa two to three years relationship with Fritz of Wales which ended with a bad breakup involving said mistress). But remember, he may be a privileged noble, but around that time we also have the mass executions of gay men in the Netherlands. So for Pope to basically say "You, Hervey, aren't just a shallow bastard without any depth but also neither man nor a woman because you're doing it with both, and what's more, I'm comparing you with a real life eunuch to cast some extra shade on your potency" isn't a joking matter. Pope also alluded to Hervey's then much mocked preference for joghurt and milk in the verse (he had an uneasy stomach), and to his androgynous looks with the Sporus comparison.


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)

[cenozoicsynapsid]

Just to clarify the syntax here, Petronius had to kill himself. Trimalchio, while uncomfortably obsessed with having a lavish funeral, does not die in the book. Petronius supposedly committed a slow suicide by bleeding himself to death, banqueting and conversing with his friends the entire time. Not quite the grisliest of the historical stories we've covered, but it's up there.

[selenak]

Dying is an art. I do it exceptionally well...

(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.

[cahn]

(Inevitable Sylvia Plath quote is inevitable on this topic.)

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...

[cahn]

Ha, thank you! I would have thought it was Trimalchio. Wow, that's a suicide with a sort of panache.

[zdenka]

There's actually a commandment in the Torah that you're not supposed to crossdress, which might explain Avigdor's reaction. 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. (The Torah doesn't like eunuchs either.) I couldn't tell you what the ~70 CE attitude was, though.

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").

[cahn]

Oh interesting!

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!

[selenak]

Does anyone in the ancient world (or elsewhere, for most of history) like eunuchs? They keep getting a terrible press with the Greeks and the Romans as well, and elsewhere later with the Chinese even though they're the very society that produces them. (Ditto for the paradox of on the one hand castrato singer adoration by the audience and otoh relentless eunuch bashing in the 18th presses.

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!