The Jewish War: First half of Book 5

[cahn]

Happy day-after-Easter!

Last week: Eyeliner shows that the Zealot faction is really bad! (No, really!) The Year of the Four Emperors, and those emperors discussed. Nero and his end. Lord Hervey of Frederician salon makes a surprise appearance!

This week: Titus attacks Jerusalem, but the factions have already done a lot of the work for him...

Next week: Rest of book 5!

Comments

[cahn]

Because it does make a great difference whether he can tell himself "Titus was well intentioned, and by working for him, I wanted to help saving the Temple and this would have happened if not for, etc." or whether it's a case of "I saved myself by working for the destroyer of the Temple who was always going to do that".

Yeah... I definitely get the impression that Josephus was all about self-justification, just from what we've read so far...

he's then unable to live with the result and keeps rewriting it in his head up to and including his death bed, when he asks Joseph(us) why Berenice left him when he himself sent her away, and then, finally, "why was the Temple destroyed", which completely horrifies and infuriates Joseph(us) (who has his own mental gymnastics going on throughout his life, of course).

Oof, I'd forgotten about Titus' deathbed mental gymnastics, even about Berenice... I'd remembered a little of the Temple ones, and of course Josephus' own mental gymnastics.