The Jewish War: Last half of book 5
Apr. 12th, 2026 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnLast week: Titus saving the day single-handedly as a millenium-old trope. The synoptic gospels foreshadowing these events, and discussion of the abomination of desolation. The Yom Kippur service description of the priest in his vestments. How much Titus might have intended the destruction of Jerusalem, and when, and how much that question may be different from how Josephus feels like he needs to justify it? A mention of R. Yochanan ben Zakkai, which all of you should definitely tell me more about :D
This week: Jerusalem is under siege. It's quite awful for those under siege, what with famine inside the city and getting crucified by Romans if they try to escape. Titus and Josephus continue to be blameless and awesome.
Next week: First half of Book 6: "...from its rebuilding by Haggai in the second year of the reign of Cyrus to its capture under Vespasian was 639 years and 45 days" (270).
This week: Jerusalem is under siege. It's quite awful for those under siege, what with famine inside the city and getting crucified by Romans if they try to escape. Titus and Josephus continue to be blameless and awesome.
Next week: First half of Book 6: "...from its rebuilding by Haggai in the second year of the reign of Cyrus to its capture under Vespasian was 639 years and 45 days" (270).
Re: A recap
Date: 2026-04-14 04:05 am (UTC)Titus playing his legions: actually is likely connected to Galba NOT paying, in that Titus, not being stupid, undoubtedly had heard about this - it has only happened in the previous year! - and since he can't see in the future, he can't know whether or not his father will be as easily toppled as the previous three guys. => Keeping his legions happy is important; this isn't a gesture just directed at the besieged Jews.
Ohhhhh with my usual disregard for chronology I didn't even realize that it was only the year before, although of course (and yeah, let's not make the siege last any longer than it has to...) -- right, yeah, it would be especially important to do that now!
Josephus has to go through some major verbal contortions to exculpate Titus from the fact that his legionnaries crucify the not-really-deserters who left the city to look for food but not to change sides.
Heh, yeah. There's so much "well, he just felt really bad about it! But didn't actually stop it!" there...
BTW, as opposed to Josephus earlier rant about John of Gischala's guys crossdressing and wearing guyliner some chapters ago, I find his descriptions of what's going on within the besieged city mostly believable.
Yeah, I am also more likely to believe this. I think the tone is different, too -- more of a sustained sadness than the sort of titillated-outrage that I felt was more the tone of the EYELINER.
And of course taking food from the Temple as the ultimate blasphemy. This is something that strikes us and presumably even Josephus' non-Jewish readers back in the day very differently - if you're starving, of course it makes sense to not only longer sacrifice food to God but eat it yourself
Yeah -- I mean -- it's sensible, but!
Titus
Date: 2026-04-14 03:26 pm (UTC)I'm trying to think of parallels - not of the actual deeds but of how they are presented by historians - and the Ancient World doesn't directly spring to mind, but from the Early Middle Ages onwards, we have quite a lot of *Ruler whom I, the Chronicler, owe my allegiance to* Felt really bad about atrocity and someone else did it anyway, not directly him" whereas of course when it's the other side, then the arch villain said ruler is warring against gleefully and personally commanded the atrocity out of his black heart.
The Romans, at least the Pre Christian ones, have somewhat different attitude since they do love inserting a ruthless barbarian justifying their own brutal retaliations, but also, them going out to conquer without a ruthless barbarian showing up first is also cool by them (if the conquest is successful). And I mean, yes, Cato the Younger wanted to get Caesar on what we today would surely call war crimes in Gaul, but Cato the Younger wasn't moved by the Gaul's plight, he was (justifiably) afraid Caesar would not retire into private life once his command in Gaul had ended and would not stop dominating Rome. Basically, the impression I get is that if you are a Roman general, you're supposed to defeat the Roman enemy by whichever means necessary. You're not supposed to wipe them out entirely, mind, and you're certainly not supposed to brutalize client kingdoms, loyal allies and provinces which are in a peaceful state, that's just bad politics and interrupts trade, but if there is a war or a rebellion and you get send there to deal with it, then anything you do to ensure that a) it's over and b) it won't happen again just a few years down the line is fine with the Roman public.
What I'm trying to suss out is whether or not Josephus contorting himself so much to assure us Titus was sorry and didn't really want to do all this but had to was necessary for the Roman part of his readers, and I suspect it wasn't, the Romans would have been cool with Titus doing whatever to end the Jewish War, so basically he's doing it for himself mainly for the reasons we talked about in the last entry. Plus there might have been another reason which I just came across and will mention in a moment.
In terms of Titus' actual motives and what he might have been thinking, it's an interesting conundrum. Because on the one hand, he has no idea whether his father is going to last any longer than the previous three Emperors, and so bringing this war to an end and going home to back up Dad's rule with a military success and oh, yeah, those successful legions is important. (Plus going by Suetionius' biography of both men, basically in the years of Vespasian's rule Titus was his father's enforcer, playing bad cop to Vespasian's good cop; he took over the Praetorians - the only man Vespasian trusted to do this without stabbing him in the back - and allowed Vespasian to look even better as the serene Emperor. Which was why people were surprised when Titus became Emperor and he in turn now started to play good cop and was the mild one instead of Enforcer Guy, forgiving his enemies etc. (I would say that shows that Vespasian and Titus had a very shrewd grasp on what power dynamics and PR Rome needed after Nero's burn out and the chaotic Year of the Four Emperors.) So all of this shows not only that Titus is very able to be absolutely ruthless without some underlings doing it without his knowledge, and he had good reasons and motivations to finish this war already.
On the other hand: he also had motivation to not do so too quickly. Because while we're no longer in the Republic but solidly in the Empire, achieving military victories for Rome is still the crowning achievement for every aristocratic Roman's career, especially since recent events had proved Emperors who aren't good commanders themselves like Nero are no longer viable. And this is Titus' big chance to prove himself, his own command now that Dad is back in Rome. He might not get another war again while still in his prime, because while he's a generation younger than Dad Vespasian, he's not that young anymore. He's in his late 20s when the war starts so now probably 30,, he's got a marriage behind him and a daughter from it already. Alexander was already conqueror of the world at that age, and everyone in the Ancient World who is in the military businesss has an Alexander complex. Also, there's Berenice. You may have noticed she has disappeared from Josephus' account. In his brief autobiography which was definitely written after Titus' death but before that of Domitian, he mentions her at that time, saying for example that she successfully pleaded for the life of his arch rival Justus of Tiberias (Sir not Appearing in The Jewish War but Appearing In the Autobiography). Now, because Titus' relationship with Berenice was such an incendiary topic for the Romans with their Cleopatra complex, I can see Josephus not mentioning it at all in "The Jewish War" either because Titus directly asked him not to or because he gathered it wouldn't be welcome. (And maybe he didn't want to risk what both he and Berenice might still have been hoping for at this point, i.e. her staying with Titus for good, complete with what that would mean for Roman-Jewish long term relations.)
Now to the theory for Josephus' "Titus was really sorry and didn't want to do it, but he had to" presentationI found: this article theorizes and quotes thusly:
In The Jewish War, Josephus describes Titus as merciful, as having tried to avoid killing Jews who surrendered and waiting until the last possible moment before destroying Jerusalem and burning down the Temple. Some have claimed that Josephus wrote the account this way out of friendship with Titus who was also his patron. Ilan, on the other hand, believes Josephus’s account to be an unflattering description of Titus in the eyes of the Romans who were the book’s target audience. Instead, she contends, it was Titus’s idea to portray himself in this way for the benefit of none other than Berenice—as a kind of mea culpa for the actions he had been forced to commit in Judea.
And you know - that actually makes psychological sense and fits with the fact that from a purely Roman (and for that matter Greek) pov, Josephus really does not have to show Titus as sympathetic to the Jewish people, or wanting the preserve the Temple and the city, see above for how war campaigns usually gets presented in Roman sources. But maybe he did it for just one reader in particular. (As well as needing to believe that Titus was originally well intentioned because of his own actions.)
How do we know Titus was serious enough about Berenice to care what she thought of him? Because he really had that long term relationship with her and the Roman historicans, who were by no means sympathetic to Berenice (like I said: Cleopatra complex), write stuff like the following bits from Suetonius when he compares Titus in his Prince Hal phase (i.e. during his father's reign) to Titus in his Henry V phase (i.e. during the two short years of his own reign before his premature death):
Prince Hal!Titus: From that moment on he never ceased to serve as the partner and even the protector of the Emperor. (...)He also became th first man of non-equestrian rank to serve as prefect of the praetorian guard, a command which he exercised in a fairly high-handed and brutal manner(...). In addition to cruelty, he was suspected as well - because he liked to stay up into the middle of the night playing drinking games with his most dissollute friends - of a taste for overindulgence; also - because of the troupes of male prostitutes and eunuchs he kept, as well as the notorious affair he conducted with Queen Berenice, whom he is actually reported to have promised to marry - of wallowing in sexual excess.
(Note Josephus gives us neither Berenice nor the dancing boys and eunuchs. I feel let down, Josephus.)
(More seriously, remember the crossdressing guyliners from John of Gischala? That's Suetonius using the same trope about unreformed Titus.)
Henry V!Titus: He sent Berenice away from Rome the moment he became Emperor; something that caused him no less pain than it did her. He stopped lavishing favours on the boys whom he had always particularly adored, dancers whose talent was such that in due course they took to the stage, and even stopped watching them perform in public altogether.
Basically, Berenice in Roman histories is presented the Falstaff to Titus' Prince Hal. Just sexier. (Mind you, she was eleven years older than him, another thing baffling male readers through the millennia. Antony at least was older than Cleopatra!) Personally, I hope she got at least some of the dancing boys in the divorce. I's a very Roman thing to present the affair with Berenice - an adult woman - as sexually debauched in a way entertaining a troup of "male prostitutes/dancing boys" was seen at. Whereas of course modern readers would first want to know how we are to understand the term "boys" here, and how old they were. That Titus either had them or at least had the reputation of having them (pre-Emperorship) incidentally might also give us another glimpse of what it meant growing up at Nero's court. (Yuletide!) But yeah: can see him signalling to Josephus he'd very much like it if his book makes clear to Berenice that Titus really really tried but couldn't help it despite good intentions that the whole thing went up in literal flames.
(Whether or not he promised to Berenice he would not burn the Temple, as he does in Feuchtwange's novel.)
(Feuchtwanger didn't give us the dancing boys, either, but then these were historical novels written in the 1930s, so bisexual or gay action pretty much is none apparant.)
Re: Titus
Date: 2026-04-15 03:19 am (UTC)Ha, I love the pragmatism!
What I'm trying to suss out is whether or not Josephus contorting himself so much to assure us Titus was sorry and didn't really want to do all this but had to was necessary for the Roman part of his readers, and I suspect it wasn't, the Romans would have been cool with Titus doing whatever to end the Jewish War, so basically he's doing it for himself mainly for the reasons we talked about in the last entry. Plus there might have been another reason which I just came across and will mention in a moment.
Heh, that rather makes sense. I guess I would have thought he was doing it for his readers as well as himself, but I'm willing to believe that he was doing it just for himself --
Which was why people were surprised when Titus became Emperor and he in turn now started to play good cop and was the mild one instead of Enforcer Guy, forgiving his enemies etc. (I would say that shows that Vespasian and Titus had a very shrewd grasp on what power dynamics and PR Rome needed after Nero's burn out and the chaotic Year of the Four Emperors.)
Ooh. I of course have a particular picture in my head of Titus from Feuchtwanger, but it's good to remember that he doesn't have to be that way. (My headcanon of Louis XVI is definitely not anything like Feuchtwanger's character!)
And you know - that actually makes psychological sense and fits with the fact that from a purely Roman (and for that matter Greek) pov, Josephus really does not have to show Titus as sympathetic to the Jewish people, or wanting the preserve the Temple and the city, see above for how war campaigns usually gets presented in Roman sources. But maybe he did it for just one reader in particular. (As well as needing to believe that Titus was originally well intentioned because of his own actions.)
Oooooh. This is so iiiiinteresting!
(Note Josephus gives us neither Berenice nor the dancing boys and eunuchs. I feel let down, Josephus.)
okay, I legit laughed :)
That Titus either had them or at least had the reputation of having them (pre-Emperorship) incidentally might also give us another glimpse of what it meant growing up at Nero's court. (Yuletide!)
I have to say I am getting more excited about this fic every week :P
Re: Titus
Date: 2026-04-15 09:56 am (UTC)(In another connection to salon, a reminder that Fritz in his old age confesses, via letter (either to Voltaire or Heinrich, can’t remember which one) to crying over Racine’s drama about Titus and Berenice and writes who would have thought he’d get sappy about love stories but he does. I’m going out on a limb here and will guess Berenice isn’t the one he’s identifying himself with, but Titus, the monarch forsaking True Love and joy for duty and service to the state.)
(Since Fritz wasn’t allowed to learn proper Latin, he wouldn’t have known about the dancing boys in addition to Berenice, of course. I very much doubt any French translation of Suetonius available to him would not have been censored, plus he seems to have taken much Roman history from Montesquieu anyway.)
What made me giggle like I’m 12 when checking up on my Suetonius was that Suetonius takes care to mention the boys were actually good enough as dancers to become successfull in public performances and Reformed!Titus even foresook watching them in public. I suppose Suetonius is getting at the contrast to Nero performing himself on the stage (shock horror for proper Roman aristocrats), since Titus has the anti Nero career anyway (starts out looked at as somewhat shady, between being a masterforger and a ruthless enforcer for Dad, has banquets and dancing boys and then also has his sole long term serious romantic relationship, not counting his arranged marriage earlier, with a foreign Queen older than himself, then becomes proper monarch who works hard, regards a day lost where he hasn’t done something good, forgives enemies and sends all sexual distractions away, where Nero starts out as a promising lad taught by Seneca, regarded as a softie and Mama’s boy, and then turns into a decadent self indulgent bastard who performs in public and goes on tour to Greece for a year as if he’s a rock star). But I can’t help but compare the insistence that those boys were good, competent dancers to how one of the clerics defended my guy the medieval Emperor Frederick II of the charge of keeping a harem by saying he’s keeping those girls for their agility with their fingers because they were such excellent weavers.
To get a bit more serious again: of course Titus, being a competent soldier (no one, friend or foe, is disputing that), wouldn’t have brought any troupe of dancers with him to the front line, so Josephus isn’t falsifying history by not mentioning them. But by the time he’s writing the entire account, he’s in Rome and must have known Titus in peacetime as well, so if there is any truth to Suetonius’ account of Prince Hal!Titus , him portraying John of Gishala’s followers as indulging in “effeminate” clichés looks like a massive case of projecting…