cahn | The Jewish War: First half of Book 6

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Last week: Sieges are awful. Josephus tells us that Titus really totally felt bad about all the awfulness (even though he didn't stop them) and there is a theory that maybe by "us" he meant "Berenice." Titus had dancing boys?? (Josephus does not mention any, sadly.) Does Samuel the Lamanite in the Book of Mormon owe anything to Josephus speaking truth to the wicked? Unclear. Talmud on the Sages vs. the Zealots as an interesting correlated story to Josephus. Poppea's complexity including both an interest in (conversion to?) Judaism as well as being ruthless; comparison to Constantine's much better press.

This week: The temple is destroyed.

Next week: End of Book 6.

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cahn

In fact, what he doesn't say is that Titus is pressing the assault--- with predictably high casualties for his men--- precisely because Vespasian needs to begin his reign as emperor with a triumph over the Judeans. This is what is setting the timetable. Ladders, storming the breach, the futile efforts to break in at night, are all the strategems that an impatient commander uses to trade bodies for time. I wonder if the soldiers' efforts to fire the temple are based to some extent on their understanding that Titus will continue to incur heavy casualties until the city is successfully taken.

Ohhhh, that is really interesting, especially your observation that these are strategies for trading bodies and time.

And there will be three Roman-Jewish wars, culminating in Bar Kochva's revolt (about a hundred years from now) when the Romans will decide to raze Jerusalem, replace it with a pagan colony and exile most of the Jews. If they'd wanted to do that on this occasion, they probably would have?

Ah! I suppose it's not much consolation to Josephus that it could have been worse...