The Jewish War: Last half of book 6

[cahn]

Last week:Lament for the destroyed trees and landscape around Jerusalem. A woman eats her own child. More discussion of Titus and whether he wanted to spare the Temple or not. The Carthage and Alexandria precedents for Romans treating defeated opponents. Torching a temple = REALLY BAD LUCK. The timetable of the siege of Jerusalem set by Vespasian's ascent as emperor.

This week: The aftermath of the burning of the temple, and the end of the siege of Jerusalem. Still some pretty awful stuff.

Next week: First half of book 7... isn't this the last book?! OK, selenak, give us a stopping point... :)

Comments

Re: Recap

[cenozoicsynapsid]

The idea of a customary law of war protecting prisoners from the enemy army is, I believe, a creation of the early modern period. I forget which wars--- the Italian wars or the Thirty Years or something like that--- but one involving professional armies and lots of side-swapping, in which the various combatant states realized that if they were allowed to bleed each other to death, the cost of the war would exceed the territorial stakes by too great an amount. (Arguably, what they should have realized was that this meant the entire war was a stupid idea--- certainly true for both the conflicts I mentioned.)

Anyway, up through the Middle Ages, I believe prisoners were generally a form of loot, to be exchanged for ransom money or sold as slaves. The Roman army traveled with slave merchants who could convert such captives into hard cash, which would be one way the victorious troops would be rewarded at the end of the campaign (alongside Titus's actual payments from the state coffers, his promotion ceremonies, and so forth). In the Middle Ages, the soldiers are Christians and seem to have developed some conventions of not killing each other out of hand, but they're still absolutely going to cash in.

As a far-distant comparison, Shakespeare's Henry V (act 4) orders his soldiers to kill their prisoners so they will be unencumbered when the French counterattack. Fluellen, the comic Welshman, says this is "expressly against the law of arms... arrant knavery," but it clearly happens anyway. Because it's Shakespeare, critics seem to argue over whether this is an effort to introduce some complexity to an otherwise hagiographic portrait of the Good King, or it's meant to show Henry is a hard man who can make the tough decisions that lead to victory. (There's a long discussion of medieval laws of war and critical readings of this scene in this theatrical review piece: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/06/17/take-no-pris0ners). But certainly Shakespeare can't mean it as the kind of outright damning accusation it would be against a modern general--- if we saw Patton or Eisenhower doing this in a WWII movie, it would be read as making him the villain.

Re: Recap

[cahn]

(Arguably, what they should have realized was that this meant the entire war was a stupid idea--- certainly true for both the conflicts I mentioned.)

Hee. But ah, I hadn't realized it was so modern an invention.

Anyway, up through the Middle Ages, I believe prisoners were generally a form of loot, to be exchanged for ransom money or sold as slaves.

There's that awful statement, I forget exactly, but something about how there were so many prisoners that it crashed the market for slaves... :/

In the Middle Ages, the soldiers are Christians and seem to have developed some conventions of not killing each other out of hand, but they're still absolutely going to cash in.

Ha.

But certainly Shakespeare can't mean it as the kind of outright damning accusation it would be against a modern general--- if we saw Patton or Eisenhower doing this in a WWII movie, it would be read as making him the villain.

I see your point!