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

[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!