cahn | The Jewish War: Book 7

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The last book!

Last week: Astrological phenomena and the star of Bethlehem. Messianic (?) prophecy about Vespasian. Brutality of the siege, and discussion of the law of war protecting prisoners from the enemy army (or lack thereof). Imperator.

This week: Book 7. Wrapping up of the war. The Masada fortress and group suicide (which I think is interesting to think about given the discussion we had a few books back). The temple of Onias. (Dedicated commment threads for both of these below, for anyone who wants to join in!)

Yay book club, thank you everyone!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

selenak

So, Eleazar’s suicide speech, and the mass suicide of Masada in general. On the one hand, Romans considered suicide a noble end. Including when their enemies do it. There is a famous ode by Horace celebrating the victory over Cleopatra which bashes her for two thirds and then does a 180 degree turnaround and credits her with a noble mind and resolve when she kills herself, “non humilis mulier”, a woman without lowness. And we’ve talked about how Otho’s suicide made both Suetonius and Tacitus go - wow, Otho, who would have thought that you had such nobility in you? And even definitely-described-as-villains types in Roman histories like Catiline in Sallust’s account of the Catiline conspiracy get credited with courage and a noble final death (not buy suicide, but by battle), complete with a heroic last speech to his men encouraging them to fight that final battle. Not to mention Tacitus in his Agricola gives the famous “they create a devastation and call it peace” anti Roman imperialism speech to a Scottish chiftain. There is precedent and tropes in terms of Roman readership, is what I am saying.

Otoh: it’s a mass suicide, and whether the kids, for starters, were all eager to get killed is highly dubious. As you point out, a woman hiding herself with her children is the living counter example to Eleazar really convincing everyone. And as far as we’ve heard, Jewish law would forbid this. So yes, I think it’s entirely possible Josephus means it as an indictement of Eleazar as a villain, but knows it will be read as such only by his Jewish readers.

From:

cahn

*nods* Yes, I definitely got that sense from your comments in previous posts! (as well as random osmosis :) ) So I was definitely thinking a Roman readership would vibe with that... but yeah. Remind me, I think this was primarily pitched to a Roman audience, but he expected a lot of Jewish readers as well, presumably?

From:

cenozoicsynapsid

The introduction said that there might have been a more Jewish-targeted edition in Aramaic, but that there's no manuscript evidence that it existed. Given the extent of the diaspora communities described, there would probably have been Jews who preferred to read it in Greek, though.