His domestic life is characteristic of his subservience. At the bidding
of Vespasian, when in the Roman camp at Caesarea, he divorced his first
wife, who was locked up in Jerusalem during the siege. Though by Jewish
law it was forbidden to a priest to marry a captive woman, he took as
his second wife a Jewess that had been brought into the Roman camp.
Having no children by her, he divorced her after a year, and married
again at Alexandria. By his third wife he had three sons, but with a
Roman's carelessness of the marriage bond he divorced her late in life,
and married finally a noble Jewess of Crete, by whom he had two more
sons, Justus and Simon Agrippa. His last two wives, be it noted, came
from Hellenistic-Jewish communities, and were doubtless able to assist
him in acquiring Greek.
The public as well as the domestic life of Josephus was controlled by
the Roman commander. Till the end of the Jewish struggle it followed the
progress of the Roman arms. He continued to play an active part in the
war, not, however, as a leader of the Jews, but as the adviser of their
enemies. He was attached to the staff of Titus, and after witnessing the
fall of the two fortresses of Galilee, Gamala and Gischala, which held
out bravely under John after the capture of Jotapata, he accompanied the
Roman at the end of the year 68 to Alexandria. There he spent a year,
till a change of fortune came to him.
During the year 68, Vespasian captured the two chief cities which the
Jewish national party held to the east side of the Jordan, Gadara and
Gerasa. He then prepared to lay siege to Jerusalem. But hearing of the
death of Nero and of the chaos at Rome that followed it, he stayed
operations to await events in Italy. In the following year, largely by
the aid of the Jewish apostate Tiberius Alexander, he secured the
allegiance of all the Eastern legions, and was proclaimed Emperor. Three
other generals laid claim to the same dignity, under the same title of
armed force, but in the end Vespasian's friends in Italy made themselves
masters of Rome, and he repaired himself to the capital and donned the
purple. Josephus was rewarded with his complete freedom, and assumed
henceforth the family name of his Imperial patrons. When, at the end of
the year 69, Titus was appointed by his father to finish the war, he
accompanied him back to Palestine. In the eighteen months' respite that
had been vouchsafed to them, the Jews had spent their energy and
undermined their powers of resistance by internecine strife. According
to the account in the _Wars_, which unfortunately is the only full
record we have of events, John of Gischala, fleeing to Jerusalem after
the fall of the Galilean fortresses, roused the Zealots against the high
priest Ananias, who was directing the Jewish policy towards submission
to Rome. Ananias, who was of the same party as Josephus, seems to have
come to the conclusion that resistance was hopeless, and he was anxious
to make terms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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