“By the end of A.D. 67,” I quote from what I have written elsewhere,
“the whole of northern Palestine was in the hands of the Romans. Only
Jerusalem, where a bloody civil war was raging, remained to be taken.
But its capture was delayed by the events of A.D. 68, which drew the
attention of the generals to the west. News came first of the death of
Nero, which took place in June, and then, in rapid succession, of the
accession of Galba, Otho and Vitellius. In July, A.D. 69, Vespasian’s
legions took the law into their own hands, and proclaimed him emperor.
One of his first acts as emperor was to liberate Josephus, whose
prophecy had now come true.[8]... [Josephus] now accompanied the emperor
to Alexandria, and from there was sent back with Titus to take part in
the siege of Jerusalem.... [His] services as interpreter and intercessor
were more than once requisitioned by Titus;[9] on one occasion he was
hit by a stone, and barely escaped capture and death at the hands of his
countrymen. He was, he tells us, at this time between two fires; for,
while bitterly hated by the Jews, he was suspected by the Romans of
treachery whenever they met with a reverse.”[10]
For his life in Rome, where he witnessed (with what feelings we are left
to imagine) the triumphal procession of the two emperors,[11] and for
the various privileges bestowed on him by Vespasian, Titus and Domitian,
we may refer to his own narrative.[12] Awarded the rights of Roman
citizenship, he was also among the first to be placed on the “civil
list” newly instituted by Vespasian.[13] He was still pursued by Jewish
hatred; among his opponents he names in particular Justus, a rival
historian of the war, and Jonathan, the leader of a revolt in Cyrene,
who accused him of complicity in his designs; but with his unfailing
tact he succeeded in retaining the favour of the Flavian emperors and
defeating his enemies. He appears to have survived into the second
century, since he outlived Agrippa II,[14] whose death is placed by
Photius in A.D. 100. Eusebius (_H. E._ III. 9) tells us that our author
was honoured by the erection of his statue in Rome, and that his works
were placed in the public library. He was married at least four
times;[15] one wife deserted him, another he divorced.
Works
During the leisure of his life in Rome Josephus composed the four works
which, owing largely, no doubt, to their popularity with early Christian
writers, have survived entire: the _Jewish War_ (7 books), the _Jewish
Antiquities_ (20 books), the _Life_ and the treatise _Against Apion_ (2
books). There is no adequate ground for thinking that he published
anything further.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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