Antiquities of the Jews, fit the thirty-fourth, concluding Book XV

( Food aid in the ancient world )

XV.10.356 offers an interesting insight into Herod's behaviour:

The Gadarenes were induced hereby, and made no small cry against him, and that the more boldly, because those that had been delivered up by Agrippa were not punished by Herod, who let them go, and did them no harm; for indeed he was the principal man in the world who appeared almost inexorable in punishing crimes in his own family, but very generous in remitting the offenses that were committed elsewhere.

( We think of the Second Temple as having been rebuilt by Herod, but in fact rebuilding work went on in other periods as well )

( In the same way that Alexandra tried to get control of the kingdom by taking control of the Temple beforehand (see earlier posts), the Romans did the same thing by taking control of the High Priestly vestments )

[Please comment at my collected Book XV notes post, on Dreamwidth for preference, or on LiveJournal.]

Josephus notes

Living up to the Romani wedding ideal

When Gogol Bordello performed "American Wedding" at the concert of theirs I went to, Eugene Hütz started by asking the audience, "Have you ever been to an American wedding?" (Unlikely, given that this was in Edinburgh.) With a chuckle, he then asked, "Have you ever been to a Brazilian wedding?" (Brazil being where he lives now.)

I was tempted to fire back "Have you ever been to a Jewish wedding", but didn't, because I thought that, although it probably scored a bit better than an American wedding (I've heard stories of Jews going to non-Jewish weddings, expecting there to be food as well as drinks at the reception, for example, and coming away afterwards ravenous), a typical Jewish wedding probably still fell far short of the multi-day extravaganza you might have seen on the Channel 4 documentary My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, or [ETA: see comments for reason for strikeout] as portrayed in the lyrics of the song:

Have you ever been to [an] American wedding?
Where's the vodka, where is marinated herring?
Where's the musicians that got the taste?
Where is the supply that gonna last three days?
Where is the band that, like Fanfare,
Gonna keep it going twenty-four hours?

Like in the song, you end up with people starting to drift off at one o'clock in the morning. On reflection, however, I think we'd have done a bit better than I thought: Though the wedding feast itself only lasts one day, in traditional Jewish society, friends of the couple host smaller-scale feasts for them throughout the next week, to which at least one person who has not attended the wedding will always be invited.

Not that Eugene Hütz is likely to have known that.

Postscript: I've been meaning to post this for a while; it's got nothing to do with the fact liv and jack are getting married in less than a week. Oh, except for the fact it reminded me to post this. And the fact they're having a four-day celebration with their friends, so good-comparison points to the two of you as well. Fancy inviting Eugene Hütz? ;^)