Lethargic Man (anag.)

Robert Graves, in I, Claudius, relates a minority, probably apocryphal, story of the death of the Emperor Tiberius died: that after he had died, Caligula took the ring off his finger and proclaimed himself emperor, only for a slave to run out after him crying, "he's still alive!" Macro says "It's probably just the wind moving him, giving that impression." The slave replies, "No, he's really still alive; he's asking for his supper." Caligula and Macro go back in, smother Tiberius with his pillow, then go back out again and announce that Tiberius is definitely dead.

Considering this, I was interested to see what Josephus had to say on the matter. He doesn't repeat this story, but you can still see from it how the other story arose.

( Read more... )

Of course the Romans, celebrating the death of Tiberius, did not realise they had merely gone from the frying pan to the fire with the accession of Caligula. Josephus implies that Caligula's eventual assassination was divine punishment for daring to call himself a god (XVIII.7.256):

Now Caius^* managed public affairs with great magnanimity during the first and second year of his reign, and behaved himself with such moderation, that he gained the good-will of the Romans themselves, and of his other subjects. But, in process of time, he went beyond the bounds of human nature in his conceit of himself, and by reason of the vastness of his dominions made himself a god, and took upon himself to act in all things to the reproach of the Deity itself.

* I.e. Gaius (= Caligula), the spelling going back to before the invention of the letter G.

King Agrippa, in the above passage, was in prison in Rome at the time of the death of Tiberius, having fallen foul of Tiberius; he remained in Rome afterwards (which seems strange for a king of Judaea!), and was there at the time of the assassination of Caligula too, in the events of which time he played a role, as described in frankly unnecessary detail, from the point of view of history of the Jews, in Book XIX.

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

Josephus notes

Josephus' latest definition of the Pharisees (XVIII.1.12) shows both similarities and differences to how I had perceived them: ( lifestyle and theology )

We tend to think of the Jews of the period being divided between Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes (and then in the last decade before the Destruction of the Temple, the Fourth Philosophy too, which may or may not have been that of the Zealots); however it appears this division is not at all even, as there are few Sadducees:

This doctrine [of the Sadducees] is received but by a few, yet by those still of the greatest dignity. But they are able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them.

...and Essenes:

There are about four thousand men that live in this way, and neither marry wives, nor are desirous to keep servants; as thinking the latter tempts men to be unjust, and the former gives the handle to domestic quarrels; but as they live by themselves, they minister one to another.

( Who was the first Roman emperor? )

curious_reader warned me that the text of Josephus we have, which has been transmitted to us by the Christians (as the Jews were largely too disgusted with him, considering him a turncoat) has been diddled with. Here's the first of the diddled-with passages (XVIII.3.81):

Now there was about this time ( Jesus—didn't expect him, did you? )

Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man ( etc, in this vein )

No way would Josephus have said some of those things. He might have said the others, though. Wikipedia concurs with me here, and points out that the Syriac and Arabic translations of Josephus read "Pilate condemned him to be crucified" in place of "at the suggestion of the principal men among us," and "he was believed to be Christ" rather than "he was [the] Christ". "Drawing on these textual variations," says Wikipedia, "scholars have suggested that these versions of the Testimonium more closely reflect what a non-Christian Jew may have written."

Contrast this with Josephus' description of John the Baptist, in XVIII.5.118, which comes across as more objective:

( Read more... )

There's also a couple of interesting, and quite different, passages about John in the Slavonic version of The Jewish War:

( Read more... )

Later on we read (this is an excerpt from the full passage):

He was a strange creature, not like a man at all. He lived like a disembodied spirit. He never touched bread; even at the Passover Feast he would not eat the unleavened bread or pronounce the words "In thankfulness to God, who delivered the nation from slavery, shall you eat this; it was given for the flight, because the journey was made in haste." Wine and other strong drink he would not allow to be brought anywhere near him, and animal good he absolutely refused—fruit was all that he needed. The whole object of his life was to show evil in its true colours.

I got very excited when I read this, because it is thought the Passover Seder we have today arose in reaction to the destruction of the Temple, preventing the fulfilment of the Toraitic command of eating the Paschal lamb sacrificed in the Temple. Beforehand there would have been a Yom Tov meal, and the consumption of the פֶּסַח and חֲגִיגָה offerings, but no formal liturgy for the meal beyond kiddush, הַמוֹצִיא and bentshing. Yet here, it seemed, was a record of what was said at the Passover meal in the first century, whilst the Temple still stood—and not only that but it is different to anything in the relevant Torah passages or Seder today.

Then, sadly, I went to Wikipedia which told me that this is passage is now not regarded as authentic, but a product of the eleventh-century ideological struggle against the Khazars (a Turkic people and kingdom whose nobility and royal family converted to Judaism). Nonetheless it's interesting to read.

Robert Graves, in I, Claudius, relates a minority, probably apocryphal, story of the death of the Emperor Tiberius died: that after he had died, Caligula took the ring off his finger and proclaimed himself emperor, only for a slave to run out after him crying, "he's still alive!" Macro says "It's probably just the wind moving him, giving that impression." The slave replies, "No, he's really still alive; he's asking for his supper." Caligula and Macro go back in, smother Tiberius with his pillow, then go back out again and announce that Tiberius is definitely dead.

Considering this, I was interested to see what Josephus had to say on the matter. He doesn't repeat this story, but you can still see from it how the other story arose.

( Read more... )

Of course the Romans, celebrating the death of Tiberius, did not realise they had merely gone from the frying pan to the fire with the accession of Caligula. Josephus implies that Caligula's eventual assassination was divine punishment for daring to call himself a god (XVIII.7.256):

Now Caius^* managed public affairs with great magnanimity during the first and second year of his reign, and behaved himself with such moderation, that he gained the good-will of the Romans themselves, and of his other subjects. But, in process of time, he went beyond the bounds of human nature in his conceit of himself, and by reason of the vastness of his dominions made himself a god, and took upon himself to act in all things to the reproach of the Deity itself.

* I.e. Gaius (= Caligula), the spelling going back to before the invention of the letter G.

King Agrippa, in the above passage, was in prison in Rome at the time of the death of Tiberius, having fallen foul of Tiberius; he remained in Rome afterwards (which seems strange for a king of Judaea!), and was there at the time of the assassination of Caligula too, in the events of which time he played a role, as described in frankly unnecessary detail, from the point of view of history of the Jews, in Book XIX.

Josephus notes

XVI.2.43 tells us what the Jews of Josephus's day did on Shabbos:

And the seventh day we set apart from labor; it is dedicated to the learning of our customs and laws, we thinking it proper to reflect on them, as well as on any [good] thing else, in order to our avoiding of sin.

XVI.5.139 et passim confused me by referring to Augustus' wife as Julia; in I Claudius (perhaps shamefully, my main source of detailed knowledge of the period) she is called Livia. It turns out, upon investigation, that she was adopted posthumously into the Julio-Claudian imperial family, thus entitling her to the name Julia.

XVI.6.164, in a decree of Augustus's, gives the first reference to synagogues:

But if any one be caught stealing their holy books, or their sacred money, whether it be out of the synagogue or public school, he shall be deemed a sacrilegious person, and his goods shall be brought into the public treasury of the Romans.

---

XVII.6.149 describes Judas son of Saripheus, and Matthias son of Margalothus, thinking Herod was about to expire, pulling down a golden eagle which Herod had mounted above the Temple gate, in contravention of the Third Commandment (your numbering may vary). Given that the "-us" on the end of "Margalothus" is a Latinisation (presumably reflecting "-os" in the Greek, but at any rate absent from the original Aramaic name), and "th" in Classical Hebrew became "s" in Yiddish, I wonder if this is an early appearance of the name Jewish genealogists refer to as M*rg*l*s because of the extreme variation in its vowels (Margolis, Margolies, Morgulis, etc, etc).

About the eagle, Josephus says:

Now the law forbids those that propose to live according to it, to erect images or representations of any living creature.

Though this commentary points out that the making of images, without an intention to worship them, was not unlawful to the Jews, as evidenced by Solomon's making of brazen lions and oxen.

This sheds interesting light on the bronze temple vessels dug up by Yigael Yadin in the Cave of Letters near Qumran.

( Are these vessels from the Second Temple? )

Josephus notes

Josephus now goes into the reign of Herod at extreme length, which I shall be abbreviating considerably here. After Herod had killed his wife Mariamne, he fell ill, and, when it was thought he would not survive, Mariamne's mother Alexandra tried to get hold of the reigns of power by taking possession of the Temple (XV.7.247): ( Read more... )

(It didn't work out well for her: Herod recovered, and killed her too.)

XV.7.250 mentions Herod's "cousin-german", a man named Achiabas. This appears to be an early example of the name Akiva. ("Ch" in Greek was, as I mentioned earlier, in the process at this time of changing from an aspirated K to a /kh/ sound.)

XV.7.257 uses the phrase "filthy lucre". According to Wikipedia, the term in English comes from the NT. I wonder whether this is an artefact of Whitston using a stock phrase, or whether Josephus used it too.

XV.7.259 gives us a tidbit about the laws of divorce: ( Read more... )

(FWIW, under the rishonim a thousand years later, women were indeed permitted to initiate divorce, then under the acharonim in the last five hundred years, the pendulum swung back the other way and once again divorce could only be initiated by the man.)

XV.8.298 describes how Herod built a temple at Shomron/Samaria/Sebaste: ( Read more... )

I wonder what kind of a temple it was. Herod is famous for enlarging and beautifying the Jews' Temple in Jerusalem, but he also went on to build lots of pagan temples around the eastern end of the Mediterranean too. I'd guess this one is probably the first of the latter, rather than being either Jewish or Samaritan.

XV.9.305 provides evidence of food aid in the ancient world, when there was a severe famine following on from two years of drought:( Read more... )

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 (XV.11.391): ( Read more... )

In the same way that Alexandra tried to get control of the kingdom by taking control of the Temple beforehand (see above), the Romans did the same thing by taking control of the High Priestly vestments (XV.11.403):( Read more... )

Josephus notes

?

XIV.8.131: But it happened that the Egyptian Jews, who dwelt in the country called Onion Onion!? The Greek has "Ὀνίου", so it looks like it's not the English word "onion", but perhaps a land named after the temple established by Onias (חוֹנִיּוֹ)?

XIV.9.172 relates how when Hyrcanus II had brought Herod, as a fifteen year old, to trial before the Sanhedrin, Herod turned up with his own private bodyguard of men, and no one dared accuse him, except for one man named Sameas: ( But is Sameas Shammai or Shemaiah? )

( And which well-known Sage is Pollio the Pharisee? )

Josephus spends the whole of Book XIV ch.10 relating the various decrees the Romans made giving the Jews rights. ( Why? )

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

Josephus notes

There's a famous story in the Talmud about Ḥoni HaMa'agel (Ḥoni the Circle-Maker). ( Read more... )

( The real ending of the story, though, is sadder, as I learned from _Antiquities_ )

XIV.2.30: ( Read more... )

Good grief; you idiots! Don't you read any history? Isn't it obvious that this is just going to lead to Pompey waltzing in, conquering the country and annexing the kingdom to the Roman not-yet-Empire?( Read more... )

In XIV.3.40 we learn Judaea was not the only place Jews were in charge of: ( Read more... )

Later we will read of scions of Herod's family being appointed kings in Transjordan and (XVIII.5.139) Armenia: ( Read more... )

?

XIV.8.131: But it happened that the Egyptian Jews, who dwelt in the country called Onion Onion!? The Greek has "Ὀνίου", so it looks like it's not the English word "onion", but perhaps a land named after the temple established by Onias (חוֹנִיּוֹ)?

XIV.9.172 relates how when Hyrcanus II had brought Herod, as a fifteen year old, to trial before the Sanhedrin, Herod turned up with his own private bodyguard of men, and no one dared accuse him, except for one man named Sameas: ( But is Sameas Shammai or Shemaiah? )

( And which well-known Sage is Pollio the Pharisee? )

Josephus spends the whole of Book XIV ch.10 relating the various decrees the Romans made giving the Jews rights. ( Why? )

In the conflict between Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, Hyrcanus had come out tops, with the help of Herod's father Antipater and the Romans; however Aristobulus's son Antigonus invited the Parthians in to try and install him as king, deceiving Hyrcanus and Herod's brother Phasael, who were taken hostage. Phasael having managed to get a message through to Herod, Herod fled from Jerusalem with his family, making his way southeast and then ultimately to Rome, where the Romans would proclaim him king, and send an army back with him to turn declaration into reality.

Before this happened, though, in the early stages of his flight, when at any moment it looks like he might have been overtaken and captured, Josephus tells us (XIV.13.356): ( Read more... )

Interesting to reflect on how different subsequent history would have been—and how much less bloody, in the next few decades—if Herod had succeeded in killing himself at that point. ( Read more... ) though he would go on to order something truly horrific on his deathbed, there is not a trace in Josephus of the Massacre of the Innocents referred to in the Gospel of Matthew; this story seems to be borrowed in its entirety from the similar episode at the beginning of Exodus.

XVII.6.175 describes what Herod ordered on his deathbed: ( Read more... )

Fortunately, Salome and Alexas had some humanity in them, and managed to get the people released before the soldiers guarding them found out Herod had died.

Herod's death also brought to a conclusion the long-running saga of his son Antipater, who had engineered the deaths of his step-brothers the sons of Mariamne who had stood in the way of his rise to the throne, and then eventually, out of patience for his father to go the way of all men, conspired against him himself. Herod found out, put Antipater on trial, then put him in jail whilst he waited to hear back from Augustus. But when Antipater wrongly thought that Herod, who was on his deathbed, had died, he instantly tried to bribe his way out of jail and back to power. Herod furious, instantly had him executed, which, frankly, was all he deserved.

Josephus notes

XIII.11.308 reveals that Queen Shlomtzion (probably best known to my Jewish readers by having a street in Jerusalem named after her, and to my non-Jewish readers by her Greek name, Salome Alexandra) took part in the plot to have her own son killed:( Read more... )

As the following passage reveals, this is not the town called Strato's Tower, but another place with the same name. Who's Tower, I hear you ask. This is the town you will be familiar with (if you're familiar at all with Israel) under the name Caesarea, the name it was given when it was refounded on a much larger scale by Herod the Great. I was then intrigued to know how far back the town went under it's old name, because I had never heard of it. The Jewish Encyclopaedia says:( Read more... )

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

Josephus notes

( How the Hasmoneans, religious fundamentalists who killed Hellenisers, became Hellenised themselves within three generations )

( Antiochus the Pious, who gave the Jews bulls to sacrifice at Succos, even whilst besieging Jerusalem )

( Evidence that the prohibition on travelling beyond the _teḥum_ on Shabbos already existed in the second century BCE )

( Destruction of the Samaritan Temple )

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

Josephus notes

The miracle of Chanukah is normally regarded as the military victory over the Seleucids, winning Judea's independence. I've elsewhere heard it said that actually the Hasmoneans were able to take advantage of the fact the Seleucid empire was disintegrating. ( Read more... )

More early influence of the Romans (XIII.4.113):( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Letting the son of the king be brought up by an Arabian called Malchus (or "Malichus" in War)? Somehow, I suspect it'll all end in tears. (Malik is Arabic for "king"; the χ here probably reflects the old Greek pronunciation, as as aspirated K (/k^h/) rather than a /kh/ sound as in כ.)( Read more... )

XIII.5.167 follows up the earlier mention of the Jews' and Spartans' alleged relationship:( Read more... )

XIII.171.3 gives a somewhat odd definition of the three sects of Judaism at the time:( Read more... )

As I mentioned beforehand, the Hasmonean leadership only gradually, over many years, made Judaea into an independent kingdom. ( Read more... )

XIII.6.215:

[Simon] also took the citadel of Jerusalem by siege, and cast it down to the ground, that it might not be any more a place of refuge to their enemies when they took it, to do them a mischief, as it had been till now. ( Read more... )

So where was this citadel? That's a good question.

( How the Hasmoneans, religious fundamentalists who killed Hellenisers, became Hellenised themselves within three generations )

( Antiochus the Pious, who gave the Jews bulls to sacrifice at Succos, even whilst besieging Jerusalem )

( Evidence that the prohibition on travelling beyond the _teḥum_ on Shabbos already existed in the second century BCE )

( Destruction of the Samaritan Temple )

From time to time Josephus gives an explanation of the differences between the Pharisees and Sadducees; that in XIII.10.295 agrees with what I would have generally have thought to be their biggest difference:( The Sadducees reject the Oral Law of the Pharisees. The question is to what extent the Oral Law goes back to antiquity, and the value of _Antiquities_ in providing evidence for this going back three and a centuries before the time of the Mishna )

XIII.11.308 reveals that Queen Shlomtzion (probably best known to my Jewish readers by having a street in Jerusalem named after her, and to my non-Jewish readers by her Greek name, Salome Alexandra) took part in the plot to have her own son killed:( Read more... )

As the following passage reveals, this is not the town called Strato's Tower, but another place with the same name. Who's Tower, I hear you ask. This is the town you will be familiar with (if you're familiar at all with Israel) under the name Caesarea, the name it was given when it was refounded on a much larger scale by Herod the Great. I was then intrigued to know how far back the town went under it's old name, because I had never heard of it. The Jewish Encyclopaedia says:( Read more... )

Aristobulus was succeeded by his brother Alexander Yannai, about whom Josephus tells an amusing episode (XIII.13.372):

( Read more... )

Shamelessly including a picture (from here), as last time it got some people to read my post

( Read more... )

Alexander Yannai was a bit of a bad egg( Read more... )

One can see why Jesus fled from him, in the Talmudic story in which Jesus is misattributed to his time (possibly a confusion of Jesuses?). <checks Wikipedia> Ah, in BT Sotah 47a and Sanhedrin 107 it says:

What was the case of Rabbi Joshua ben Perahiah? When King Yannai put the Rabbis to death. [Shim'on ben Shetah was hidden by his sister and] Rabbi Joshua ben Perahiah and Yeshu fled to Alexandria in Egypt.

So, most definitely a bad egg, then. (If you're interested in the full story about Jesus, which is pretty much the only one in the Talmud in which Jesus is portrayed sympathetically, you can read it here.

Josephus notes

Did you know that Antiochus admitted on his deathbed he had done wrong by the Jews (XXI.9.357)? ( Read more... )

( If a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm going to let this one speak for itself... though can you figure out what animal is being depicted? )

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

Josephus notes