The Jewish War: Some Neglected Regional Factors

This paper argues that new historical perspectives are possible on the Jewish War if some entrenched thinking on the subject is revisited. The controversial life and apologetic tone of the works of Flavius Josephus have understandably detained scholars, but it is suggested that on some issues tracing the evolution of his thinking and biases permits a more independent reading of his text. Among the consequences which follow, two are particularly important: first, that traces of historic regional dynamics shaping both Roman and Jewish activity during the conflict can be reconstructed, and second, that a distinctive Egyptian component can be isolated in the politics of Flavian usurpation. On the surface of things, few subjects could seem more unpromising for “revisiting” than the Jewish War fought between the Romans and various Jewish rebel groups in the years a.d. 66–73/4. Its broad details have long been known from the record of Josephus, whose various historiographical frailties have been exhaustively discussed. Recent scholarship on the subject has understandably broadened the search for evidence and turned in particular to the vivid and controversial testimony of archaeology, tracing the impact of war on individual communities, and mirroring the contribution of material cultural data to the study of patterns of settlement, regionalism, and ethnicity. Roman historians have also begun to reflect in unprecedented depth on the many complexities of Roman self-perception in the East, demonstrating how variegated were the challenges as well as the responses of Roman rule in the region.3 In this paper, I propose to examine what * I would like to thank Professor Tessa Rajak and the anonymous reader for Classical World for comments on earlier drafts of this paper. On Josephus: T. Rajak, Josephus: The Historian and His Society, nd ed., (London 00 ). Most recently: J. Sievers and G. Lembi, eds., Josephus and Jewish History in Flavian Rome and Beyond (Leiden 005); J. Edmondson, S. Mason, and J. Rives, eds., Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome (Oxford 005). Still useful and influential: S. Mason, ed., Understanding Josephus: Seven Perspectives (Sheffield 998); J. S. McLaren, Turbulent Times? Josephus and Scholarship on Judaea in the First Century c.e. (Sheffield 998); F. Parente and J. Sievers, eds., Josephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period (Leiden 994). See S. Freyne, “The Revolt from a Regional Perspective,” in A. M. Berlin and J. A. Overman, eds., The First Jewish Revolt (London 00 ) 43–56 on how Galilaean and Idumaean experiences of the war were significantly different. Also, S. Schwartz, “Josephus in Galilee: Rural Patronage and Social Breakdown,” in Parente and Sievers (above, n. ) 90–308. More generally, see D. R. Edwards, ed., Religion and Society in Roman Palestine: Old Questions, New Approaches (London 005), and N. Faulkner, Apocalypse: The Great Jewish Revolt against Rome, a.d. 66–73 (Stroud 004). 3 W. Ball, Rome in the East: The Transformation of the Empire (London 000); S. Alcock, ed., The Early Roman Empire in the East (Oxford 997); B. Isaac, The Near East under Roman Rule: Selected Papers (Leiden 998); F. G. B. Millar, The Roman Near East 31 b.c.–a.d. 337 (Harvard 993); D. Kennedy, “Greek, Roman and native cultures in the Roman Near East,” in J. H. Humphrey, ed., The Roman and Byzantine Near East, vols., (Ann Arbor 999) ii, 77– 06; M. Sartre, L’Orient romain (Paris 99 ); M. Sartre, The Middle East under Rome (London 005).

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