"Toldot Milhemet
Hayehudim Baroma'im" ("The War of the Jews Against the Romans"),
by Yosef Ben-Matityahu (Josephus Flavius), Hebrew translation by
Lisa Ullmann, Carmel, 751 pages, NIS 159
Like every
self-respecting Israeli youth movement, my Hanoar Ha'oved branch
in Herzliya also held a mock trial for Josephus Flavius, aka
Yosef Ben-Matityahu, under the heading "traitor or hero?" The
unique thing about our particular trial was that it had two
defendants: not only Josephus - the commander of Jewish forces
in the Galilee in the first century C.E., who after the fall of
Yodfat went over to the Roman side - but also Rabbi Yohanan Ben
Zakkai, who fled a besieged Jerusalem to the camp of the
besieging 10th Legion, and asked that "Yavneh and its sages" be
spared; his wish was granted. Having both figures as defendants
made our trial more complicated and interesting, especially
since it was held in late 1948, during the charged days of
Israel's War of Independence.
Both defendants
were acquitted. If I recall correctly, the argument made in
their favor was that the harm caused by their respective choices
to cross the lines was not as great as the good they did the
Jewish people - whether in the form of Josephus' historical
enterprise, or in the capacity for survival symbolized by Yavneh
and its sages, which made it possible to create an alternative
normative framework for Jewish identity after the destruction of
the Temple (we in Herzliya at the time were, of course, a bit
less scholarly in our phrasing).
The appearance of
a new Hebrew translation of Josephus' "The Jewish War" [all of
the following quotations are taken from the English translation
by G.A. Williamson, Penguin Classics, 1984] is, of course, cause
for celebration, since it may well enlarge the readership of
this canonical text. Without a doubt, this is one of the most
compelling of classical history books.
Of course, the
writings of Herodotus on the Greco-Persian wars and Thucydides'
work on the Peloponnesian Wars (two sources for Josephus' method
and rhetoric) are both compelling, as are the writings of
Tacitus, Plutarch and other Greek and Roman historians.
Ultimately, however, they are of interest only to other
historians: One can hardly imagine contemporary Athenians poring
over Thucydides to understand their own identity or connection
to the European Union. Nor is it likely that Romans under
Berlusconi delve into Tacitus to seek insight into the murky
depths of Italian politics.
For better or
worse, however, the writings of Josephus remain not only one of
the most important sources for understanding Jewish history, but
a focus of contemporary discussion and debate. (For example, on
the question of Masada: Without Josephus, we would know nothing
about what is supposed to have happened there and in the
surrounding area after the destruction of the Temple.)
And yet there is
a paradox: Herodotus wrote his books out of profound
identification with the Greeks in their war against the Persian
barbarians, and Thucydides composed his while deeply grieving
for Athens' loss in the wars against Sparta. The music of
Josephus in "The Jewish War" is more complex: On the one hand,
he writes with scathing contempt for the irresponsible,
murderous, thuggish ways of the Jewish Zealots, whom he clearly
despises. Throughout the book, he describes them in Greek as
"tyrants"; furthermore, one of the most moving speeches in the
book is by Ananus the Priest, who wishes to rescue Jerusalem
from the rule of Zealot gangs. On the other hand, the book was
written not to praise the Romans' victory, but rather to
celebrate the courage, resolve and culture of the Jews they
vanquished. If we keep in mind that Josephus was writing in Rome
as a protege of the emperors Vespasian and Titus, the paradox
becomes even more profound.
Jews as a nation
The first
question is, of course: Who are these Jews who waged war on the
Romans? Josephus' answer is clear: They are a nation. He is
careful to distinguish between his strong distaste for the
aggression of the Zealots and his characterization of the war
itself.
When interpreting
Josephus, one is always in danger of lapsing into anachronism,
and yet without a doubt, to him this was the war of the Jews as
a nation against the Roman Empire. One cannot, of course,
understand this in terms of the modern nationalism of the 19th
century, but although Josephus explains that the uprising
started out as a trivial land dispute between Jews and
Greco-Syrians in Caesarea, as the rebellion spread, it
increasingly came to resemble a war of liberation.
The religious
element is not the decisive one for Josephus; unlike Antiochus,
after all, the Romans did not infringe on Jewish religious
ritual and even respected it. It is important to understand how
Josephus describes the nature of the war: As modern as the idea
of nationalism may be (and this includes Zionism as an
expression of Jewish nationalism), modern national movements -
as scholar Anthony D. Smith claims - have ancient
ethnic-historical roots. If I weren't wary of going too far, I
would even say Josephus is the first modern Zionist.
The matter comes
up immediately in the book's dramatic opening sentence: "The war
of the Jews against the Romans was the greatest of our time;
greater, too, perhaps, than any recorded struggle whether
between cities or nations." The Greek original speaks of wars
"between polis and polis and between ethnos and ethnos." Of all
the Greek words for "people" (such as "demos" or "laos"), ethnos
is, of course, closest in meaning to the modern idea of
nationalism.
Later, Josephus
stresses these meanings again: He promises to write about what
"my people" have done (in Greek, "homophyloi," of shared origin)
and to describe the calamity that befell his "native city." He
also declares that the Jewish people suffered more at the hand
of fate than any other nation; and while describing the initial
success of the rebels, he adds that, "some were filled with hope
of gain ... by the state of affairs in the East; for the Jews
expected all their Mesopotamian brethren to join their
insurrection."
When describing
the riots that broke out between Jews and Greco-Syrians
throughout the region in the wake of the uprising, Josephus
notes the exception of Scythopolis (Beit She'an), where there
were Jews who fought side by side with Greco-Syrians against
Jewish rebels who attacked the city: "Treating their own safety
as of more importance than the ties of blood, they joined battle
with their countrymen," using the Greek terms "syngeneia"and "homophyloi,"
which both refer to a common origin.
Hinting at the
ancient history of the Jews, which he does not describe in this
work (but would turn to later in "The Antiquities of the Jews"),
Josephus nonetheless claims that, alongside the Exodus from
Egypt and the weary life of wandering, the Jews were exiled from
" their own country," thus stressing a clear territorial link to
the land of Israel.
Beyond this,
there is the matter of the point in time at which he chooses to
begin his narrative. The book might have begun with the
immediate developments at Caesarea, where the riots first broke
out, or with the obstinacy and inflexibility of the Roman
procurator Florus, or even - if one wanted to go back further -
with the crumbling of Herod's kingdom under his son, Archelaus,
and the turning of Judea into a Roman province, or even with the
very beginnings of Roman rule in the area, with Pompey's
conquest of the land in 63 B.C.E.
However, Josephus
does not adopt any of these points of departure, all of which
are tied to the period of Roman rule. He goes back no less than
230 years, to the year 163 B.C.E., opening his narrative with
the Seleucid Antiochus Epiphanes - with the conquest of
Jerusalem in 163, the plunder of the Temple, the edicts of
Antiochus and the Hasmonean uprising. In other words, he
situates the Jewish war against the Romans within a long history
of Jewish resistance to foreign rule. While describing the
Hasmonean monarchy, Josephus also notes that Aristobulus, son of
John Hyrcanus, the first to call himself a king and "the first
to wear a crown," did so "471 years and three months after the
return of the nation to their own land, set free from slavery in
Babylon."
Fictional oratory
These issues of
liberty and what might certainly be called national identity
also appear in some of the speeches that Josephus includes in
his book. As is the custom in Greek historiography, the language
in them is clearly invented, even though speeches may indeed
have been given on such occasions. These rhetorical addresses
represent what the personages in question might have been
expected to say at the time - and they certainly express the
author's own views. Israelis are most familiar with Elazar Ben
Yair's speech to the Zealots under siege at Masada, calling on
them to kill themselves and their families rather than be
captured by the Romans. But there are two other speeches in the
book, as well, no less dramatic.
One is by Agrippa II, who
found himself in Jerusalem with his sister, Berenice, when the
revolt began. Agrippa is opposed to the uprising and summons the
people to an assembly, where he explains his thinking and urges
them to send delegates to the emperor instead of rebelling.
The speech that Josephus
puts in Agrippa's mouth is one of the peaks of historical
rhetoric, and the arguments he presents are obviously those of
the author himself. The first issue Agrippa brings up is phrased
in almost contemporary terms: the longing for freedom ("eleutheria").
He can understand the wish not to be subjected to foreign rule,
but he adds that, the "passion for liberty ... comes too late";
those who wished to remain free "ought to have done everything
possible to keep the Romans out ... when the country was invaded
by Pompey." Indeed, he says, "the experience of slavery is a
painful one, and to escape it altogether, any effort is
justified; but the man who has once submitted and then revolts
is a refractory slave, not a lover of liberty."
Then Agrippa moves to a
broader theme: He turns to other nations who have submitted to
Roman rule, including the Athenians, who once fought the
Persians "to preserve the liberty of Greece." In a sweeping
description, he names all of the peoples that have submitted to
the Romans: Greeks and Gauls, Britons and the peoples of Asia
Minor, Lycians and Cilicians, Thracians and Germans and
Egyptians - all of whom live in the shadow of Rome without
rebelling. What are the odds that the Jews alone can triumph
over the Roman imperial troops? The speaker lists the feats of
bravery performed by these various peoples in the past and
explains that they now accept the yoke of Rome because it
guarantees their security and peace.
If the Jews
revolt, Agrippa claims, they will end up bringing calamity to
their people, their country, their city and their temple.
Moreover, "the danger threatens not only ourselves here but also
those who live in other cities; for there is not a region in the
world without its Jewish colony." This is a clear conception of
ethnic identity that is not necessarily limited territorially.
Agrippa claims that an uprising will not get the rebels what
they want; on the contrary, it will only lead to catastrophe and
destruction. He believes that what they seek can be obtained
under Roman rule - which is why he supports sending delegates to
the emperor to complain about the cruelty of the procurator.
And what is it
that the Jews wish to retain, and which Agrippa believes they
can have under Roman rule? The "patrios nomos" ("ancestral
customs"). These arguments against the insurrection are phrased
in terms of preserving the identity of the Jews as a nation,
with the Jews explicitly compared to other peoples. This kind of
Jewish national identity was not invented in the 19th century.
The idea of
freedom as a central tenet of Jewish consciousness is also part
of the speech of Ananus the Priest, mentioned above. Ananus is
speaking out against the Jewish Zealots, but Josephus has him
advocating national independence: "Have you really lost the most
honorable and deep-rooted of our instincts, the longing for
freedom? ... our fathers ... fought to the bitter end for
independence ["autonomy," being subject to one's own law],
defying the might of both Egypt and Persia ... our present
struggle with Rome ... what is its object? Isn't it freedom?"
Coins produced during the revolt indeed confirm that these
issues were foremost in the minds of those who took up arms
against the Romans.
Suicidal move?
All this (and
there are dozens of examples in the text) clearly shows that
Josephus conceived of the war as a struggle to preserve national
identity. That is why, despite his relentless criticism of the
Zealots, the struggle for identity and freedom itself appealed
to him: After all, he was part of this war until the fall of
Yodfat. It was not a war waged by one king or another, who was
reluctant to submit to Rome; it was the war of a public
determined to stay free. Josephus also explains that the war -
at least in its early stages, before the violent coup by the
Zealot groups - was led by a council (boule), which may or may
not be synonymous with the Sanhedrin; in any case, it was a
public institution.
All this raises a
historical question, one that the late strategic expert
Yehoshafat Harkabi addressed when he attacked the myth of
Masada. Harkabi saw the story of Masada, like the Bar Kochba
uprising, as a suicidal event that caused the Jews to suffer
destruction and exile. One can ignore the polemical contemporary
context of Harkabi's words, but the historical question remains.
In terms of
personal destiny, Harkabi is right: The first Jewish revolt,
like the Bar Kochba uprising, had catastrophic consequences for
innumerable individuals in Judea. But if we follow the dramatic
speech in which Agrippa lists all of the peoples that did not
revolt against Rome, there is still no escaping the fact that
none of them ultimately retained its existence; none survived as
a people or a cultural entity with a distinct identity. All of
those nations that acted rationally, as advocated by Agrippa and
Harkabi, disappeared and became extinct. The only people to
survive - culturally, socially, and now as a state as well - is
the one who made the choice to rebel. It suffered destruction
and exile as a result, but there is no ignoring the fact that,
within the twisted paths of history, and despite its many trials
and tribulations, it was this people that continued to exist and
did not perish.
A harsh
conclusion, but one whose cruel, internal dialectical logic
cannot be denied.
Prof. Shlomo
Avineri's book "Herzl" was published by the Zalman Shazar Center
(in Hebrew).
