This book offers an excellent, detailed analysis of all the references to the three Flavian emperors in Josephus’s Jewish War. Davies consistently pays attention to Roman and Jewish perspectives and reads Josephus in line with postcolonial theory as a historian who is in between two worlds. His conclusions are well-argued and careful. He rejects the binary oppositions that in his view underly previous scholarship and lead to a one-dimensional interpretation of Josephus’s role as a historian. Instead, he argues for complexity and reads the Jewish War as a multifaceted, polyvalent, and hybridized work (p. 212). Josephus creates his own narratives as an independent historian, who promotes the Flavians but also highlights the role of the Jewish God in the suppression of the revolt and the assumption of power by the Flavians.
A brief introduction in chapter 1 explains the set up of the book and offers a concise summary of previous research into Josephus’s representation of the Flavians from the nineteenth century onward. Davies observes two trends in the research since 2000: (1) the integration of postcolonial theory, and (2) changes in the perception of the role of the emperor and his relationship to authors who were active at the time, which resulted in attention paid to safe criticism and concealed dissidence.[1] Steve Mason (2005, 2009) especially had a great impact with his application of the concept of figured speech (insinuating criticism when one wants to avoid overt criticism) to Josephus.
Chapter 2 focuses on types of political expression and regime representation in Flavian Rome. It provides a theoretical and methodological framework for the analysis of Josephus’s brand of regime representation in the subsequent chapters. The concept of “new censorship” (based on insights from Michel Foucault) is helpful here, and allows for a reading of authors as parts of networks of power relations, who appropriated the dominant discourse but also expressed their own literary strategies within the limits of what was acceptable to the ruling powers.[2] The emperor acted as literary patron—Josephus sent drafts of his work to Vespasian and Titus—and there were formal punitive strategies (e.g., inuria, maiestas) as well as informal preventive strategies. The chapter also discusses literary ideologies of veridiction in relation to the genre of historiography and the virtues attributed to the emperor on coins and in other sources.
Chapter 3 deals with the intended audience, composition, and date of the Jewish War, the central work in this study. Davies argues for an audience that includes Roman literati but also educated Greeks and Greek-literate Jewish readers. He contends that War 1–6 reflects a parallel structure that begins and ends with the violation of the Jerusalem temple. The observation that War highlights symmetrically opposed points and that it consists of three coherent blocks of narrative, each comprising of two books, underpins this structure. Book 7 does not match this structure because it is comprised of two unequal parts: (1) concerns the Flavian dynasty and (2) the other the demise of the rebels. Davies refutes Steve Mason’s argument that books 1–7 form a unity with a concentric structure by adducing countervening structural and stylistic observations. He concludes that there is “a reasonable likelihood” that book 7 was added during the rule of Domitian to a work that until then contained only books 1–6 (p. 10; 58–73)[3] and that the final work was completed in the last years of Vespasian (75–79 CE). The content of the passages about the Flavians in book 7 discussed in chapter 5 lends further support to the argument that book 7 was added during Domitian’s reign (pp. 68; 186–202).
Chapter 4 analyses the references to the Flavians in War 1–6, starting with Vespasian and ending with a short section on Domitian. Davies starts his successive discussions with a survey of the representations of the three Flavians in Rome. Josephus presents Vespasian as an experienced military commander who cared for his troops. Possible minor critical points concern his fighting in line at Gamla and loss of self-control there (War 4.31–35), and his cruel behavior during the Galilean campaign. The ending of book 3 about the deceit and partial murder of the rebels at Tarichaeae who had surrendered and received amnesty raises questions about Vespasian’s faithfulness (War 3.352–540). Josephus minimizes Vespasian’s culpability and puts most of the blame on Vespasian’s officers and friends (War 3.352–356). Like Roman historians Josephus highlights the divine support for Vespasian, thrice recounting signs and wonders told by others, but he presents the Jewish God not as the enemy of the Roman people, as the dominant narrative may have done, but as the deity who had chosen Vespasian as the new world leader and supported him at several stages.[4] Josephus must have been aware of the sensitivities surrounding Vespasian’s rise to power. He highlights Vespasian’s reluctance to undertake a civil war in line with the Roman tradition of imperial recusatio and connects this civil war with the one in Judea, which implies that Judea and the God of the Jews take central stage in the scenario (pp. 112–13; 118). He also adapts the chain of events in accordance with Flavian propaganda. Davies concludes that Josephus’s report of the civil war in Rome is the most consistently pro-Flavian report we have (pp. 126–27).
Titus operates more dynamically and bravely as military commander than Vespasian, but he is also more clement toward the enemy and puts his own safety at risk in several situations. This can be interpreted critically from the perspective of figured speech, but Davies proposes that one read the military portraits of the experienced Vespasian and the younger Titus as complements to each other (pp. 148–53). Concerning the much-discussed issue of whether the burning of the Jerusalem temple was ordered by Titus, as many scholars assume,[5] or not, as Josephus implies, Davies argues that Josephus creates a space for the interpretation that Titus attempted to spare the temple, for aesthetic reasons, but that he also implies that there was no need to exonerate Titus from a charge of impiety since the destruction happened according to the will of God alone (p. 177). Davies is more interested in how Josephus depicts the regime during this episode and how the Flavians serve his own interests than about Titus’s involvement (p. 179). Josephus reframes the event as the destruction of an old and revered cult center and elicits regret in this way from Roman readers.
Chapter 5 focuses on the depiction of the Flavians in War 7, which explicitly indicates that Vespasian’s sovereignty might pass on to both of his sons (War 7.73) and highlights that the Flavians were a dynasty (e.g., 7.120). Vespasian’s triumph over Judea in 71 CE with Titus as his aide-de-camp was innovative because it involved two triumphators. Josephus depicts them together next to Domitian in his splendid outfit, riding a magnificent horse (War 7.152) that resonates in Domitian’s famous equus Domitiani erected later. Josephus’s report (War 7.123–57), the longest description of a triumph in classical literature, functions as the foundation of the dynasty for Domitian and highlights the harmony within the Flavian regime as well as its being in full control. War 7.75–88 focuses on Domitian’s prodigious gifts and his eagerness to act as a military commander, exaggerating his role in ending the revolt in Gaul.
In the final chapter Davies concludes that previous perspectives on Josephus as a liar, a Flavian propagandist, or a dissident, are all unsatisfactory. Figured speech cannot be identified with certainty because it depends on the reader. Josephus’ War is a polyvalent, complex, and independent work that implies “that the Flavians were wrong about a great many topics central to their own narratives of legitimation and self-justification” (p. 213). I am not sure whether this conclusion is fully supported by Davies’s analysis of Josephus in the preceding chapters and remain curious about what “a great many topics” entails here. Nevertheless, this study makes abundantly clear that Josephus is a fascinating and highly relevant source about this period.
Representing the Dynasty in Flavian Rome is well documented by primary and secondary sources,[6] though on certain points one may disagree with his conclusions. The evidence in other Flavian sources, Orosius, Sulpicius Severus (despite the tendentiousness), Dio Cassius, and Josephus’s own inconsistency in this respect[7] render it plausible that Titus did order the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. Davies’s study focuses on the Jewish War only and he pays scant attention to the references to the Flavians in Josephus’s other three works, the Jewish Antiquities, the Life and the Against Apion.[8] Josephus’s perspective on the Flavians may have changed in his later works, which were composed under Domitian or somewhat later. The Antiquities, for example, may present Herod the Great as a critical mirror-image of Domitian. Some passages are striking parallels of traditions about Domitian that were circulating after the emperor’s death. Josephus highlights Herod’s murder of the old aristocracy and his ruining or dishonoring of unmarried and married women (Ant. 17.307, 309). Both points match two of the most prominent criticisms of Domitian in Tacitus, Pliny, and Suetonius: Domitian attacks the senators and his extreme sexual lust leads to several adulterous and incestuous relationships.[9] This could be a case of figured speech. Notwithstanding these remarks, Davies’s book is a most welcome contribution to Josephus studies and the scholarship on the Flavian period.
References
Ahl, F. M. 1984. “The Art of Safe Criticism in Greece and Rome.” AJPh 101: 174–208.
Freshwater, H. 2004. “Towards a Redefinition of Censorship.” In Müller, B. ed. Censorship and Cultural Regulation in the Modern Age. Leiden: Brill. 225–245.
Huitink, L. 2024. “Between Triumph and Tragedy: Josephus, Bellum Judaicum 7.121–157.” In Versluys, M. J., and de Jong, I. F. J. ed. Reading Greek and Hellenistic-Roman Spolia: Objects, Appropriation and Cultural Change. Leiden: Brill. 215–237.
Ilan, T. 2022. Queen Berenice: A Jewish Icon of the First Century CE. Leiden: Brill.
Mason, S. N. 2005. “Figured Speech and Irony in T. Flavius Josephus.” In Edmonson, J., Mason, S. N., and Rives, J. ed., Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. 243–288.
Mason, S. N. 2009. “Of Despots, Diadems and Diadochoi: Josephus and Flavian Politics.” In Dominik, W. J., Garthwaite, J., and Roche, P.A. ed. Writing Politics in Imperial Rome. Leiden: Brill. 323–350.
Mason, S. N. 2022. Judean War 4. Flavius Josephus Translation and Commentary 2a. Leiden: Brill.
Moormann, E. M. 2024. “Judaea at the Tiber: Sacred Objects from Judaea and Their New Function in Imperial Rome.” In Reading Greek and Hellenistic-Roman Spolia. 238–262.
Schwartz, S. (1986). “The Composition and Publication of Josephus’ Bellum Iudaicum.” Harvard Theological Review 79: 373–86.
Notes
[1] Starting with Ahl (1984).
[2] See esp. Freshwater (2004).
[3] As argued already by Schwartz (1986).
[4] War 3.351–354, 399–408, 622–626; 6.312–313. Cf. 3.293, 484; 5.409–11; 6.38–41, 411 concerning Titus.
[5] These scholars are listed on p. 174 with footnote 458.
[6] A few recent publications can be added to the bibliography: Mason (2022); Ilan (2022); Huitink (2024); Moormann (2024).
[7] In War 6.228 and Ant. 20.250 Josephus states that Titus ordered the burning of the temple.
[8] E.g., Ant. 8.46; 12.121, 122, 128; 18.140; 19.366 (Vespasian); 12.121, 122, 128 (Titus); 20.148 (Domitian).
[9] Tac. Agr. 45; Hist. 4.2, 68; Suet. Dom. 8.3.