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‘BRIGANDS’ AND ‘TYRANTS’ IN JOSEPHUS’ BELLVM JVDAICVM
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2021
Abstract
This article argues against the long-enduring practice of Josephan scholarship to treat the terms τύραννος (‘tyrant’) and λῃστής (‘brigand’) as a collocation, or as undistinguished terms of invective employed by Josephus against various Jewish antagonists in his Bellum Judaicum (= BJ). Towards this aim, the article first examines the frequency in which these two terms appear together throughout the text of the BJ, before turning to a critical examination of particular passages that feature the terms, in order to prove that they are, in fact, not used as undistinguished terms of invective but as terms pertaining to two distinct classes of people: renegade aristocrats vying with their peers for absolute power (the ‘tyrants’) and their gangs of foot soldiers comprising men from the lower classes (the ‘brigands’). The article concludes that Josephus used these terms in this manner in order to convey to his readership, which largely consisted of Roman aristocrats, that the ringleaders of the Judaean revolt which raged between a.d. 66–73 were akin to renegades who periodically wreaked havoc on Rome's own aristocracy, often with devastating consequences for class and country alike.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Footnotes
This article is adapted from a section of my Ph.D. dissertation entitled ‘Josephus’ tyrants and the aristocratic ethos at Rome’ (Diss., Hebrew University, December 2019).
References
1 For ‘semantic fields’, see van Henten, J.W., ‘Rebellion under Herod the Great and Archelaus: prominent motifs and narrative function’, in Popović, M. (ed.), The Jewish Revolt against Rome: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Leiden, 2011), 241–70, at 242Google Scholar.
2 Faulkner, N., Apocalypse: The Great Jewish Revolt against Rome, a.d. 66–73 (Stroud, 2011 2), 135Google Scholar.
3 Bilde, P., Flavius Josephus between Jerusalem and Rome: His Life, his Works and their Importance (Sheffield, 1988), 74Google Scholar. See also Rajak, T., Josephus: The Historian and his Society (Philadelphia, 1983), 86Google Scholar.
4 These data do not include: (1) the case of BJ 1.202/204, because in those passages, although adjacent, the two terms refer to people who are clearly differentiated from each other (a ruler in Jerusalem and rebels in the Galilee) in separate, unrelated episodes; (2) Josephus’ use of the adjective λῃστρικός, since—apart from BJ 1.11, discussed at the end of this section—the closest it appears to τύραννος is 19 paragraphs away (BJ 2.65/84), and even there λῃστρικός is not used of people but of a type of warfare.
5 These results were derived via quantitative analysis, working in tandem with Rengstorf's concordance: Rengstorf, K.H., The Complete Concordance to Flavius Josephus: Study Edition (Leiden, 2002)Google Scholar. The Concordance refers to words according to their paragraphs (as opposed to ‘passages’) in Niese, B., Flavii Josephi opera, 7 vols. (Berlin, 1885–95)Google Scholar.
6 See n. 4 above.
7 All translations are from the Loeb Classical Library edition of Josephus’ BJ (Thackeray, H.St.J., Josephus. The Jewish War, 3 vols. [London and New York, 1927–8]Google Scholar), with my own comments appearing in square brackets within Thackeray's translation.
8 Apropos of this passage we might also relate briefly to another passage about Masada: BJ 4.504, where Josephus, according to Thackeray's translation, reports that Simon bar Giora once ‘joined the brigands who had seized Masada’ (πρὸς τοὺς κατειληφότας τὴν Μασάδαν λῃστὰς παραγίνεται). However, all that παραγίνομαι means is that Simon came to them; as the story shows, at first they refused to accept him, and even later, when he gained their confidence, he was allowed only ‘to accompany them’ (§506).
9 Pace Mason, S., Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary, Volume 1B: Judean War 2 (Leiden, 2008), 39 n. 342CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘John of Gischala … is described as a “bandit” (BJ 2.587, 593)’.
10 Here and below, italicized phrases in translations and dictionary definitions signal my emphasis.
11 Rengstorf (n. 5).
12 For example in BJ 4.510: ‘And now when he [sc. Simon] was becoming a terror to the towns, many men of standing were seduced by his strength and career of unbroken success into joining him; and his was no longer an army of mere serfs or brigands, but one including numerous citizen recruits, subservient to his command as to a king (βασιλεύς).’
13 Goodman, M., The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt against Rome a.d. 66–70 (Cambridge, 1987), 201–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.