In recent years a new debate has appeared in scholarship over the value of ‘religion’ as a category for studying the ancient Mediterranean world before its Christianisation. Although I have unwittingly become involved at the margins, I confess not to understand what is at stake for all participants. Whereas the debate usually proceeds on a theoretical or at least abstract level, a volume on ‘religious violence’ in Antiquity invites us to get down to cases. This chapter examines a pair of extremely violent incidents reported by Josephus for the year 66 ce, in Jerusalem and Caesarea, to ask what if anything makes them instances of religious violence, or how we might better understand what happened if we called it ‘religious’ behaviour. Before turning to the double episode in Josephus’ War, I would like to spell out my limited understanding of the stakes in using or declining religion language for the first century.

If we wanted to approach Josephus with the question “Is his work accurate?” his distances would be an obvious place to start. His distances have often been used to successfully identify sites: Josephus claims that A is 30 stadia (ca. 6 km) from B, but if a candidate for B is actually 37.5 stadia (ca. 7.5 km) from A, we look for a better option. Here as always we need to understand the nature of our evidence before using it in historical reasoning.

Josephus nowhere explains his method or sources for indicating distance. His main unit of distance measurement is the stadion, and if we review all occurrences of numbered stadia (plural) in his works, some general patterns suggest themselves. The word appears 121 times in total, although in a few cases it refers to a stadium facility or to an undefined number (“many stadia” etc.). Below are all the passages that give numbered stadia as measurements. The figures down the left side are not ordinals. They are the numbers of stadia given by Josephus in the corresponding passages to the right.

1: Ant. 15.415; Life. 399

2: War 2.189; 5.133, 134, 270; Ant. 7.225, 243

3: War 3.245; 5.68; Ant. 20.95

4: Ant. 9.225; 15.400; Life. 64, 322

5: Ant. 20.169; Life.. 398

6: War 4.533; 5.70, 192

7: War 2.528; 3.146; 5.68; 7.286; Ant. 19.340

10: Ant. 5.20

20: War 1.403, 425; 3.521; 4.107, 467, 659; Ant. 5.140; 7.34, 312; 10.114; 15.297; Life. 118, 265, 395

30: War 2.386, 551; 3.447, 521; 4.3, 44, 615; 5.51; 7.101, 217, 284; Ant. 5.139; 12.408; 19.6; Life. 157, 281, 349

33: War 5.159

40: War 3.506; 5.508; Ant. 7.283; 8.303; Life. 234

50: War 2.516; Ant. 5.20; 13.175; Apion 1.197

60: War 1.265, 419; 2.188, 291, 338; 4.3, 474; Ant. 4.112; 5.4; 14.359; 15.324; Life. 115, 214, 349

70: War 1.673; 4.467; Ant. 12.369

80: Ant. 13.276; 17.199

90: War 5.523; 6.5; Ant. 18.365

100: War 2.188; 6.151, 375; Ant. 18.179; 20.113

120: War 2.188; 3.510, 515; 4.456; 7.229; Life. 349

140: War 3.506

150/ War 4.474, 482; Ant. 13.390

160:

180: War 7.426

200: Ant. 18.60

230: War 4.456

300: War 4.613; Ant. 9.7; 15.168

400: War 2.175

520: War 3.10

580: War 4.482

600: War 1.79; Ant. 13.312

2000: War 4.610

3600: War 4.610

From this inventory several patterns become clear.

It is time to review our main results. Since I have emphasized the importance of thinking about historical method, I first summarize the method and then the substantive conclusions it has produced.

METHOD

While writing these chapters I have imagined a critical voice objecting: “Your prattling about historical method doesn't make any difference, does it? You have cited passages from Josephus and material remains in support of your reconstruction, choosing your favourites and ignoring others, just as everyone else does!” In case my readers have heard the same voice, or perhaps they own it, I would like to explain in light of the foregoing chapters. A metaphor may help.

We usually approach Josephus as we would a house made of brick and stone. We can see the materials from which the house is constructed. If we are interested in some small part of that structure ‒ in Pontius Pilate, the upper priesthood, the causes of the war ‒ we look at what Josephus has done with that part and suspect that we could do better. In building his house, we believe, he had a skewed perspective and/or unimaginative vision: fealty to the Flavians or some pathetic effort to exculpate his kind from war guilt. But no one doubts that he used excellent materials, and they don't make them like that any more! So our best bet is to dismantle his house and salvage those materials for our building. We can identify good material through a combination of intuition and educated guesswork about its provenance: Is this a brick that he himself made ad hoc, a solid older one, or a piece of excellent stone? To help us decide, we use the principle that whatever does not seem to fit his building design is likely older and not made by him. Even better, not too far from Josephus’ house are piles of loose bricks ‒ fragmentary material remains ‒ that are wonderful for us because they do not belong to any existing structure. They are free for us to use along with the best bits from Josephus as we build a more robust structure.

Having stretched the metaphor to breaking point, I shall leave it there. My implicit criticism is directed at all of us, myself included.

Polybius relates a number of stories in which Greek and Roman generals capture seemingly unconquerable cities that are of no great value in themselves, but their conquest sends a message: This display of force generates power (Chapter 3). Because defenders trust their such strong walls and remote locations, their fall has a shattering didactic effect. A general capable of doing that must be obeyed. Although Cestius and Vespasian fully exploited display violence to establish local power, as we have seen, Cestius’ rebuff outside Jerusalem left the viability of this fortress polis, deep in Judaea's hills, an open question. Years later, after Titus had safely returned to Rome, his enablers would credit him with the unprecedented achievements of a fortune-blessed conqueror (Chapter 1). But that discloses nothing about his actual intentions in the spring of 70, his changing plans over time, or what transpired between his arrival in the spring of 70 and his departure from a city in ashes.

When Vespasian turned his attention to Jerusalem toward the end of 67, he must have prepared for various outcomes. Galilee had submitted instantly and Samaria was securely in hand (3.307–15). But how long the Judaean campaign would last and what it would entail depended on factors beyond Vespasian's control. Clearly he had to secure the Judaean mother-city in one way or another, but because he faced a human enemy his approach would need to be reassessed constantly. Would Jerusalem capitulate before his arrival, as Sepphoris had, and would its leaders request a garrison as protection against Judaean and neighbouring violence? Among other unknowables, the Flavians could not have known that a lightweight from Galilee, John, would soon become an intransigent leader in Jerusalem.

With respect to high Roman politics, Vespasian could not have imagined when he left ruined Gamala in October 67 that the still-young emperor would take his own life within a few months, launching a bloody civil war.

When ancient Jewish and Christian writers discussed the Judaean War in retrospect, their interests tended to be theological: “Why did God allow (or cause) his house to be destroyed? What help does biblical tradition offer in understanding the catastrophe?” Josephus shared those concerns, but fortunately for us, he historicized the problem by marrying cosmic drama with concrete personalities, incidents, and situations (Chapter 2). His account leaves countless loose ends, to be sure, and inexhaustible food for thought. One simple question that he does not pose in a systematic way, although he narrates much relevant material, is: Why and how did this war begin?

In this chapter we re-examine the war's beginnings, as a foundation for the rest of our inquiry. We should not assume that early grievances remained the same throughout, but having an idea about how Judaeans came into lethal conflict with Rome's legions will help us to understand later developments.

In exploring the war's causes, we need to avoid seductively simplistic paths. Because Rome and Judaea ended up at war, it has usually seemed obvious that the Judaeans must have had serious grounds for complaint. For such a humble David to have taken on such a Goliath, these grievances must have become intolerable and finally popped the cork of rational restraint. In 1893 the eminent Heinrich Graetz put it thus:

Although scholars have refined their explanations in countless ways, this picture has remained more or less intact. Leading military historians take it for granted that: “Judaea caused incessant trouble to the Romans. … The people defended their religious identity and culture from the efforts of provincial authorities to impose Greek and Roman culture. …” The image of a Judaea seething with anti-Roman fervour has filtered out from scholarship into the best-researched novels and films, …

D. A. Russell wrote this in 1966 concerning Plutarch's Lives. Others have issued similar warnings about trying to extract raw facts from texts while ignoring their nature, structures, and themes. In principle all survivals from the past, material or literary, need first to be understood for what they are if we are to use them to answer other questions. Recognition of this in the case of Josephus’ War and Antiquities–Life has been recent and partial. This chapter is mainly an effort to understand Josephus’ War, because it is the most important literary source for the following chapters. We need to begin, however, by clarifying where the interpretation of evidence fits in the larger project of historical investigation. And this requires us to think about the surprisingly difficult question: What is history?

History and interpretation

Historians are often impatient with theory. We feel that we know what we are doing, and abstract philosophizing can get in the way. We should just get on with the hard work. Going theory-less, however, can create miscommunication. In the final months of preparing this book I have heard professional historians express such views as these: History is the past or an authoritative account of it; historians must follow the evidence and avoid speculation; history concerns itself with elite literary texts and neither material evidence or the life of ordinary folk, which are the province of archaeologists; historians are either maximalists or minimalists, realists or postmodernists, left-wingers or conservatives, or they fall in some other two-kinds-of-people scheme. A problem relevant to this chapter is the notion that those who care about the meaning of texts must be literary types unconcerned with the actual past. And these positions are held by historians. If we include more popular ideas about history, including those espoused by political leaders and school boards, the picture becomes bewildering.

This is not the place, my publisher insists, for a head-on discussion of the nature of history. Dedicated discussions of the problem are easy to find, even if I cannot recommend one that perfectly matches my outlook.

Josephus’ Titus explains why Vespasian did not pursue a strategy we associate with Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831). The Prussian soldier-spy emphasized the need to concentrate forces on the enemy's “focal point of force and movement” (Schwerpunkt). Commanders must resist temptations to divide their forces for small contests, which never decide a war and are hazardous besides: “In a word, the first principle is: to act with as much concentration as possible. The second principle is: to act as swiftly as possible; therefore to permit no delay or detour without sufficient reason.” Josephus has Titus claim that because a concentrated assault on Jerusalem was the only sensible method of national punishment, Vespasian's decision to linger in the north proves that he was motivated by kindness (τὸ φιλάνθρωπον) and gentleness (ἡ πρᾳότης).

It is not necessarily so. Clausewitz had in view states with regular armies. With irregular resistance fighters who were indistinguishable from ordinary folk, the Romans had either to annihilate the population or to drain the morale of potential militants (Chapter 3). Because they chose the latter, their aim became the reestablishment of control and domination at minimal risk. With psychological considerations paramount in both cases, the main difference between Vespasian's campaign and that of Cestius was that Vespasian had the time to be much more deliberate. He had nothing else to do but to suppress whatever revolt had been expressed in the massacre of the auxiliary garrison and the ambush of Cestius.

As we saw in Chapter 3, Liddell Hart proposed that the indirect approach was actually the essence of strategy. It kept the enemy off balance and in constant fear while forcing them to disperse their defences.

One of the great puzzles of the Judaean War is the event that set it in motion: the expedition to Jerusalem by the legate C. Cestius Gallus, in September–October of A.D. 66. Until that time, as we have just seen, Judaeans had been in conflict only with the largely Samarian auxiliary (Chapter 4). Now Cestius marched south with a reported force of 30,000, anchored in the Twelfth Legion, with auxiliaries and regional allies from the north plus ad hoc recruits (War 2.499–502). Within two months, most of that being travel time, he was back in Antioch, disgraced and disconsolate after losing an alleged 5,300 men. Even if the real number were much smaller, he suffered a serious humiliation. No one could doubt that this would swiftly be avenged. Judaeans began preparing for that retaliation (War 2.562–79). But how did Cestius come to such grief? What was he intending, and was he so utterly incompetent to see it through?

Assuming that Judaea was already in open revolt against Rome and that Cestius’ objective was to crush Jerusalem, analysts have found his behaviour baffling. His apparent dithering en route and abrupt departure from Jerusalem, capped by the catastrophic ambush in the Beit-Horon pass, have seemed evidence of staggering ineptitude. The successful ambush gave an incalculable boost to Judaean morale (War 3.9). And because it clearly demanded revenge, more than any other single event it created the Judaean-Roman War. Josephus’ formulaic repetition of “the blunder(s) of Cestius” brings this episode into the orbit of “the Varian disaster” (clades Variana) of A.D. 9, in which an emeritus legate of Syria lost three legions and his own life in Germany.

Cestius lived long enough to suffer the ignominy, but not long enough to redeem his reputation. A generation later Tacitus reflects that “he suffered varied fortunes and met defeat more often than he gained victory” (Hist. 5.10).