The Presentation of Titus in the "Jewish War" of Josephus

WHEN TITUS RETURNED TO ROME about May-June of A.D. 71, after the capture and destruction of Jerusalem in the previous year, he was accompanied by Josephus who, after the capture of Jotapata (July 67), had spent the rest of the war first as Roman prisoner then as collaborator. On his arrival in Rome Josephus was lodged by the emperor Vespasian in the house which Vespasian had occupied before his elevation as emperor, he had the Roman citizenship conferred on him, and he was granted a pension by the emperor (Vita 423). We do not know when Josephus began to write the Greek version of the Jewish War, but it was preceded by a version in Josephus' ancestral tongue, probably Aramaic (BJ 1.3). The Greek version, which is all we now possess, was completed sometime between A.D. 75 and Vespasian's death in June 79.1 The completed work had been presented to Vespasian and Titus (Vita 361; Ap. 1.50-51) and Titus ordered its publication, having inscribed it with his own hand (Vita 363). In the light of these circumstances and of what we know or can surmise about ancient literary patronage, it will hardly be thought surprising that Josephus' narrative is biased in favour of Vespasian and Titus, and this view has become a commonplace of Josephan scholarship. In a recent article, for example, B. W. Jones has argued that Josephus has exaggerated Titus' military capacities, especially in A.D. 67.2 It is important to note, however, that the present article does not claim that it was the sole or even primary purpose of the Jewish War to show favour to Titus and Vespasian, but many techniques

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