More than Meets the Eye

Previous articleNext article FreeMore than Meets the Eye: Incongruity and Observation in Josephus’s Account of the Triumph of Vespasian and TitusChristopher A. FrilingosChristopher A. FrilingosMichigan State University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreIs it the ruins alone or Rome’s jumble of classical forms and modern life that dazzles the tourist?1 For some visitors the first close view of the Colosseum comes after emerging from the underground metro stop and across a busy street. The structure looms ahead as a vast, cylindrical testament to the Roman past, encircled by the traffic of cars, buses, and trains.The structure was already a symbol of the past when it was completed in 80 CE. To ancient Romans it was a war memorial. The Colosseum, or the Flavian Amphitheater, was named after the dynasty founded by the first Flavian emperor, Vespasian. It was built with funds from the spoils of the conflict in the province of Judaea, the so-called First Jewish War.2 The war made Vespasian’s career.3 As a Roman general, he led the first push against the revolt in 67 CE. Two years later, Vespasian became emperor of Rome. Titus, Vespasian’s son, then ascended to command the army and eventually dealt the mortal blow to the insurrection. After a five-month siege, Roman soldiers invaded the city of Jerusalem in August of 70 CE, killing or taking captive the Jewish inhabitants. Amid the chaos of the attack, the great temple of Jerusalem was consumed by fire. Sacred vessels from the temple were brought by Titus to Rome, where the reconquest of the province was celebrated in a public spectacle.4Romans had a distinctive ritual for commemorating military success: the triumph. Evidence of the triumph of Vespasian and Titus, held in the summer of 71 CE, can be seen today on the Arch of Titus in Rome. Like the nearby Colosseum, it is a monument to the First Jewish War. Chiseled into a panel in the archway is an image of Roman soldiers bearing a large menorah, one of the objects taken from the Jewish temple of Jerusalem.5 This menorah and other spoils from Jerusalem were paraded through the streets. Romans welcomed home the infantry and joined in thanking the gods for victory. So too the triumph gave Romans a view of the defeated foe, as captives from Judaea were driven before the chariots of Vespasian and Titus. Perhaps the most astonishing element of the triumph was the series of giant, moving stages of battle scenes in tableaux. Like an old-fashioned newsreel, the set pieces of combat broadcast an official record of the war to the Roman audience “on the home front.”6 The ritual of the Roman triumph created a memory of the First Jewish War—one preserved in the Arch of Titus, which was erected in Rome a decade later. The arch is thus a sculptured memory of a ritualized memory of war.In this article I focus on a literary account of the triumph, which, like the carvings in the Arch of Titus, is an artful representation of the event.7 Josephus, the Jewish historian, gives a description of the parade in book 7 of the Jewish War. This lengthy and important record of the Roman ritual likely dates to within a decade of the triumph itself.8 The author seems to have been an eyewitness.9The account of Josephus appears routinely in technical studies on the route and mechanics of the Roman triumph.10 This article will use it instead to explore the intersection of war, rituals of war, and the interpretation of these rituals in narrative.11 Book 7 of the Jewish War provides an intriguing case study because so many historians have criticized it and its author for being contemptuous of the Jewish captives. In an important book, The Roman Triumph, Mary Beard labels Josephus a “Jewish turncoat.”12 Elsewhere Beard describes Josephus as a “lackey” of the imperial regime, a “Flavian apparatchik,” whose sycophancy oozes from the page in book 7.13 Even sympathetic interpreters of Josephus admit defeat in the face of Josephus’s account of the triumph. Tessa Rajak, for example, concedes, “Josephus can for the first time be said to glorify his patrons at the expense of his people” in the passages about the triumph of Vespasian and Titus.14But there is more than meets the eye in this account, or so I will argue. In describing the triumph, Josephus notes that the gruesome wounds of Jewish prisoners are hidden underneath fine clothing. While these injuries remain veiled to Roman spectators, Josephus exposes to view the suffering of the captives. Exposure, as Arnold Weinstein suggests in his study of Western literature, can be terrifying or emancipating: “Exposure is ... potentially violating and subjugating; but it is also liberating in its conversion of darkness into light, private into public. This can be true medically; this can be true morally. Those of us who see through the glass darkly do desire finally to be seen and to be known.”15 Both possibilities are realized in book 7 of the Jewish War. Why does Josephus remark on the mangled bodies of Jewish prisoners? Why does he reveal what Roman stagecraft conceals? What does his observation of this incongruity imply about Josephus’s self-presentation?The article begins with a brief discussion of Josephus’s experience in the First Jewish War before turning to a close reading of Josephus’s narrative. Then, following insights from Jonathan Z. Smith and his interpreters, we take up the question of the meaning of ritual and how such meaning has been elucidated in treatments of Josephus. A “locative” view of the Roman triumph, I contend, controls the critical treatment of book 7 of the Jewish War, and this model leads inevitably to a negative evaluation of Josephus. Finally, the article will propose its own theory about how Josephus, through his account of the Roman triumph, presents himself as the consummate observer of Roman rituals of war.The Trouble with JosephusThe captives in the triumph of Vespasian and Titus were not only fellow Jews but also comrades-in-arms of Josephus. The author of the Jewish War took a leadership role in the early stages of the uprising against Rome. Most of what we know about his biography comes from two sources: the Jewish War and the Life.16 Historians have generally accepted the broad outlines of these sources while harboring doubts about the details.17 That Josephus changed from combatant in a war against Rome to client of the imperial Roman household remains beyond dispute.Josephus was born Yosef ben Mattityahu, into a priestly family in Jerusalem. As a young man, Josephus was given a first-rate education and the leisure to examine the world.18 He was also a leader in his community. In 64 CE, only two years before the outbreak of war, Josephus was sent to Rome to negotiate the successful release of Jewish priests. Returning home, Josephus was caught up in the unrest that led to the surprising Jewish victory over soldiers of the Roman governor, Cestius Gallus.19 Jewish leaders in Jerusalem began to prepare for the imminent Roman response. Commanders were appointed, and Josephus was placed in charge of Galilee.20 After six months, Josephus was in trouble; yet, according to his own account of the events, he proved resourceful. Trapped in a cave with other fighters, Josephus survived a mass suicide.21 Then, when he was taken captive by the Romans, Josephus petitioned for an audience with Vespasian. He predicted that General Vespasian would soon be hailed as emperor: “You are master not only of me, Caesar, but of land and sea and all the human race.”22 The prophecy was fulfilled, and as a result, the personal circumstances of Josephus were improved.23 Meanwhile, the position of the Jews of Judaea collapsed. Josephus, now interpreter and advisor to Titus, was present to watch it happen. He witnessed the terrible siege of Jerusalem. Afterward, he traveled to Rome, where he saw firsthand the triumph and lived under the patronage of successive Flavian emperors, writing his many volumes.Like other spectators in Rome, the Jewish historian marveled at the triumph of Vespasian and Titus. Unlike others, Josephus had fought against Rome in the war. Even so, many scholars have suggested that Josephus’s direct experience of war exerted less influence over his writing than the desire to please his Flavian patrons.24 This problem has long divided historians into two camps. The overall situation is neatly summarized in the Encyclopaedia Judaica:On this subject there are opposing views. By some he is regarded as a traitor who, deserting his people in their hour of need, defected to the enemy, and acting as the apologist of the Romans, distorted the facts. A more charitable view contends that he was essentially a Pharisee who acted in conformity with this outlook, had faith in the future of the Jewish people whose survival depended on submission to Rome, and sordid though the manner was in which he saved his life, he did so in order to devote himself to the highest interests of his people.25Both sides agree that Josephus was compromised in some way by his position. The debate is over intention: Was Josephus corrupted by his service to the Flavian household? Or, alternatively, did Josephus spin his chronicle to provide cover for his people and to hasten the restoration of the Jews in their homeland?26A third camp has formed, dedicated to the rehabilitation of Josephus. To these interpreters, the writings of Josephus include ironic, even subversive, elements that raise questions about Roman hegemony.27 Steven Weitzman, for example, makes the case for a “purposefully equivocal Josephus,” a complex figure who found ways to contribute to “Jewish cultural survival.”28 Steve Mason likewise contends that the close reading of Josephus’s writings reveals “cracks in the portrait” of the imperial household and Roman society.29 The writings of Josephus reflect both “intelligent control” of his subject matter and acute sensitivity to his imperial Roman surroundings.30 Going further, some have suggested that Josephus’s admiring narrative of the triumph was an oblique argument (to Titus and others) for rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem.31 No longer a double-crosser, Josephus is cast as a defiant Jew who secretly looked forward to the inevitable fall of the Roman Empire.32 It will become evident in what follows that my approach to Josephus is deeply indebted to the work of scholars in the third camp of interpretation.33Related to the question of Josephus’s intention is the problem of audience. To whom, for whom, did Josephus write: the surviving Jews of Judaea, diaspora Jews, Roman officials, friends or foes?34 I suggest that Josephus wrote first and foremost for himself.35 This is important as a reminder of the experience of war and captivity that the author shared with Jewish prisoners in the triumph. Beyond this, I bear in mind what Steve Mason describes as the likely process of literary production in the Roman court.36 Josephus’s account was read aloud in parts long before the finished project was submitted to his patron, Titus, for his approval. The response was positive: “Indeed, so anxious was the Emperor Titus that my volumes should be the sole authority from which the world should learn the facts, that he affixed his own signature to them and gave orders for their publication.”37 Such a circle of readers, Mason argues, imposed a set of constraints, pushing Josephus to more slyness than has ordinarily been attributed to the author.38 If Mason’s view is accepted, then Josephus may have used irony in his writings to conceal subversive ideas from the august members of his audience, including Titus himself. I suggest that the account of the triumph of Vespasian and Titus contains instructive examples of such Josephan slyness.The Triumph of Vespasian and TitusHaving touched on relevant facets of Josephus’s biography and personal context, we can now return to Josephus’s account of the triumph of Vespasian and Titus in book 7 of the Jewish War. To begin, Josephus notes that the army spends the night before the march at the Temple of Octavia. In the morning Vespasian and Titus receive acclamations from the troops, and they in turn provide breakfast for their men. Then, the triumphatores jointly offer a sacrifice to the gods on either side of the Porta Triumphalis and begin the march. As the parade advances to the Capitoline Temple, the narrator is nearly undone by the glory of what he sees: “It is impossible to give a satisfactory account of the innumerable spectacles,” Josephus reports, “so magnificent in every way one can think of.”39 There are “masses of silver and gold and ivory in every shape known to the craftsman’s art.” So many precious metals and gems are on display that, as Josephus puts it, “we could see how foolish we had been to suppose any of them rare.” Even (or especially) the natural world approves of the Roman anchoring of the order of things. “Animals of many kinds were led past,” Josephus observes, “all decked with the proper trappings.” Furthermore, “images of the Roman gods, wonderful in size and of true artistic merit,” pass by, emblems of piety and divine sanction. Wealth, nature, gods: each domain reinforces the others, symbols and warrants of the authority of Rome, stretching from the imperial center to its margins.40Josephus remarks next on the prisoners. This segment of the triumph tells a story of a righteous war by Rome against a self-destructive enemy. The triumph illustrates the plot through a “startling” (thauma) series of “traveling stages” (tōn pheroumenōn pēgmatōn) that “showed successive stages of the war” in tableaux.41 “Here,” notes Josephus, “was to be seen a smiling countryside laid waste, there whole ‘formations’ of the enemy (polemos) put to the sword; men in flight and men led off to captivity ... cities whose battlements were lined with defenders utterly overwhelmed, an army streaming inside the ramparts, the whole place reeking of slaughter.”42 So vivid is the depiction that Josephus declares: “The art and marvelous craftsmanship of these constructions now revealed the incidents to those who had not seen them happen as clearly as if they had been there.”43 The set pieces stage a record of the actual fighting and carnage, eliding the difference between history and reenactment.44 The lesson is clear: “Such were the agonies to which the Jews condemned themselves when they embarked on this war.”45 Still more signs of self-inflicted misery are noted: on each stage, a captive Jewish commander stands, posing “just as he had been when captured.”46 The triumph is a live show of victory and defeat, performed by actual Jewish captives who gesture to their own culpability in the revolt and its failure. The message is that they have only themselves to blame.47Throughout the Jewish War, Josephus calls attention to self-destructive tendencies, especially among the leaders in Jerusalem. From this perspective, it is fitting that the display of prisoners culminates in the execution of Simon, son of Gioras. The notorious “commander-in-chief of the enemy” embodies all that was wrong about the revolt. Earlier, Josephus describes Simon as a “young hothead”; he eventually emerges as a leader of a powerful, terrorizing faction in the besieged city of Jerusalem.48 Josephus constantly the fighting as the of failure. that the he the Romans the which were more than and the misery could be put to own the of it to the the in his own Simon is Rome can finally close the book on and long the city of Rome celebrated the of the against the of and the of for a next will return to the display of captives in order to the interpretation of I to an intriguing of in Josephus’s the of the account, Josephus describes the of the spoils taken from the Temple in including a as from those we The menorah taken from the temple in Jerusalem would have been to many of the spectators in Rome, or so it would Josephus that he what it He on to that the to the by the Josephus the role of Jewish It is a in this because thus it is to that Josephus the narrator has his from the the of the account a between Josephus and the the Jewish prisoners are as the of Rome by of those reading Josephus’s Josephus this to attention an the that the Jews to the of about the menorah of Josephus’s with the and history of This with the prisoners and their while is not for Josephus. The his as a of in to Jewish He more than other spectators of the triumph of Vespasian and Titus. As we will from in the account makes a about Josephus’s and of and is to with historians who the of this account or even The triumph of Vespasian and Titus have been a for any of the Jewish Josephus to the in a show of to some for the but he does I to raise two in of Josephus. The first is that the on the of book 7 of the Jewish War is While taken in the account may to in his of the in it to the can be found in most narrative of over the ritual of triumph had such that it was over two the time would not He on to that because of on to have the whole world in his in the display of spoils in the triumph of “all the being so that they gave a and and the of even though they were spoils of a enemy, was not its was of the and the account of Josephus should not be as an a more The of the problem as I see it a of in the of Josephus’s own interpretation of the triumph of Vespasian and Titus. For this is what book 7 of the Jewish War it is not a reading of the of the but an interpretation of the and we focus attention on the process in order to on the between Josephus, the triumph of Vespasian and Titus, and treatments of book 7 of the Jewish begin, us the actual of the triumph of Vespasian and Titus in Rome from Josephus’s of the in the Jewish War. For the of us to the triumph of Vespasian and Titus as a with the that a of and would likely have been in the Roman from Jonathan Z. treatment of in the critical study of I suggest that the triumph has most been in “locative” By I to suggest an approach that on what Smith describes as and From this perspective, to an and actual experience into even to each in other to a between and so that the way are with the way to In a the meaning of the triumph may be found in its message that the Roman victory is the way are is the way to The display of and gods a of the and these elements as symbols and of the of Rome. As Beard puts it, these elements the Roman now to Josephus’s account, it seems to that many treatments of book 7 of the Jewish War likewise a “locative” Historians to be to through the of Josephus in order to the message of the actual triumph, that the victory of Rome over self-destructive the order of things. the historians this message in the of Josephus. In this Josephus himself a of the in book one that to the meaning of the triumph of Vespasian and Titus. If there is a difference between ritual and it is that Josephus has a message that was already the of the Roman through sympathetic of the triumph in the of Josephus’s of his role as a “lackey” and “Flavian apparatchik,” and of his glorify his patrons at the expense of his Or, more Josephus to with that had the to the Jews to their the by what scholars have to be the meaning of the triumph of Vespasian and Titus, Josephus himself as a traitor to his problem with such a view is that it Josephus in a I do not the that the triumph was to the of the Roman and the of Rome’s do I question the that Josephus’s account this Historians to agree that Josephus from the triumph of Vespasian and Titus the message that spectators were to As Beard Josephus’s and of the triumph a great to the interpretation that his Flavian patrons themselves to put on the to Josephus for the message of a Roman ritual as observation does not imply an of the Josephus’s account contains more than the of the Roman As we have already Josephus calls attention to on vessels of the Roman spectators, including Vespasian and Titus, do not and The menorah to the Jews, he seems to in of the of the Roman is problem with the it does not account for in Josephus’s narrative. A those when Josephus or more than other to mind the lesson of is not There is a an between and than to between and a approach would may the incongruity between the two for at some and Josephus, who describes a difference between the that see and what he himself to be the If we think of the account in book 7 as a series of one of astonishing incongruity is between of and on one side and of and on the Josephus not even the of prisoners was to be seen and the and of their from view the of their under the Josephus exposes to view what is the of the Jewish a of this to a of a on the of Roman a Roman audience, in have this of stagecraft at by focus on what can be seen by describes the triumph of he on what the a of the of the enemy were two and one and they were not of the of their because of their ... The Romans, by their on the and many of them and for all of the of the was with the Roman are by the suffering of the captive in the triumph. The is in book 7 of the Jewish War. Roman spectators do not see the injuries of the Jewish captives. do not see the at a and of this at the this of calls into question a approach to Josephus’s A I can in the incongruity a of between the message of the Roman triumph and Josephus’s account of the Furthermore, it may be to push even to the of the triumph the Jewish captives on suffering and have the difference between the ways are and the way to one the Roman soldiers a of incongruity as they took in the This is the view to which Mary Beard is not Josephus’s contends that Roman held for and including that the message of the In the we this to explore the of Roman in order to more on the of into the the suffering that is hidden under can be found in an on in the military in the of and The and the of military parade and the and of and the military the of the and the of the the military and the of and all these the of the military to this are the of and the of in and the of the the of combat and and give a view of the military parade from the Like Josephus, they the to reveal the way Both the and book 7 of the Jewish War the of in Josephus and the of combat and in and too the two sources a in the between and and The of this incongruity can be in and what at first seems to be an about the of in the of its and on to that soldiers sacrifice their for their their or their in as long as they are in the that their remains will be and that they will be laid to with the proper and of their While the between a military ritual and combat and the of such The of a with military gives personal to soldiers on the and also the that military including the ritual of military is the through which memory of the fall

Archaeology · Josephus · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · History

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