The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

first comes to Damascus and then goes to Colesyria (Ant. 34). From there he marches again to
Damascus in the following spring (38)! The result of this double presence in Damascus was to
be subsequently that Pompey now dealt twice with the Jewish parties; whereas the first time
there can be report only of Aristobulus’ gift based on the Strabo quotation. Josephus has
shoved his two sources together in such a superficial manner that he could not in the slightest
be successful in creating a uniform entity out of these two reports that complement each
other. 57
[156] The combination of the two sources falls apart even more awkwardly at the end.
Nicolaus and the War had recounted that Aristobulus parted company with Pompey in Dion,
after a conflict arose on account of the demanded honours (cf. page 146). Aristobulus goes to
Judaea and Pompey begins the war. Theophanes - Strabo recounted more precisely that
Pompey had postponed his final ruling on the Jewish problem until his return from the
campaign against the Nabataeans. Apparently Pompey believed that he could best cover his
back for the time being by stringing along all the Jewish parties thereby enchaining them to
himself. Aristobulus, the most powerful [of them], was thereby charged with securing the base
of the Roman army; but for him it certainly seemed too tempting to get rid of the irksome
Romans and arbitrator in one fell swoop. He revolts behind the back of the Roman army
thereby forcing Pompey to abandon the war against the Nabataeans, in order to turn first
against Aristobulus. This report does not in principle contradict that of the War: one may well
imagine that Pompey established the base for his Nabataean campaign in Dium and that
Aristobulus, who was entrusted with safeguarding the approaches [to this base], parted
company here with Pompey, who continued advancing inland. The rift that followed
thereupon, which in truth is to be ascribed to strong Jewish feelings, would then have been
derived by Nicolaus from his sense of personal injury, in his well-known bias – against
Aristobulus and for the Herodian Antipater – ; whereas in Theophanes one can still noticeably
sense the indignation that Aristobulus did not keep his promise to Pompey and forced him to
abandon his campaign against the Nabataeans prematurely (Ant. 47). Thus the two reports,
which have been recorded from different points of view, complement each other rather well in
57 Niese correctly evaluated the quotation from Strabo 35 - 36 (Hermes 11.471); one may also
accept his allocation of the winter quarters to Antioch; in any case, it at least follows from Ant.
38 that it was located north of Apamea. Otto differs from Niese only negligibly in his
137