The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

documentary material, which was made available to Josephus here, was not to have been made
serviceable for both historical and political purposes; and Agrippa’s speech, which expresses
the ideas of Rome’s invincibility in such a way that every reader must be convinced of the
futility of resistance, does aim primarily at the future. Thus the War as a whole is surely a
writing that was suited for nipping any possible desire for war against the imperium Romanum
in the bud.
It follows from the external political situation, however, that the Roman emperors
must have desired the spreading of such ideas precisely at that time. Vespasian had to
reinforce his troops in the east massively, [he had] to keep Armenia [127] firmly under
control by means of garrisons, and also take other measures, which focussed their effect
against the threatening danger of the Parthians above all (Mommsen, Römische Geschichte 5.395
f.). Indeed, “the ferocity and high spirits of the Parthians” had mounted to such an extent that
in the year 75 the governor Ulpius Trajanus prevented the outbreak of a war only by dealing
the Parthians a formidable scare. The appearance of the Aramaic War would fit in well with the
policy described by Pliny (Pan. 14) thus: cum ferociam superbiamque Parthorum ex proximo auditus
magno terrore cohiberes: it is a somewhat official attempt to dampen the agitation among the
Upper Barbarians by means of showing them, by example, to where a frivolously begun war
must lead. And it is not without purpose that the emperor would have appointed for its
execution the man who had once himself directed the Jewish revolt, only then to dedicate
himself heart and soul to his new master.
Our administrative report therefore does not have anything at all to do directly with
the Aramaic War; but one could perhaps contemplate the idea whether we are justified in
drawing a conclusion about the language of the old administrative report from the Aramaic
War. But, considered from many sides, such an assumption appears as implausible as can be;
for even if the general public among the people in Jerusalem spoke Aramaic (Acts 21:40; 22:2;
Josephus War 5.361; 6.96), still the entire administration of the state is interspersed with
Hellenistic members in such a way that the use of Greek was a necessity within it. The mastery
of Greek was therefore assumed among the educated (cf. Schürer, vol. 2, page 57 ff.; 84), and so
Josephus also could invoke his thorough competence in the written use of the Greek language,
which he did not master orally in the same way (Ant. 20.263). This written Greek fully sufficed
for practical use in state affairs; but no more than an Egyptian, who was writing a papyrus in
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