The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

[153] First we learn that the Jews had participated in the piracy at sea and that Hyrcanus had
been held responsible for this (Diodorus) even though he tried to pass the fault on to
Aristobulus (Ant. 43). The incidents that are alluded to here must have taken place during the
reign of Hyrcanus; because the Romans explain that he had deserved even worse punishment
for his acts of violence than [just] his fall [from power]; only in this way can the fact that
Hyrcanus was held responsible be explained as well. Now, Aristobulus lost the rule in the year
63 after a reign of three years and six months (Ant. 14.97); he therefore began [to rule] around
late 67 or early 66. According to this, Hyrcanus, who had ruled before him, was king in the year
67, [which was] well known as the year of the war against the pirates. The calculation fits
perfectly; but we shall also understand it factually that the piracy, which had its headquarters
in Cilicia etc., surged towards Judaea as well, even though up to now the concept of pirates has
not really been associated with that of the Jews due to the one-sided sources. From the
participation of the Jews in piracy it finally becomes understandable that when Pompey then
immediately [154] settled matters conclusively, he cut the Jews off from the sea by taking
their harbours away from them (War 1.156).
A second point that springs to the eye is the substantially different view[point] in
which Hyrcanus was seen. Indeed, we have already established that the War, which copied
Nicolaus more closely, by no means emphasized Hyrcanus’ inactivity in the same way as does
the Antiquities; Theophanes - Strabo confirm this view; because Hyrcanus appears as a powerful
personality in Diodorus and this still shows through in Ant. 43. His conflict with Aristobulus
does not have him appear any more the weakling [either], and as a result, what was
conjectured above on page 140 is in fact proven, [namely] that the lines of thought about
Hyrcanus’ weakness are nothing other than a means that Josephus employed in the Antiquities
in order to formulate his new bias.
(page 147), which had become superfluous, and as a result belongs to the same category as the
theme of bribery discussed in the same place, which Josephus reinterpreted in order to explain
Pompey’s attack against Aristobulus without taking Antipater’s side in doing so. When
Gabinius also is mentioned as [having been] bribed in this passage (section 37) besides Scaurus,
about whose bribery Josephus had reported, then it is not impossible that Strabo offered
grounds for this purpose, but it seems more likely to me that Josephus spun this assertion out
of section 55 ff. and transferred it here in order to set the scene for Pompey’s attack against
Aristobulus. In any case it is dangerous to wish to apply this as history as do Drumann-Groebe
3.42 and many others. Cf. page 155 f. for the influence of the War on section 47.
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