The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

food by Pheroras), which really does not belong to it, rather it has been extracted from the
War. Therefore the only remaining content is the fact that Antigonus evidently provided food
for Silo and his troops for one month, but then cut off his supplies. Now, it is precisely such
issues, which had been addressed shortly before in the War and in the Antiquities: so it would
certainly appear quite probable to me that Josephus invented this trait himself in order to
display the untrustworthiness of Antigonus, who later betrayed even Silo who had supplied
him with troops. On the other hand, it can also not be considered impossible that Josephus had
learned the fact from an additional source [Nebenquelle], and Herod’s memoirs would impose
themselves once again as a probable [candidate] for this; Josephus then would have adopted
just the one fact from this source, but for the rest he would have resorted immediately to his
former context [sc. source].
A much more definitive judgment can once again be made about the relationship of Ant.
434 - 436 to its model in War 317 - 319. According to the War, Antigonus made the attempt to
attract the Roman commander Machairas over to his side by bribery. But [Machairas] did not
get involved in the betrayal out of fear of Ventidius Bassus who had given him the order to
support Herod, and moreover, because Herod bribed him with even greater sums, [203]
however, he still feigned an amicable disposition towards Antigonus in order to betake himself
to Antigonus and spy out his situation in the face of Herod’s counter-betrayal [Widerraten].
Antigonus had received wind of Machairas’ true disposition, however, and locked the town
gates [before] him. Machairas was embarrassed by this failure and became so furious that he
had Herod’s followers, who got in his way, killed as enemies just as if they were Antigonus’
followers. – By contrast, the Antiquities maintains that Antigonus’ attempt at bribery was
successful, and this was exactly why Machairas “left Herod against his advice under the
pretext of intending to spy out Antigonus’ situation” (435), i.e. Machairas really did wish to
defect and in order to be able to absent himself from Herod he used the pretext that he
intended to investigate Antigonus’ situation. Therefore, what was a genuine intention in War
318 (κατάσκοπος ᾔει), became a pretext in Ant. 435 (ὡς κατασκεψόμενος), because Machairas
had not allowed himself to be bribed by Antigonus there [in the War], and so he performed an
honest act before Herod, whereas here [in the Antiquities] Machairas really was bribed and so
was compelled inevitably to deceive Herod. Antigonus’ conduct on the opposite side then also
corresponds to this; in the War he had previously become aware ( προαισθόμενος ) of
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