The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

[Leidenschaft ] straight through Lebanon with a narrative that had Herod march at normal
speed along the coast and arrive in Galilee via Ptolemais. For one, Josephus could have
obtained the information that the march actually proceeded via Ptolemais from an additional
source [Nebenquelle] – perhaps Herod’s memoirs – and this could have prompted him to infer
an absence of haste. But such an inference is not typical to Josephus’ nature, as I clearly see it,
and he truly would not have used an additional source [Nebenquelle] in order to insert
Ptolemais as a point along his march route [Marschpunkt]. In truth we are directed to the
second possibility for the explanation; because the elimination of the haste is connected not
only factually with the new march route but also with [the fact] that Josephus describes the
execution [Vollzug] of Herod’s revenge upon Antigonus in the Antiquities completely differently
than [he does] in the War. Here in section 336 it reads: “when the fight had broken out, the
other parts [of the army] maintained their position somewhat indeed, but Herod, in
remembrance of his murdered brother, putting his life at risk in order to take
revenge upon those who were responsible for the murder, quickly subdued those
who were facing him and then turned against those who were still maintaining their position,
and chased them all in flight.” Ant. 458 makes this into: Herod, clashing with his opponents, “is
victorious in the fight and, avenging his brother, he follows those fleeing into the village
while killing them.” Bearing in mind alongside this that, quite to the contrary, the Antiquities
otherwise enhances rhetorically, yet there is no doubt that here Josephus wishes to reduce
[the impact of the text]. Hence it is then also understandable when Josephus describes Herod’s
measures to punish his brother’s murderers differently [right] from the start; the great fervour
that pervades the War here, the haste with which Herod advances against Antigonus through
the mountains [209] at night in the fog, the fury with which he throws himself upon the
murderers with no consideration for his [own] life, these are all discarded; only a weak
reflection is left over in the Antiquities. No longer is there any mention of a march through the
mountains, Herod follows the normal military road through Ptolemais. Therefore Josephus
[himself] has come to a new view of the events, and he was not influenced here by an
additional source [Nebenquelle]!
But this new view consists substantially in a new shading of things; Herod’s revenge
strike remains, but all fervour is removed from it, and this is explained by Josephus’ rethinking
[as] addressed in section 14. Whereas the War stood unilaterally behind Herod, the Antiquities
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