The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

ecomes a necessary link in the chain of Josephus’ defence; for by his personal status as a Jew
and his knowledge of the subject Josephus offers the guarantee that no person — neither Jew
nor Greek — would be in the position to publish a history so perfect as his (Ant. 20.262). By
emphasizing his factual suitability in this way, he hopes to trump the merely formal education
of his opponent. Undoubtedly all these remarks, which all belong to one and the same time
after the appearance of Justus’ work, are directed primarily to Epaphroditus and his circle:
Josephus hopes to retain the patronage of this literary group despite everything.
I would also like to bring, by way of speculation, to this wish of Josephus an observation
that appears to me to be worthy of the highest interest. We already had to deal factually with
the explanations that Josephus gave about his relationship to the three emperors of the
Flavian house; but almost more important is the form in which this is given. That is to say,
whoever reads Josephus’ words πολλῆς ἔτυχον παρὰ Οὐεσπασιανοῦ προνοίας ...· Τίτος
τὴν ἀρχὴν διαδεξάμενος ὁμοίοαν τῷ πατρὶ τὴν τιμήν μοι διεφύλαξεν .... διαδεξάμενος
δὲ Τίτον Δομετιανὸς καὶ [35] προσηύξησεν τὰς εἰς ἐμὲ τιμάς (Life 423, 428/9),
remembers having already heard exactly the same elsewhere, only summarized much more
powerfully in few words. When Cornelius Tacitus began to publish his Histories around the year
104 CE, he reports on his political career in a way that even today does not seem completely
unambiguous: dignitatem nostram a Vespasiano inchoatam, a Tito auctam, a Domitiano longius
provectam non abnuerim (Hist. 1.1). These words constituted the work’s broadly illuminating
point of reference, which appeared precisely in those years when Josephus was obliged to take
up his pen in defence against Justus’ attacks after the year 100. It is to be understood that the
appearance of Tacitus’ Historiae constituted [quite] an event in the literary circles of Rome, and
tasteless as it may seem to us, we do understand that Josephus also felt obliged, right when he
was concerned with the protection of his literary reputation from all denigration, to strut
before the literary circle with an allusion to Tacitus’ work. Granted one cannot expect a
Tacitean Greek of Josephus, and a philistine will remain a philistine; but for all that it is still
not less proper that Josephus attempted 19 here at the end of the Antiquities to describe his
relations to the three emperors with the same words with which Tacitus introduced his
Historiae.
19 Next to the overall structure, the use of the terms τιμή and προσαυξάνω, which correspond
to the Latin cursus honorum, is indicative.
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