The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

complement — must appear the assessment of Josephus’ mental [57]
development; it alone will allow us to understand the varied presentation of the parallel
reports.
1. The Dabaritta affair
Life 126 - 148 = War 2.595 - 613
The essence of both parallel narratives is roughly as follows: some Jewish youths from
the village of Dabaritta assault a member of King Agrippa’s court on the “Great Plain” and
bring their plunder to Josephus in Tarichea. He does not give the Dabarittans the share in the
plunder that they had hoped for and thereby provokes them to the disastrous step of
maligning him as a traitor to the population. Thereupon the infuriated mobs of Tarichea and
surroundings swarm together in the racetrack of Tarichea clamouring for the traitor’s death.
Josephus cannot deny that he confiscated the plunder, but he advanced another intention; he
did not mean to forward the profits to Agrippa, rather he intended to use them to build the
longed-for fortification walls for Tarichea. Thus he won the Taricheans over and at the same
time aroused the others’ jealousy of those who were favoured in this way. The outcome was
that the masses that had previously appeared united against Josephus were split and
consequently Josephus was saved. In any case, once again his enemies crowd in front of his
house in order to kill him; but he now entices one of the attackers into his house and then
sends him out again mutilated, thus at same time inducing such horror into the others that
they definitively refrain from attacking Josephus from now on.
A closer inspection of both texts now shows that despite their general, and at times
literal, correspondence, certain details are reported in extremely differing form. I [have]
compiled the points to be considered directly into a specifically ordered sequence.
1. In the Life (126) the object of the Dabarittans’ attack is the wife of Ptolemy, who is
King Agrippa’s vice-regent; in the War (595) the attack is directed against Ptolemy himself,
Agrippa and Berenice’s vice-regent. Accordingly, in the Life Josephus takes the view that the
plundered baggage of Ptolemy’s wife is private [58] family property and rightfully belongs to
Ptolemy (128). On the other hand, in the War Josephus no less consistently assumes the
position that the attack made against Agrippa and Berenice’s vice-regent is in reality an injury
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