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BANDITS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
cannot be over-emphasised that when Josephus speaks of leistai he always
does so in respect of politically motivated usurpers in Judaea.
3 John of Gischala and Simon bar Gora
Among the leistai recorded by Josephus a special place is occupied by John
of Gischala and Simon bar Gora, in the first instance by virtue of the
attention accorded them. Horsley repeatedly describes the former as a rebel
leader who began his career as a ‘bandit’. 58 Analysis of the passages devoted
to him shows that before his participation in the resistance to Rome, John
was neither a social bandit nor any sort of robber. The most cursory glance
at the sources soon reveals that Josephus, on transparently personal grounds,
belittled John, a leading figure in the rebellion, by projecting him as a leistes.
John was a bitter political opponent of Josephus – which is more or less all
that needs to be said. To characterise John as a leistes, Josephus drew on the
same stock features employed by Roman authors in describing the genus of
‘common robber’. If John had ever had the opportunity to describe the war
as he remembered it, one of the participants would no doubt have been a
particularly villainous leistes called Josephus.
Josephus first mentions John, son of Levi, from Gischala, 59 in respect of
the events of ad 66, when the simmering resentment of groups of Jewish
insurgents in Galilee escalated into violent action for the first time. In these
heated conditions it was John who made a serious attempt to calm down his
fellow citizens in Gischala and to prevent atrocities. When, a little later,
Gischala fell victim to an attack by neighbouring cities, it was John who,
with an armed militia, exacted vengeance and, demonstrating enormous
energy, put in train the reconstruction of the ravaged town. 60 On first impression,
John appears to have been a respected citizen of Gischala who,
at the start of the Jewish revolt, defended the existing order. 61 He had the
ability to balance opposites, but if the situation demanded, to take decisive
action.
When Galilee, too, became involved in open warfare, John fortified the
walls of Gischala. He did this in agreement with Josephus, who had issued
the appropriate order in his capacity as commander-in-chief for Galilee. 62
To begin with, as may be gathered from the appropriate episodes, Josephus
regarded his comrade-in-arms respectfully and sympathetically. It was only
later that the two fell out, becoming enemies and rivals, with Josephus
totally changing his opinion of John. Out of deepest loathing, he ascribed to
his adversary all the worst traits he could think of, a devastating psychological
profile shared by no other participant in the Jewish War. 63 One detail
rendered suspect by Josephus’ tendentious distortion of the truth is the
poverty which he makes much of as the determining circumstance of John’s
existence. 64 Though outwardly benevolent, inwardly he was driven by an
intractable desire for enrichment, and he did not shrink from murder. In
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