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LEISTAI IN JUDAEA
later, his readers might well assume this – as indeed happened 142 – and so
his position remained irksome and embarrassing. 143 In the same way as they
influenced Josephus’ portraits of John of Gischala and Simon bar Giora, his
feelings of personal guilt and shame could well explain the literary monument
that he set up to the Sicarii of Masada. The myth of Masada owes its
existence in one respect, therefore, to the ‘Masada complex’ of Flavius Josephus.
5 Conclusion
The many ‘bandits’ in the works of Flavius Josephus have been revealed as
rivals for political power in Judaea. In this respect, the events described in
this chapter quite easily match those dealt with in Chapter 4. However,
treating the bandit theme in Josephus in a separate chapter is justified by
the complexity of the source material and, in particular, by the stimulating
research generated by this particular topic.
Josephus deployed the term ‘bandit’ entirely pejoratively and described
the rival politicians to whom he applied it using the same conventional
clichés as used by Roman writers. He acted from the standpoint of a Jewish
aristocrat and rebel leader, who sought to manage the turmoil created by
problems within his society and by its subsequent setting of itself on a
collision course with Rome. But he then went over to Rome and so had to
defend his actions. He felt compelled to defame his original comrades, later
his bitterest opponents, John of Gischala and Simon bar Giora as common
bandits in order to be able to face himself, to face a Jewish society wrecked
by its war for freedom, and to face his Roman friends.
The Jewish leistai were never in any sense social bandits. Eric Hobsbawm’s
model, claimed by one school of Jewish studies as the explanation for the
troubles in Judaea, can be shown to be inappropriate in its application to
Josephus’ leistai since Hobsbawm’s criteria largely do not fit Jewish society
of the late Second Temple Period. This negative conclusion, reached by
checking the model of social banditry against the Jewish leistai, justifies the
fundamental criticism directed against it by students of modern history. The
exercise suggests that Roman society never knew social bandits as described
by Hobsbawm. On the other hand, in Roman literature we encounter outlaws
who closely resemble Hobsbawm’s social bandits, as with Bulla Felix,
the subject of the next chapter. However, such bandits always turn out to be
products of fiction; and so I can conclude this chapter, too, by emphasising
that the latro is a literary stock theme, not a social type.
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