6
“How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?”
JEREMIAH, IV, 21
CESTIUS’S DEFEAT WAS an unmitigated disaster for Rome’s military reputation and authority. The news might easily unsettle other parts of the empire, besides encouraging Parthia to attack. Above all, it had turned the Jewish revolt into a war of independence.
Already Judea was a free country again. There was no movement to restore the monarchy, however, since Agrippa II, the last surviving Herodian, was all too obviously a client of Rome and would never cooperate with the new regime. Instead, a kind of junta, a coalition of notables, emerged in October 66, led by Ananus ben Ananus, who was a former high priest (and had been responsible for the murder of James, the brother of Christ). The Sanhedrin met again, taken more seriously now that the Romans had gone. Coins were minted, thick silver shekels and large numbers of smaller denominations in bronze, which bore such inscriptions as “Jerusalem the holy” or “The freedom of Zion”—later changed to “The redemption of Zion.” A fair number of Judea’s ruling class rallied to the cause of independence, even if some of them had tried to open the capital’s gates to Cestius. They had no wish to lose their beautiful mansions in Jerusalem or their lands, and they saw opportunities for increasing their power. The swiftness with which they formed a government shows that it was people like this who had organized the resistance to Cestius, handing out the weapons and dictating the strategy that defeated him.
There were some grounds for thinking the new state might be viable. As it was not on the Mediterranean littoral, it posed no direct threat to the Romans, who could well be deterred by the prospect of a long, difficult war and besieging a city stronger than Carthage. Not only did its walls look impregnable, but the surrounding Judean hills were ideal for ambushes; they provided cover for guerrillas and deprived large armies of room to maneuver. Moreover, as the Jews had shown under the Maccabees, they were one of the great fighting races of Antiquity when properly led. Nero’s regime seemed to be weakening, while there was also the possibility that the Parthians might intervene, despite their king’s timidity. It was not entirely unreasonable, therefore, to hope that Rome might agree to a looser form of suzerainty in order to save face and avoid paying for an expensive series of campaigns.1
Ananus’s most powerful allies in the junta were Eleazar ben Ananias and Joshua ben Gamala—the friend of Josephus’s father. An uncompromising fanatic, the son of the high priest recently murdered by Menahem, Eleazar still commanded the Temple guard. It was he who had been responsible for discontinuing the sacrifices for the well-being of the emperor and, although a member of the upper class, for burning the moneylenders’ archives. His total commitment to war with Rome was beyond doubt. Even if his championship of the poor was inspired by a thirst for power, he had many followers who stayed loyal to him, especially the more radically minded among the lower clergy. On the other hand, Joshua ben Gamala seems to have been much less of an extremist, despite maintaining a formidable army of private retainers. Unlike Eleazar, he hoped for a compromise. Yet, however different their ultimate aims may have been, men like these worked together, providing Judea with a government.
Nevertheless, as soon as the legate had been chased back to Syria, “many of the most eminent Jews swam away from the city, as if leaving a sinking ship,” says Josephus.2 They suspected that utter ruin was coming upon their country and that it was likely to come soon. Some fled to the humiliated Cestius at Antioch, who sent them off to Nero, to inform him of the loss of Judea—with instructions to lay all the blame for starting the war on Florus and deflect the emperor’s anger from himself.
Besides these upper-class pessimists, the entire Judeo-Christian community decided to leave Jerusalem. Writing in the fourth century, with access to accounts long since lost, Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea says they had been “warned by a prophecy to depart from the city before the war began and go to Perea, to the gentile city of Pella.”3 The little community’s exodus meant the extinction of Judeo-Christianity and its Jewish ritual observances, their formal worship having until now been centered around the Temple, though they broke bread together in services at their houses.
The first really serious reaction to the defeat, however, was not against the Romans but against the Jews. At Damascus, thousands of Jews were herded into the public gymnasium where their throats were cut, during a massacre that lasted for an entire hour. Josephus says that the perpetrators did not dare tell their own wives beforehand because so many women in Damascus sympathized with the Jewish religion. Reports of the atrocity stiffened the determination of the Jews at Jerusalem to go on fighting for their liberty.
“People in the neighboring cities in Syria turned on and killed the Jews who lived among them, together with their wives, without the slightest provocation, since these folk had never even considered the possibility of rebelling against the Romans, nor had they shown any sign of disliking Syrians or of wanting to harm them,” Josephus recalled.4 After describing what he regarded as the worst of these massacres—at Scythopolis, where many thousands were butchered despite having demonstrated their readiness to fight for Rome—he tells us that he has recorded these atrocities “because I want to show readers that the war with the Romans was not so much because the Jews wanted one as because they had no other option.”5
It is difficult to determine Josephus’s actual behavior during these days since he wrote after going over to the Romans and after the Jews had been totally defeated. Although he had tried to prevent the revolt from breaking out, undoubtedly his own attitude toward the war had been changed by the pogroms. Yet if he felt it necessary to fight the legions, he did so very reluctantly. Having so much to lose, he always hoped for an agreement with Rome.
Meanwhile the independence party in Jerusalem prepared for war. Of those who still favored yielding to Roman rule, some were won over by argument, while others were bullied into accepting the new regime by threats of violence. A great public meeting was held in the Temple, attended by thousands, at which ten generals were chosen. To some extent the meeting seems to have been influenced—if scarcely dominated by—the Sanhedrin, despite the ingrained antipathy toward revolution of most of its members, whose families had prospered under the Roman regime.
Upper-class influence can be detected in the meeting’s opposition to making a Zealot, Eleazar ben Simon, overall leader. No doubt, he had played an important part in defeating the Romans. In fact, the captured weapons and Cestius’s war chest were still in his possession, and he had somehow got control of the treasury. The magnates were nervous about him, however, because he was a Zealot and had a bullying, dictatorial manner, while people were frightened by his arrogant bodyguard of fanatical knifemen. In the end, an urgent need for Eleazar’s money, exploited by subtle political maneuvering on his part, prevailed, and he was put in nominal charge of all matters of state. In practice, he was bypassed by the Sanhedrin and had little influence on policy—for the moment.
Among the ten generals appointed at the meeting in the Temple was “Josephus, son of Mattathias,” who was made governor of both the Galilees, with the strongly fortified city of Gamala as his headquarters. (The phrase “assistant generals” used in The Jewish War indicates that there were plenty of others.) It may seem surprising that he did not flee to Antioch, since he later wrote that he had always known how the war would end. At this stage, however, he was not so sure, and many of the new government’s leaders were his friends, such as Joshua ben Gamala, who may have secured his appointment.
Many people were better suited for the post than Josephus, who was going to meet with fierce criticism in Jerusalem as well as in Galilee. He is fairly reticent about this in The Jewish War, but in his so-called autobiography he provides more detail. Yet what seem to be inconsistencies in the two books are not so much contradictions as changes in emphasis, the two accounts being complementary.6 Sometimes unconvincing, often boastful, he offers a wonderfully vivid picture, besides giving extraordinarily frank insights into the workings of his mind.
His patrician background may perhaps seem to make him a surprising choice for the post of governor of Galilee at a time when the social order was starting to fall apart. Yet, for the moment, Ananus’s junta and the Sanhedrin maintained considerable influence, while many generals were of aristocratic origin—notably Ananus himself and Joseph ben Gorion, who were joint governors of Jerusalem, with responsibility for strengthening the city walls. Patricians still commanded respect, even if it was diminishing. Significantly, soon after his arrival in Galilee, Josephus wrote to the Sanhedrin, asking them for further instructions.
What ordinary people in Jerusalem did not realize was that while ostensibly preparing for war with Rome, more than a few rich aristocrats were concealing their true reasons for joining in the rising against the Khittim. In reality, they wanted to take it over, defuse it, and then negotiate a compromise peace. They had too much to lose by gambling on an outright victory, and in any case, they were anxious about the mob. Their secret agenda is hinted at by Josephus in a key, if slightly ambiguous, passage in the Vita:
After Cestius’s defeat, aware that the bandits and revolutionaries were alarmingly well armed, the Jerusalem notables suspected they might be in serious danger because they themselves lacked weapons, which in fact was what happened. When they learned that so far nowhere in Galilee had revolted against Rome and that much of it was still peaceful, they sent myself and two other priests, Joazar and Judas, both reliable men, to persuade anyone who was about to revolt to lay down his weapons and to convince him of the need to use them on behalf of the nations’ leaders. The idea was that [the Galileans] . . . should keep their weapons ready for whatever might happen, while waiting to see what the Romans were going to do.7
Although Josephus does not admit as much in The Jewish War, he understood that his real job was to find men who would defend the magnates while they were building up a power base from which to negotiate with the Romans. He sympathized totally with his fellow patricians’ last ditch attempt to take over the revolution and avoid a social upheaval and, at the same time, to put an end to the war. Although he never lost sight of these secret objectives and never had the slightest intention of attacking the Romans, once hostilities had become inevitable he started to organize the defense of Galilee in earnest. His companions, Joazar and Judas, seem to have gone back to Jerusalem, leaving him in sole control.
He tells us in The Jewish War that as soon as he arrived in Galilee his first step was to gain the population’s good will, by sharing his authority and giving orders only through the “Galilaioi”—the Galileans.8 He selected seventy mature, experienced men to form a local Sanhedrin that would administer the province. Appointing seven magistrates in each city to hear minor disputes, he reserved serious cases such as murder for trial by himself and the seventy. “I made them my friends and travelling companions,” he says. “I consulted them about cases I tried, and asked them if they approved of the sentences I gave. I did my best to avoid being unjust through hastiness, and always refused to take bribes.”9 In reality, as we know from the Vita, the seventy were the old regime’s principal magistrates, whom he kept near him as hostages.
Just how chaotic was the situation is revealed by Josephus’s frank admission that he bought off brigands. “Realizing I had no chance of disarming them, I summoned the toughest bandits and persuaded the [country] people to pay them, explaining that it was cheaper to pay small sums than have their farms raided. I made the bandits take an oath not to enter the district unless invited or if their pay was in arrears, and then sent them away with strict orders against attacking the Romans or their neighbors. My overriding concern was peace in Galilee.”10 It looks as if he was posing as the only man who could control them, hoping to secure both their support and that of the peasants, in a situation that bordered on anarchy.
In reality, he was practically powerless, and his task of keeping Galilee peaceful and stopping it from going to war was an impossible one, further complicated by the presence of so many Greeks in the cities. Nowhere was this more evident than at Sepphoris, the capital where for a short time Josephus established his headquarters. Its population was almost entirely Greek-speaking, while it was deeply proud of the Greek surname bestowed on it by the Romans—Avtokratoris, “of the Emperor”—and disliked being ruled by a Jewish governor who had been appointed by a rebel junta at Jerusalem.
“I found all the Sepphorians terrified about what was going to happen to their city, as the Galileans [of the surrounding countryside] were planning to plunder it because they were pro-Roman and had been in touch with Cestius Gallus, the legate, assuring him of their loyalty and fidelity. I managed to reassure them, however, by persuading the locals not to attack [the Sepphorians], and also by letting them stay in contact with a number of their fellow citizens who were being held hostage by Cestius.”11 In addition, he allowed them to fortify the city against the peasants, in the vain hope that their attitude toward him would soften, which was a bad mistake. There is absolutely no truth in his claim to have taken Sepphoris twice by storm. Elsewhere, he openly admits that he tried to take the city on three separate occasions but was beaten off each time.
Matters were scarcely less difficult for him at Tiberias on the shore of Lake Gennesaret. Until quite recently it had been a center for Greek merchants, but by now its population was overwhelmingly Jewish since most of the Greeks had fled. They were divided over what to do. Some of them, clearly the richer ones with plenty to lose, were secretly determined to stay loyal to Rome while another group—“which consisted of the most insignificant people in the place”—were clamoring for war. A third group led by Justus son of Pistus—a Jew despite his name—pretended to urge caution but really wanted revolution. According to The Jewish War, Justus whipped up the mob at Tiberias by appealing to their long-standing hatred of Sepphoris.
“He was clever at rousing the rabble, his charlatan oratory making him a match for an opponent with wiser ideas,” is how Josephus—no doubt the opponent he has in mind—describes Justus. “He had some small knowledge of Greek literature, which he later used to write a history of this time, hoping to disguise what had really happened by twisting the facts. During my account, I shall produce evidence of the man’s depravity and show how our ruin was largely due to him and his brother. On this particular occasion, after persuading the citizens [of Tiberias] to revolt, and forcing others to do so against their will, Justus marched out with his supporters and set fire to villages around Gadara and Tiberias.”12 In reality, Justus seems to have been a secret moderate who, just like Josephus, was ready to welcome an accommodation with Rome. The two men’s enmity had more to do with personal rivalry than political differences.
Another nuisance was the archon or chief magistrate of Tiberias, Jesus ben Sapphias, who is described contemptuously by Josephus as “ringleader of the party of the sailors [the lake’s fishermen?] and the destitute class.”13 He tells us that Jesus was “a scoundrel who had a flair for throwing everything into confusion, and was unrivalled for stirring up sedition and revolution.” 14 When the Sanhedrin ordered the demolition of a Herodian palace nearby because it contained pagan sculptures, Jesus promptly burned it down, since its golden roof indicated rich plunder. An angry Josephus recovered most of the loot that survived the blaze—Corinthian candelabra, “royal tables,” and a large amount of uncoined silver—intending to restore it to King Agrippa II, whom he did not want to antagonize. Meanwhile, Jesus and his followers cut the throats of the few Greeks misguided enough to remain in Tiberias.
The motives of these local bosses were bewilderingly mixed. On the one hand, they wanted to make whatever profit could be made now that law and order had broken down; rich pickings were available from bribes, protection rackets, and plunder. At the same time, they realized they had to keep in with the government at Jerusalem while the rebellion lasted, since they might be targeted for elimination. Yet even if they hoped to benefit from the revolution, the shrewder knew it was imperative to secure a position for themselves that might help them to survive when the Romans reoccupied the country.
There were other problems for Josephus besides party bosses. From Antioch, Cestius Gallus, waiting for reinforcements before making a major move, was threatening Galilee’s northern border, and from a base at Ptolemais on the coast, Placidus, who was a particularly daring commander, was menacing the province with two cohorts of infantry and a squadron of horse. Sulla, captain of King Agrippa’s bodyguard, was raiding across the northeastern border, while Varus, a former minister who had turned against the king, was attacking all and sundry.
At the head of a mob of “mercenaries,” Josephus galloped to and fro, skirmishing with Roman sympathizers or brigands, but without much effect. There was danger from the peasantry, who tried to storm and plunder non-Jewish towns. Cities fought each other, Sepphoris with Tiberias, Tiberias with Taricheae, hostile factions squabbling in their streets. Over everything loomed the shadow of Rome’s vengeance. Understandably, many cities wanted to invite the Romans back, if only as an insurance against their reprisals. Sepphoris eventually succeeded in persuading Cestius to install a Roman garrison behind its walls—by now repaired with Josephus’s permission.
He did his best to prepare the two Galilees against the full-scale Roman invasion he knew was inevitable. Secretly hoping to make peace, he needed something with which to bargain. Yet he had no chance of building a properly united opposition. Most of his supporters were the country people, not because they loved him, as he claims so smugly, but because they thought he might protect them against the rapacious city folk whom they feared and hated, and because he gave the impression of being able to tame the bandits. The Taricheans supported him since they thought he would take their side against detested Tiberias. None of these two groups had anything in common.
He explains that he concentrated on places nature had made defensible, such as Tiberias and Jotapata, where he strengthened the ramparts, and Mount Tabor. He built walls in front of the caves near Lake Gennesaret in Lower Galilee and around the rock called Acchaberon in Upper Galilee. Among the other places he fortified was Sepphoris, where the inhabitants were allowed to raise the height of the ramparts. At Gischala the party boss was also allowed to rebuild them on his own initiative. However impressive all these preparations may sound, in reality they were no more than cosmetic and would prove to be useless against Roman siege engines.
Josephus then recruited over “100,000 young men”—10,000 would probably be nearer the truth—whom he armed with any weapons available. He says that he tried to impose discipline by appointing a high percentage of NCOs and instituting a proper command structure, with centurions, decurions, and tribunes. The troops were taught now to maneuver to the sound of trumpet calls such as the “advance” or the “retreat,” how to extend an army’s flanks and to wheel around, how to send a victorious flank to the help of a flank in trouble. He told them that courage and physical toughness were essential, stressing that they were going to fight men who had conquered the entire inhabitable earth with these qualities. They would have to refrain from their favorite pastimes (robbery, looting, and stealing from their own countrymen) if they were to be of any use in combat.
Perhaps he employed ex-soldiers to advise him, yet one cannot help suspecting that many of these measures existed only in his imagination. He was writing after the war, when he had gained the military experience that he lacked when it began. Throughout, he portrays himself as a born general, a portrayal that has more to do with his vanity and the conventions of Greek historiography than with reality.
He claims that he finally assembled what he considered an adequate force—60,000 infantry, 250 horse, and about 4,500 mercenaries. As so often with Josephus, these figures are likely to be wild exaggerations. One guesses, too, that his “army” was a pitifully ill-armed rabble, little better than a mob, whose sole assets were the bravery that came from an unswerving belief in their faith and nation, who would never stand a chance against the legionaries. His best troops were his “mercenaries,” men of the type whom he calls bandits—in Greek, lestai. The “army” that accompanied him on a day-to-day basis, and enforced his rule, must, at largest, have consisted of about two or three hundred brigands. They formed his so-called bodyguard.
In the meantime, Galilee’s growing disorder was assuming nightmarish proportions, the greatest problem continuing to be the party bosses. The most dangerous of these was Yohannan ben Levi—better known as John of Gischala—who was probably a small landowner, though he is often described as a merchant. Once a supporter of Roman rule, he had changed his mind and become a fervent Zealot after the Romans encouraged the Greeks of Tyre and Gadara to sack his local town of Gischala and then burn it to the ground. In response, he armed the men of Gischala, driving out the Greeks.
At first John was on good terms with Josephus, who entrusted him with refortifying Gischala, but later he fell out with “this treacherous person,” one of the most formidable foes he ever faced. Josephus saw people purely in terms of black or white so that his character sketches never quite convey the full depth of a man’s personality. “The most cunning and unscrupulous of all men who have ever gained notoriety by evil means,” is how he begins his portrait of John. Perhaps inspired by the historian Sallust’s account of Catiline, the great Roman rebel, his full description is almost comically abusive:
He began life hampered by lack of money. A hardened liar, always plausible, he prided himself on skill in deceit, tricking even his close friends. Pretending to be humane, he never had any qualms about committing murder if he thought it might be profitable, while he systematically furthered his insatiable ambition by criminal activities. Originally a bandit working alone, he had a rare talent for thieving, which was why he was able to find so many followers, only a few of them at first, but increasing in proportion with his success. He chose the type of man who knew how to avoid being caught, tough and determined, preferably with a military background, and eventually built up a gang of 400, mainly outlaws from Tyre and its neighboring villages. With their support, he laid waste all Galilee, plundering the poor who were helpless because of the looming war.15
No one should accept an enemy’s account unreservedly, and some see John of Gischala very differently. The novelist Lion Feuchtwanger credits John (whom, perhaps not inaccurately, he calls “this Galilean squire”) with a strikingly attractive personality, whileThe Jewish War cannot conceal that he was an exceptionally brave man and a fine soldier. It is conceivable that his plotting against Josephus was inspired by a conviction that if he took over command, there would be a better chance of saving Galilee from the Romans; according to Josephus’s own account, John found supporters from among all classes. It even looks as though Josephus’s two principal lieutenants, Joazar and Judas, thought that John would be preferable. Far from being a mere brigand, he was of much higher social status than The Jewish War or the Vita would have us believe, and his powerful friends at Jerusalem treated him as an equal.16
One of John’s coups was to corner an entire year of Galilee’s production of oil by persuading Josephus to let him have a monopoly, arguing that otherwise Jews in Syria would have to buy “pagan” oil. He then sold the Galilean oil for eight times what he paid, although The Jewish War omits to say that he probably used the money to strengthen Gischala’s defenses. Soon he was planning to overthrow Josephus and take his place, ordering his men to raid still more savagely. With a bit of luck, the general might turn out to be among the victims or, if he escaped, might be blamed for failing to catch a gang that was inflicting misery far and wide. He spread rumors that Josephus was secretly plotting to hand Galilee over to the Romans.17
The citizens of Sepphoris, who, as has been seen, were not so secretly loyal to Rome, grew alarmed when Josephus decided to visit them and paid a brigand chief called Jesus to assassinate him. Just before Jesus arrived at the city from his base near Ptolemais with 800 bandits, one of his followers revealed the plot. Separated from his men by a ruse and arrested, he made a complete confession, but Josephus pardoned him. He also forgave the Sepphorians. He was in no position to punish either the city or the bandits.
John saw an opportunity to overthrow Josephus when some young men held up King Agrippa’s steward and robbed him of valuable baggage that included silver cups and 600 gold pieces. Finding difficulty in disposing of their plunder, they brought it to Josephus, who was at Taricheae. He immediately confiscated the stolen baggage, intending to restore it to its owner, the king, whom he realized might be a useful friend in any negotiations with the Romans. In response, the robbers went to every city and village in the province, claiming Josephus was about to betray them all. John appears to have been behind these demonstrations, which gathered strength, while outwardly remaining on good terms with him.
The rumor that Josephus was planning to hand the country over to the Romans spread throughout Galilee, and thousands gathered in the hippodrome at Taricheae to protest. Repeatedly, they demanded his stoning or burning. The clamor was whipped by John of Gischala and by an old enemy, the chief magistrate Jesus ben Sapphias, who stepped forward dramatically with a copy of the Torah in his hands. “Perhaps you’re selfish enough not to be disgusted by Josephus, fellow citizens,” he shouted. “But at least you can still remember your Law, which your commander was planning to betray and for its sake alone you ought to abominate the crime and punish such an impertinent criminal.”
Jesus then led a band of armed men to Josephus’s house, intending to kill him. Waking the governor, the sole member of his bodyguard who remained told him they were coming and advised suicide. Instead, he put on black clothes, sprinkled dust on his head, hung his sword round his neck, and, avoiding Jesus, went to the hippodrome. Here, a few people, mainly Taricheans, felt sorry for him, but most of the mob were country folk who disliked his taxes. They yelled that they wanted their money back and told him to admit he was a traitor. Throwing himself on the ground and bursting into tears, he made such an impression that the mob prevented some soldiers from killing him. “Fellow citizens, if I deserve to die, I shan’t ask for any mercy. But at least, please let me tell you the truth before my death.” Then he promised, with heroic untruthfulness, to confess everything:
I have no intention of sending all this money to Agrippa or of keeping it for myself. And I am certainly not going to treat your enemy as a friend of mine, nor am I going to profit from your loss. But I have noticed, you Taricheans, that your city has much more need of fortifications and of being made safe than any other city in the area, and has to find the funds for building a proper wall. I was worried that the citizens of Tiberias or some other city might decide to appropriate the money for their own use, so I decided to keep it back and build a wall for you. But if you don’t care for the idea, then of course I shall hand over what was brought to me so that you can divide the lot up between you. I have tried to do my best for you, so why punish a man who merely wanted to do you a good turn?
The Taricheans cheered this “confession” and, as he had hoped, they and the Tiberians started quarreling with each other. Above the din, he went on shouting that they could do better than be angry with someone who was only trying to help them. Eventually, most of the crowd drifted away, and he went home, no doubt with considerable relief. (Josephus gives two slightly different accounts of this incident.18) However, 2,000 of them suddenly returned, waving weapons and shouting menaces outside his house, which they threatened to burn down. In response, he invited their leaders to come in and discuss their grievances. As soon as the men were inside and the door was shut, he had them seized and soundly flogged by his bodyguards with the terrible Roman whip (studded with lead and drawing blood with each stripe) “until their guts showed through their flesh,” he writes with obvious pleasure. In addition, he tells us in the Vita, he had a hand cut off from the biggest of the leaders and hung around his neck. (It has to be said that this revolting punishment was fairly standard practice.) Then he had them thrown out into the street, more dead than alive, their friends bolting in horror at the sight.19
Undeterred, John of Gischala hatched a new plot. While Josephus was away at a village in Galilee called Cana, John appeared at Tiberias, after writing a friendly letter to him to say that he was coming to take the hot baths. Encouraged by Justus ben Pistus, he then tried to make the inhabitants hand over the city to him. However, Josephus returned unexpectedly with 200 troops and John hid in his lodgings, pretending that he was ill. Dismissing all save a handful of his escort, Josephus went to the stadium and from the top of a wall began to tell the crowd about some important news that he had received. Suddenly, one of his soldiers yelled that John’s thugs were coming up behind him. “The swords were at his throat” when, just in time, he leaped down from the wall, ran to the lake, and jumped into a boat, taking refuge at Taricheae.
According to Josephus, not only the Taricheans but the entire people of Galilee were so angry at this attempt to murder him that he had to stop “tens of thousands” from marching on Gischala, where John had taken refuge, and burning the plotter and his city. John sent a letter vehemently denying all knowledge of a plot, “ending with oaths and horrible curses, by which he hoped to convey an air of sincerity.”20 Josephus then announced that he had discovered the names of John’s supporters in every city in Galilee and that he was preparing to burn the house of anyone who did not leave his party within five days. As a result, 3,000 men rushed to offer their swords to Josephus.21
In contrast, the citizens of Tiberias went over to King Agrippa, inviting him to occupy their city, evicting Josephus and his bodyguard as soon as a handful of the king’s horsemen rode in. He responded by collecting all the boats on Lake Gennesaret, some 230, manning each one with only four sailors, and then took his armada across the water to Tiberias, anchoring far out, so that the Tiberians could not see that the little vessels were virtually unmanned. Then he sailed his own boat to near the shore. Believing a huge army was about to attack them, the horrified citizens threw down their weapons and surrendered. Josephus then asked for a delegation with whom he could negotiate and on one pretence or another tricked the entire senate of 600 men, together with about 2,000 citizens, into coming on board his boats.
While being put ashore at Taricheae, they shouted that the instigator of the revolt had been Clitus, “a rash and headstrong youth,” so Josephus ordered one of his bodyguards to amputate the young man’s hands. When the guard dared not go in among the huge crowd of prisoners, Clitus begged to be allowed to keep one, and after Josephus had grudgingly agreed, he cut off his left hand with his right, using his sword. Josephus tells us that he felt extremely proud about the way in which he had crushed the Tiberians’ revolt “without any bloodshed.”22
Then he asked the Tiberian council to dinner. Among the guests was his old enemy, Justus, along with his father, Pistus. “During the meal, I said I knew very well that the Roman army was terrifyingly effective, but kept quiet about it because of the brigands”—by which he meant extremists. (He was saying that everyone present realized that Rome would reconquer Judea.) “I suggested they should be as discreet as I was and be patient. I also advised them not to criticize my government, as they were unlikely to find another general as tolerant as myself.” That was not all he had to say during this cheerful entertainment. “In addition, I reminded Justus how, just before I arrived from Jerusalem, the Galileans had cut off his brother’s hands for forging letters.” Finally he recalled how the people of Gamala had murdered Justus’s brother-in-law. Clearly in a good mood, he gave orders the next morning for the release of his Tiberian prisoners.23
His cheerfulness was soon dispelled by a crisis to which he devotes several pages of the Vita. John of Gischala had sent his brother, Jonathan, to Jerusalem to obtain the intervention of Simon ben Gamaliel, who appears to have been his friend, if not a very close one. It also seems that Joazar and Judas, Josephus’s two lieutenants, had returned to the capital and severely criticized the governor of Galilee.
A Pharisee whom even Josephus describes as “a man of illustrious family,” Simon, and his ally Gorion ben Joseph had considerable influence in Jerusalem, and they persuaded the authorities to replace Josephus with John as soon as possible.24 They agreed about the governor’s shortcomings (he claims they were bribed), accepting allegations about him that appear to have included corruption, luxurious living, and stealing. “Tyranny,” which presumably meant threatening behavior, was another charge, to some extent borne out by the many times Tiberias had rebelled. There also seem to have been insinuations that he was intending to hand the province over to the Romans. But instead of replacing him with John of Gischala, they decided to install a commission.
As a result, four commissioners from Jerusalem, three of them Pharisees and all highly respected, were sent to Galilee to arrest or kill the governor. One was Joazar, Josephus’s former lieutenant. Financed from the public treasury, they rode to the province with a thousand armed men. Luckily for Josephus, his father had learned of their mission and sent a letter to warn him. Reassured by a dream worthy of a prophet that he was destined to stay in office and lead the fight against the Romans, and heartened by having been begged by the Galileans to remain—at least he says they begged him—he assembled an army on the pretext that it was needed to fight Roman raiders from Syria. Then he waited for the commissioners to arrive. When they came, they wrote and very politely asked him to join them on an expedition to punish John of Gischala but to bring only a few men.
While Josephus was at dinner, their letter was delivered by an insolent young officer who did not even bother to salute and told him to be quick about writing an answer:
However, I asked him to sit down and join us for dinner. He refused. So I held the letter in my hand without opening it, talking to my companions about other things. I soon rose from the table and, after saying goodnight to most of them, invited four close friends to stay, telling my servant to bring some wine.
When no one was looking, I opened the letter, saw exactly what the writers were up to, and sealed it again. Holding the letter as if I had not read it, I ordered the soldier to be given twenty drachmas for his travelling expenses. He took the money, thanking me.
Guessing from his reaction that greed was the best way of getting the better of him, I then said, “If you would like to drink with us, you can have a drachma for every goblet of wine you drink.” He was only too pleased to accept, and in order to win as much money as possible drank so deeply that he got very drunk indeed. Unable to keep a secret any longer, he at last told me, without even being asked, all about the plot that was brewing and how his superiors had sentenced me to death.25
The commissioners’ attempts to lay hands on the wily governor of Galilee dragged on for weeks, at times degenerating into farce. They had no help from John of Gischala, who wanted the governorship for himself and who never forgave Simon ben Gamaliel for conceding to the commission; the rejection may have given him a lasting hatred for the aristocratic junta at Jerusalem and the entire ruling class. Nor did the Galilean peasants, who formed the bulk of the governor’s supporters, have any time for these haughty Pharisees.
The quarry arranged for crowds to boo the commissioners wherever they went, much to their fury, while when they tried to send letters around the province asking for support, he had the couriers arrested and put in chains. Attempts to kidnap him failed—one in a castle, another in a synagogue, and a third at a feast. When they persuaded the Tiberians to revolt, Josephus captured one of the commissioners who organized the uprising, by offering terms and then seizing the man around the waist when he came to negotiate. After this coup he marched into Tiberias with 10,000 troops and imprisoned anyone who was known to be hostile to him. It was the end of the commission.
Although Josephus survived, it had been a humiliating episode. It meant that not only throughout Galilee but in Jerusalem as well, there were influential people who had decided that the governor was not up to his job. Pretending that it had all been a plot by John of Gischala, boasting of his resourcefulness and of the supposed loyalty of the Galileans toward him, he uses all his skill to disguise the affront in the Vita. Even so, toward the end of his few months in Galilee, if his account is correct, it really does look as though he had outwitted his opponents. The commissioners had left, John of Gischala was confined to his little city, and Justus of Tiberias had taken refuge at King Agrippa’s court. It also seems that Josephus had cowed restive cities, such as Tiberias.
“In those days, I was about thirty years old, a time of life when, even if you are wholly respectable, it is not easy to avoid being slandered,” he says in the Vita, referring to his Galilean period.26 “Yet I never molested women, while I refused all the presents offered to me as I didn’t need them. I suppose I kept some of the loot captured from Syrian cities in the area and admit that I sent it back to relations at Jerusalem.” But he was sure his conduct had been beyond reproach. His self-esteem is almost ludicrous. “The Galileans were so fond of me that when their cities were stormed and their wives and children sent off to the slave market they were far more worried about what had happened to me,” he claims complacently. 27 Yet it is unlikely that the notoriously boorish Galilaioi felt much in common with a rich patrician from Jerusalem who, like many well-bred Jews, had difficulty in understanding what they were trying to say to him in their thick accents.
“I took Sepphoris twice by storm, Tiberias four times and Gabara once,” he says, hoping to impress us. He adds that he never punished any of these cities for rebelling.28 Not only are most of these claims patently untrue, but the statement is an admission that he was unable to assert his authority over Galilee, which by now must have been in hopeless disorder. Despite the glowing account he gives of his military achievements, he was clearly no good as a field commander—which, since he had had no military experience, was scarcely surprising. His inadequacy explains why there were so many revolts against his administration, and why John of Gischala never gave up hope of replacing him.
In fairness, it has to be said that at least one modern historian is inclined to believe that he had been a success and takes his pretensions at face value. E. M. Smallwood thinks that by spring 67, when a new Roman offensive opened, Josephus had established his authority over all Galilee except for Sepphoris.29 Not everyone will agree with her, despite her impressive scholarship.
He had to suffer a further humiliation. The citizens of Sepphoris—which, it will be remembered, was the Galilean capital—wrote to Caesennius Gallus, commander of the Twelfth Legion and Cestius’s deputy at Antioch, asking him to send them a Roman garrison. This duly arrived, and Josephus was unable to dislodge it. Sepphorians preferred security under the Romans, however oppressive, to freedom under an inept Jewish governor. Yet he claims, blandly and untruthfully, that “Everything had calmed down in Galilee by now,” after describing how he outwitted the citizens of Tiberias with his armada. “The people stopped quarrelling and got ready to fight the Romans.”30
They were certainly getting ready to fight at Jerusalem, where the walls were being strengthened and every wealthy man who was not a secret supporter of the Romans was acquiring an arsenal for himself and his servants. The noise of weapons and armor being forged rang out all over the city. Most of the young men were enthusiastically training as soldiers, disrupting the normal pattern of everyday life, but the more balanced among the citizens were very gloomy indeed, realizing what lay ahead and bewailing their fate. There were omens that could only spell disaster, although firebrands were trying to give them an optimistic interpretation.
Even before the Romans arrived, the mood in the Jewish capital was divided. On the one hand, there were those who believed their city might soon be facing destruction but made up their minds to fight to the end. On the other hand, there were the optimists, who argued, not entirely without reason, that King Herod’s fortifications made Jerusalem capable of surviving the most determined siege. What was certain, however, was that the junta at Jerusalem had no time to help a man who remained governor of Galilee despite their wishes, especially after the commissioners had reported how insultingly he had outwitted them. Josephus was now on his own and had to fend for himself.