The Wars of the Jews; Or, the History of the Destruction of Jerusalem
1905
The Wars of the Jews; Or, the History of the Destruction of Jerusalem
1905
Translated by William Whiston
In AD 66, a Jewish general named Josephus watched his people's revolt against Rome collapse into siege, starvation, and fire. Four years later, the same man sat in the Roman camp of Vespasian, writing the definitive account of the war he once fought. This is that account: a survivor's chronicle of Jerusalem's fall, of the Second Temple's destruction, and of the last desperate stand at Masada where 960 Jews chose mass suicide over Roman captivity. Josephus saw everything. He led rebel forces in Galilee, survived the siege of Jotapata, and emerged from a bunker of dead to become Rome's negotiated witness to his own people's catastrophe. His history is self-serving, wounded, morally compromised, and indispensable. It is also viscerally immediate: the screams in the streets, the bodies piled at the gates, the factional Jewish infighting that did as much to doom the revolt as Roman legions. Two thousand years later, this remains the primary source for one of history's most devastating collapses, and a haunting meditation on what it means to survive when your world burns.
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“Brave and loyal followers! Long ago we resolved to serve neither the Romans nor anyone other than God Himself, who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind. The time has now come that bids us prove our determination by our deeds we have never submitted to slavery, even when it brought no danger with it. We must not choose slavery now, and with it penalties that will mean the end of everything if we fall alive into the hands of the Romans God has given us this privilege, that we can die nobly and as free men and leave this world as free men in company with our wives and children.(Elazar Ben Yair)””
— Flavius Josephus
“Obym nie znalazł się za swego żywota w takiej niewoli, żebym miał wyrzec się swego pochodzenia i zapomnieć o dziedzictwie swoich przodków!””
— Flavius Josephus
“But one’s prosperity draws envy like honey draws flies.””
— Flavius Josephus
“After this, the distemper seized upon [Herod Antipater's] whole body, and greatly disordered all its parts with various symptoms; for there was a gentle fever upon him, and an intolerable itching over all the surface of his body, and continual pains in his colon, and dropsical turnouts about his feet, and an inflammation of the abdomen, and a putrefaction of his privy member, that produced worms. Besides which he had a difficulty of breathing upon him, and could not breathe but when he sat upright, and had a convulsion of all his members.””
— Flavius Josephus
“There is a certain place called Baaras, which produces a root of the same name. its color is like to that of flame, and towards the evenings it sends out a certain ray like lightning. It is not easily taken by such as would do it, but recedes from their hands, nor will yield itself to be taken quietly, until either the urine of a woman, or her menstrual blood, be poured upon it; nay, even then it is certain death to those that touch it, unless any one take and hang the root itself down from his hand, and so carry it away. It may also be taken another way, without danger, which is this: they dig a trench quite round about it, till the hidden part of the root be very small, they then tie a dog to it, and when the dog tries hard to follow him that tied him, this root is easily plucked up, but the dog dies immediately, as if it were instead of the man that would take the plant away; nor after this need any one be afraid of taking it into their hands. Yet, after all this pains in getting, it is only valuable on account of one virtue it hath, that if it be only brought to sick persons, it quickly drives away those called demons, which are no other than the spirits of the wicked, that enter into men that are alive and kill them, unless they can obtain some help against them.””
— Flavius Josephus
“Yet did another plague seize upon those that were thus preserved; for there was found among the Syrian deserters a certain person who was caught gathering pieces of gold out of the excrements of the Jews’ bellies; for the deserters used to swallow such pieces of gold, and for these did the seditious search them all; for there was a great quantity of gold in the city, insomuch that as much was now sold [in the Roman camp]. But when this contrivance was discovered in one instance, the fame of it filled their several camps, that the deserters came to them full of gold. So the multitude of the Arabians, with the Syrians, cut up those that came as supplicants, and searched their bellies. Nor does it seem to me that any misery befell the Jews that was more terrible than this, since in one night’s time about two thousand of these deserters were thus dissected.””
— Flavius Josephus
“And snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, “O thou miserable infant! for whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives, we must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us, even before that slavery comes upon us. Yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than both the other. Come on; be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these seditious varlets, and a by-word to the world, which is all that is now wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews.” As soon as she had said this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and eat the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed. Upon this the seditious came in presently, and smelling the horrid scent of this food, they threatened her that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them, and withal uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight, when she said to them, “This is mine own son, and what hath been done was mine own doing! Come, eat of this food; for I have eaten of it myself! “Do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman, or more compassionate than a mother; but if you be so scrupulous, and do abominate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten the one half, let the rest be reserved for me also.””
— Flavius Josephus
“Vecina es de este lago la tierra de Sodoma, fértil en otro tiempo, tanto en sus frutos como en la riqueza, ahora toda está quemada, y tiénese por cierto haber sucedido, y haber sido destruida por la impiedad e injusticia grande de los que allí habitaban, con rayos y con fuego del cielo, pues aún hoy hay señales y reliquias de este fuego enviado por Dios, y puédense ver aún las señales de los cinco lugares o ciudades y los frutos que nacen en aquellas cenizas; son los colores de ellos no menos aparentes que si fuesen muy buenos para comer; pero en las manos del que los toma se resuelven en ceniza y en humo; por lo que parece ahora en la tierra de Sodoma, se cree fácilmente ser así lo que fue y pasó en ella.””
— Flavius Josephus
