Raymond Lahiri, Yale University
In his Judaean War, Flavius Josephus is both character and author. First leader of a doomed resistance at Jotapata, he becomes an advisor prophesying Flavian rule. This paper examines the programmatic scene of his surrender to Vespasian and Titus (War 3.393-397), arguing that the episode is structured around a hitherto-unnoticed Herodotean intertext. Specifically, Josephus alludes to Croesus of Lydia’s near death at the hands of Cyrus (Hist. 1.86), modelling himself as Croesus and the Flavians as Cyrus. Reflecting on Josephus—his peer, his captive, and his recent foe—Titus realizes that “nothing of human affairs is stable” (τῶν δ’ ἀνθρωπίνων οὐδὲν βέβαιον, 3.397 ~ Hdt. 1.86.6, οὐδὲν εἴη τῶν ἐν ἀνθρώποισι ἀσφαλέως ἔχον) and decides to intervene on his behalf.
Thus, the Judaean War connects to the signal Herodotean theme of the contingency of fate (e.g., Harrison 2000) at the moment when Flavian power seems most inevitable and its hold over the historian most inextricable. Though “all fortune has passed to the Romans” (μετέβη δὲ πρὸς Ῥωμαίους ἡ τύχη πᾶσα, 3.354), Josephus evokes Herodotus to defend the autonomy of historical judgement—and, perhaps, to warn his reader to look to the end (Grethlein 2013).
Why has this allusion never been noticed? For one, Josephus has had only a fleeting presence in mainstream studies of Greco-Roman historiography (despite Marincola 1997 and the efforts of Mason, e.g. 2003, 2016); in Judaic studies, Josephus’ facility with Greek is still debated (e.g., Schwartz 1990, Koskienniemi 2019, pace Rajak 2002). Thus, few scholars have been primed to read for the intertext. Moreover, while Josephus’ use of Thucydides and Polybius has been noted (e.g., Mader 2000, Price 2011; Cohen 1982, Eckstein 1990), his reading of Herodotus is significantly understudied (Ek 1946, Sawlivich 1990, Tagliaferro 2015, Almagor 2016). This disciplinary marginality has pushed another intertext to the fore: that of the biblical Daniel (e.g., Bruce 1965, Feldman 1998, Mason 1994; against which, Glas 2021). Following this paper’s assertion of a Herodotean model, the Daniel-allusion must be considered a “window reference” (Thomas 1986) if it obtains (some trace Daniel’s “Four Empires” to Herodotus: see Momigliano 1982, Niskanen 2004, Wiesehöfer 2005, with Collins 1994).
The examination of the dense, intertextual layering of a pivotal scene sheds new light on several dimensions of Josephus’ work, including his self-construction as a historian and his mapping of Jewish history onto Greco-Roman narrative frames. Equally, such analysis reveals the aspects of ancient historiography that proved particularly valuable for Josephus’ project. His use of historiographic temporality and inheritance of Herodotean contingency complicate straightforward, “Flavian” readings of the Judaean War. Thus, the reading of Josephus pays dividends for the study of the politics of the literary form of Greco-Roman historiography, highlighting the ways in which the genre itself thematizes its uneasy implication with—and critique of—past, present, and even future forms of power.