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, while The 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 frien
ds 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.
Jerusalem's Traitor: Josephus, Masada, and the Fall of Judea Page 9