rule, but can only maintain an empire when also acting with moral
rectitude.
Dionysius reveals his name only at the end of the preface of Roman
Antiquities (1.7), putting topic before self, in contrast to most predecessors. The work emulates Thucydides’ narrative on the rise to power of a great state, yet Dionysius stresses the differences of Rome and ultimately its more enduring and memorable empire ( he ̄ gemonia) “in its displaying greatest power [ arche ̄] and its most splendid deeds in peace and war,”
greater than the deeds of Persia and Macedonia, and far more impressive than those of Athens or Sparta at their peak (D.H. 1.2; Schultze 2000: 11).
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Dionysius’ whole work may be seen as an extended “archaeology” akin to
Thucydides’ prehistory and fifty‐year sections in Book 1. The Roman
subject offers a “definitive ‘archaeology’ of that Universal History which is the synthesis of all previous histories” (Schultze 2000: 18). Dionysius’
prehistoric “archaeology” traces the causation behind and the character of the rising state; it works well in Greek since the meanings “beginning,”
“cause,” and “rule” all overlap in the single term arche ̄.
Dionysius’ work also has the explicit and original aim of establishing
the descent of Romans from the Greeks, another theme of his Antiquities.
It thus strengthens the historical ties of kinship and customs between his Greek and Roman audiences: “in this book I shall make clear that [the
founders of Rome] were Greeks and came together from peoples not the
smallest nor least considerable” (D.H. 1.5). In the claim of Roman greatness Dionysius establishes a theme of his work and echoes Polybius.
Indeed the Antiquities ends where Polybius begins – in 264 bc, with the First Punic War – and gives his readers the “prequel” to the origins of Roman power in its foundation legends. He means to dispel the view of
Greeks generally, and even of Greek historians, that Rome’s humble
beginnings were not worthy of record (D.H. 1.4). Moreover, he wants to
reinforce Thucydides’ view of power politics in order to show the Greeks that they are subordinate because they deserve to be so “by nature”:
[I write so the Greeks] may neither feel indignation at their present subjec-tion, which stands to reason (for it is a common law [ nomos] of nature, which time cannot destroy, that the stronger always govern the weaker), nor denounce their fortune for having wantonly bestowed upon an unde-serving city an empire so great and already of so long continuance. They shall have learned from my history that Rome from the very beginning,
immediately after its founding, produced infinite examples of virtue [ aretas] in men whose superiors, whether for piety or for justice or for life‐long self‐control or for warlike valour, no city, either Greek or barbarian, has ever produced. (D.H. 1.5, Cary, adapted)
A sobering message to fellow Greeks, this has the simultaneous effect of gaining favor from the Roman elite; but, by mentioning Rome’s many
superlative “virtues of men,” Dionysius sets a high bar against which
contemporary Romans will measure themselves.
The Greek origins of the Roman and Latin peoples have been
expounded and Romulus is presented as ruler by the end of Book 1. This
literally establishes a kinship with Greeks for Roman readers and a kinship with Romans for Greek readers – likely the main audience (Gabba 1991:
79–80). The institutions and early exploits of Romulus come in Book 2,
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and from there everything up to Book 4, chapter 53 is devoted to the
stories of the first other six kings. The end of Book 4 treats the expulsion of the royal Tarquins and the establishment of republican institutions.
Like Thucydides, Dionysius is aware of the unreliability of the earliest legends (gotten largely from Roman authors), and so he filters them through criteria of evidence (monuments, documents, etc.), reasoned argument,
and credibility (Schultze 2000: 42–5).
Dionysius follows Ephorus’ and Theopompus’ more global topics and
methods and in some ways what he does is in spirit of Thucydides and
Polybius, yet he goes beyond them. He is important for his originality in source usage, and he contradicts the tendency of many predecessors to
narrate more recent events and not to give events of the distant past
sufficient scrutiny. The foundations of Rome’s greatness, the concord
over a mixed constitution, and the consanguinity and similar values of
Romans and Greeks make sharp political points that are in line with the new Mediterranean under Augustus. One good example of how the
Antiquities functioned is found in the account of Romulus’ “third policy”
(D.H. 2.16–17), which substantially helped “raise Romans to their posi-
tion of supremacy” – namely a policy of not slaying the conquered peo-
ples but colonizing their lands, and even granting Roman citizenship to some. Dionysius compares this liberality unfavorably with the stinting
attitude of the Greek cities. Imperialism is grounded by the founder and a model held up to the current Greeks. Other implicit warnings lurk in
the text, for instance in the speech of Menenius Agrippa denouncing sedition and factionalism (D.H. 6.83–6; see Pelling 2007: 84). Appius
Claudius condemns the inversion of values that comes during civil strife in terms closely reminiscent of Thucydides (D.H. 53.6; cf. Th. 3.82).
The lessons were well recalled by Romans who recently emerged from
their own bloody civil war. By extending Polybius’ account back in time, Dionysius is fundamentally saying that origins, their lessons and values, matter as much as the building of empire.
The Empire and the Biographic Turn
The next major extant Greek historian appears at the end of the Julio‐
Claudians, after the imperial form has set in and criticism of empire is further muted. Latin historians seemed to lead the genre, exemplified in the extant works of Livy, Velleius Paterculus, and Tacitus. But in this era the praise of Rome, its emerging empire, and its virtuous ancestors give way to emperor‐centric narratives; for example Pliny’s Natural History
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and Josephus’ works were dedicated to Titus (Kraus 2005: 182–3). The
shift in historical perspectives also led to a Greek and Roman biographical trend evident in panegyric (Velleius), in straight biographies (Suetonius and Plutarch), and even in history that revolves around monarchs past,
present, and to be. The increase in the power vested in individuals
obviously led this trend. There is no clear line between the genres of
biography and history if we follow Aristotle’s dictum that history is “what Alcibiades did and suffered” (Arist. Po. 9.4, 1451b), yet space requires us to sidestep pure historical biographies, which had been evident since
Xenophon’s Agesilaus and (with a nod to the Latin works, Cornelius Nepos’ On Famous Men, Tacitus’ Agricola, and Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars) had come to fruition with Plutarch’s historical Lives, Lives of the Caesars, and Parallel Lives (Stadter 2007: 528–40). Plutarch (c. ad 46–120) visited Rome frequently, befriended the elite, was made a citizen, and dedicated his Parallel Lives to a senator during Trajan’s period. His Lives of the Caesars went from Augustus to Vitellius (27 bc–ad 69), though only Galba and Otho (written c. ad 75–96) are extant, but the
forty‐six Lives are his extant masterpiece, ranging from Theseus and Romulus to Antony and Cleopatra (30 bc). The Greek lives include
Spartan and Athenian figures, as well as Alexander and Philpoemenon
&nbs
p; (182 bc), while the Roman lives highlight the crisis of the late republic.
The project requires readers to compare Greek and Roman leadership,
values, and culture in a more focused way than the other historians of this period do with traditional narrative. The use of power remains a concern with Plutarch, but its application is limited to the individual lifespan.
Josephus
We know more about Josephus’ views and experiences than most, owing
to his publication of his Life, less an autobiography than a mixture of military-political memoir and moral and religious self‐defense (Schaller 1979). Titus Flavius Josephus (ad 37/38–c. 100; born Yosef ben
Mattityahur) was an aristocratic Jewish priest and Pharisee and at first a Jewish leader who walked a fine line with the Romans. Yigael Yadin, the excavator of Masada, famously called him “a great historian and a bad
Jew,” though others have seen him as a strong defender of the impor-
tance of Jews in history and a chronicler of a tragic war triggered by
Jewish factionalism and “tyrannical” Jewish leadership (J. BJ 1.4; see Mason 2005: 256; Raphael 2013: 177; Chapman 2009; Mehl 2011:
157–62). About ad 64–6 Josephus went to Rome under Nero in a
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delegation and successfully won the release of some captive Jewish
priests. There, as he tells us in his autobiography, he met a favorite actor of Nero’s, nicknamed Aliturus (“Mr. Salty Cheese”), and through him
he met Nero’s wife Poppaea Sabina (J. Vit. 13–16). Thereafter he did not favor resistance to Roman rule, which he felt was ordained by God. He
was in charge of Galilee (J. BJ 2.568–646) and, as a Jewish general, he was besieged at Jotapata by Vespasian (ad 67), captured, then freed due to the (correct) prophecy of Vespasian’s accession (J. BJ 3.399ff.). He was a friend of Emperor Titus, Vespasian’s son, and an “embedded
historian” during the Jewish War and the siege of Jerusalem (ad 70).
Josephus got Roman citizenship from Vespasian, took a Romanized
name, and later acquired lodgings in Vespasian’s family house in Rome,
as well as a pension and a house in Judaea to compensate for loss of property in Jerusalem (J. Vit. 422). The historian may well have believed that his cooperation with the imperial elite was in line with the dictates of divine will, but the Jewish War ( Bellum Judaicum) was undoubtedly also in perfect step with the Flavian dynasty’s agenda of cleaning up the Rome of previous emperors and of ridding the state of what was portrayed as a serious external threat – an agenda represented by the erection of the new Temple of Peace in Rome (J. BJ 7.158). Yet Josephus used the opportunity subtly, to advertise the virtues of Jewish culture to the Romans; in the parlance of postcolonial studies, the “subaltern” (subject) peoples are here able subtly to educate the “colonizers,” Rome, on aspects of Jewish superiority (Barclay 2005: 315–32).
The Flavian period flourished through many literary voices in Rome,
putting Josephus among poets like Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Martial, and prose authors such as Quintilian, Pliny the Elder, Tacitus, Dio
Chysostom, and Plutarch (Edmondson, Mason, and Rives 2005: 12–13).
Like Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, and others before
him, he wrote his histories at a distance from his native community. Like Thucydides and Xenophon, he was an exiled former commander whose
distance allowed him to see both sides. Yet Josephus evidences a pro‐
Roman bias and lacks the neutrality of Thucydides. He uses speeches
effectively to convey human motives, as does Thucydides, but we miss
the deeper analysis of power politics at work. The orations and the narrative are notably theocentric, a real change from earlier histories; at times they have God himself speak (e.g., to Adam, Cain, and Noah in AJ
1.46–51, 57, 100–3). Josephus’ speeches are not as polished as those of Dionysius, but more like the competent efforts of Arrian or Dio Cassius (Jones 2005: 204).
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His Jewish War, in seven books, appeared about ad 78–81. Book 1
covered prehistory beginning in 175 bc and the Maccabean Revolt to ad
66; the rest is a close, often eyewitness account of subsequent events.
Josephus wrote a first version in his native Aramaic, “for non‐Greek
speakers in the interior” of Asia Minor; the Aramaic was then translated into Greek, with the aid of “associates” (J. BJ 1.3 and Ap. 1.50). This second edition was meant for educated Jews, elite Romans, and others in the Eastern empire. His Greek was imperfect (J. AJ 20.11) and so the associates may well have added intertextual and verbal allusions to other Greek and Latin historians (Grant 1970: 254; Thackeray 1927, 1: xiii–
xix). For example, the shock in Jerusalem of the news of the fall of Jotapata recalls the reaction in Athens after the Sicilian disaster, implying the beginning of the end of a free state (J. BJ 3.432, cf. Th. 8.1). Josephus witnessed the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in ad 70 (Books 5–6), and in 71 the glittering Roman triumph with the captives and spoils paraded through Rome (J. BJ 7.123–7.162). He made notes on the spot and questioned deserters from the Jewish camp (J. Ap.
1.47–8). And he may well have read the commentaries of Vespasian and
Titus (Thackeray 1927, 1: xx–xxii).
As an eyewitness with the ear of the general, he resembles Polybius in
vividness and firsthand reliability, qualities absent from most other Greek historians of the Roman era. Josephus’ motivation for writing is that the war is “the greatest upheaval”; in this he consciously emulates Thucydides 1.1. He also argues that other accounts have shown extreme bias for
Romans or against Jews (J. BJ 1.1–2). Jewish leaders rebelled, mistakenly thinking that other Near Eastern states would join them and that the
Romans were overly occupied with Gauls and Germans. In Book 2, a
lengthy speech by Agrippa II, great‐grandson of Herod the Great, serves as a tragic warning against revolution and well illustrates Josephus’ mixture of traditional views of power with theocentrism (J. BJ 2.345–401).
Do not defy the Roman Empire ( he ̄ gemonia), Agrippa warns, listing the formerly great powers and peoples that are now Roman subjects, including Athens, Sparta, Macedon, Thrace, Gaul, Iberia, Carthage, Parthia, Egypt, and many Asian cities (J. BJ 2.357–87). You have no allies, Agrippa says, and “the only refuge left to you is an alliance with God”; yet this is not practicable without keeping the Sabbath, which will certainly make you
prey to the Romans; help cannot come from God or men; therefore you
should not resist the Romans. The people did not listen, and soon after Jewish insurgents captured Masada. Josephus had earlier said that “rule is possible for no one without God’s will” (J. BJ 2.140).
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At the siege of Jerusalem Titus delegates Josephus to address the Jews
on the city wall, and the latter implores them to spare their fatherland and Temple by surrendering:
[it is noble to fight for freedom and] to scorn more lowly masters, but not ones to whom everything was subject … Fortune passed over from elsewhere to [the Romans], and God who brings round imperial power [ arche ̄]
to peoples has come to Italy. In fact there is a very strong law [ nomos] marked out among both beasts and humans to yield to the more powerful and rule belongs to those who possess a supremacy of arms. (J. BJ 5.365–7) The “law” hearkens back directly to Thucydides’ Athenian formulations
(Th. 1.76 and 5.105). In the second of these passages, the Athenians
warn the Melians not to resist, and especially caution against reliance on divine aid against pragmatic considerations. Josephus has appropriated
Thucydides’ formula
but further explains it as the shifting of God’s favor.
In effect, the Jews assume the role of the Melians, who may be sympathetic to readers but whose folly lies in losing all for a principle. When this advice fails to move them, Josephus recalls at length the many episodes when Jews in the past have eventually overcome oppression in Egypt, in
Babylon, by Antiochus, Pompey, Herod, and Sossius (J. BJ 5.375–98).
But now, in part due to the Jews’ own impieties, “the Deity has fled from the holy places and stands with those against whom you war” (J. BJ
5.412). The corollary of this theory of divine supervision is that it also removes credit from the Romans for superior virtues – rather divine will makes them mightier for the time being (Mason 2005: 257).
The narrative of the siege of Masada is as gripping and vivid a spectacle as any ancient battle narrative, and it is made all the more so by modern excavations that underscore the veracity of the account (J. BJ 7.252–
406). Josephus must have heard of the horrors directly from one of the
few survivors, and he most effectively recounts a quasi‐Platonic exhortation by the leader of the “freedom fighters,” Eleazar, which convinces
them to see death as something not to be feared but embraced as a release (J. BJ 7.341–88). How delicate an argument this was from the historian who himself avoided group suicide after the Roman siege of Jotapata!
The reader is left to see the complexity of the different situations that call for different expedients in view of a divinely decreed lot.
Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities ( Antiquitates Judeae), published about ad 93–4 (“in the thirteenth year of Domitian’s reign,” J. AJ 20.267), covered in twenty books the history of the Jews from Creation to the outbreak of revolts (ad 66), aiming mainly to acquaint Greek readers with Judaism and
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to characterize Jews as fortunate under God’s law (J. AJ 1.14ff). Jewish Antiquities is partly modeled on the war narratives of Herodotus and others and partly resembles rather Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Roman Antiquities, the “antiquities” ( archaia) being inspired by Thucydides’
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