The Jewish War: Revised Edition

by Flavius Josephus, G. A. Williamson (Translator), G. A. Williamson (Introduction), E. Mary Smallwood (Revised by), Betty Radice

Overview

Josephus’ account of a war marked by treachery and atrocity is a superbly detailed and evocative record of the Jewish rebellion against Rome between AD 66 and 70. Originally a rebel leader, Josephus changed sides after he was captured to become a Rome-appointed negotiator, and so was uniquely placed to observe these turbulent events, from the siege of Jerusalem to the final heroic resistance and mass suicides at Masada. His account provides much of what we know about the history of the Jews under Roman rule, with vivid portraits of such key figures as the Emperor Vespasian and Herod the Great. Often self-justifying and divided in its loyalties, The Jewish War nevertheless remains one of the most immediate accounts of war, its heroism and its horrors, ever written.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140444209
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/28/1984
Series:	Penguin Classics Series
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	150,306
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

G.A. Williamson was born in 1895 and was a Classical Exhibitioner at Worcester College, Oxford, graduating with a First Class Honours degree. He was Senior Classics Master at Norwich School from 1922 to 1960. He also translated Josephus: The Jewish War (1959) and Procopius: The Secret History (1966) for the Penguin Classics. He died in 1982.
G.A. Williamson was born in 1895 and was a Classical Exhibitioner at Worcester College, Oxford, graduating with a First Class Honours degree. He was Senior Classics Master at Norwich School from 1922 to 1960. He also translated Josephus: The Jewish War (1959) and Procopius: The Secret History (1966) for the Penguin Classics. He died in 1982.
Betty Radice read classics at Oxford, then married and, in the intervals of bringing up a family, tutored in classics, philosophy and English. She became joint editor of the Penguin Classics in 1964. As well as editing the translation of Livy’s The War with Hannibal she translated Livy’s Rome and Italy, Pliny’s Letters, The Letters of Abelard and Heloise and Erasmus’s Praise of Folly, and also wrote the introduction to Horace’s Complete Odes and Epodes, all for the Penguin Classics. She also edited Edward Gibbon’s Memoirs of My Life for the Penguin English Library, and edited and annotated her translation of the younger Pliny’s works for the Loeb Library of Classics and translated from Renaissance Latin, Greek and Italian for the Officina Bodoni of Verona. She collaborated as a translator in the Collected Works of Erasmus, and was the author of the Penguin Reference Book Who’s Who in the Ancient World. Betty Radice was an honorary fellow of St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and a vice-president of the Classical Association. Betty Radice died in 1985.

Read an Excerpt

BOOK III, CHAPTER I. 1. When Nero was informed of the disasters in Judaea, though seized with consternation and alarm suppressed however as was natural, he assumed, in public, a haughty and indignant air. Attributing what had occurred rather to the negligence of his general, than to the valour of the foe, he deemed it becoming in one who sustained the weight of the empire to treat misfortunes with stately contempt, and show himself possessed of a mind superior to every reverse. His mental perturbation, notwithstanding, was betrayed by his thoughtfulness. 2. Deliberating to whom he should confide the east, which was already in commotion, and whose task it should be at once to chastise the Jewish insurgents, and to impose a timely check on the surrounding nations, who were catching the contagion, Vespasian alone could he find adequate to the emergency, or able to support the burden of so vast an enterprise ; a man who from youth to age had spent his life Ln military service; who for the Romans had formerly pacified the west, when disturbed by the Germans; and to whose arms they owed the acquisition of Britain, hitherto unknown. This last was a conquest, on account of which his father Claudius, without any toil on his own part, had obtained a triumph. 3. Auguring favourably, therefore, from these facts, and seeing his years steadied by experience, and that, together with his own approved fidelity, his sons were a pledge, and their vigour a hand, for the execution of their father's sagacious counsels God also, perhaps, providentially directing the whole Nero sent him to assume the command of the armies in Syria, paying him, in consequence of the urgency of the occasion, many soothingand flattering compliments, such as necessities of the kind demand. Immediately on his app...

Table of Contents

Foreword to This Edition Introduction Josephus' Life Josephus' Works Josephus as a Historian

THE JEWISH WAR

Preface
1. Herod's Predecessors
2. Herod's Rise to Power
3. Herod Master of Palestine
4. Herod's Murder of Mariamme and her Children
5. Herod's Murder of his Heir, and Death
6. The Rise and Fall of Archelaus
7. Judaea under Roman Rule
8. War Clouds
9. The Outbreak of War
10. Josephus Governor of Galilee
11. The Coming of Vespasian and Titus
12. Josephus the Prisoner of Vespasian
13. Vespasian's Conquering Advance
14. Factions in Jerusalem
15. Atrocities in the City. Vespasian's Intervention
16. Vespasian Emperor
17. The Siege of Jerusalem - First Stages
18. Two Walls Captured
19. The Horrors of the Siege
20. Antonia Captured and Destroyed
21. The Temple Burnt and the City Taken
22. Jerusalem Destroyed: Roman Celebrations
23. Cleaning-up Operations Notes Appendixes:
A. Bandits, Terrorists, Sicarii and Zealots B. Roman Provincial Administration and Defence C. Money D. Josephus' Calendar E. Qumran F. The Slavonic Versions of The Jewish War
Chronological Table Maps and Plans:
The Eastern Mediterranean Palestine Jerusalem in A. D. 70
Herod's Temple Enclosure Herod's Temple The Herodian Family Glossary of Technical Terms Bibliography Index