: By the end of A.D. 67 the whole of Northern Palestine was in the hands of the Romans. Only Jerusalem,. where a bloody civil war was raging, remained to be taken. But its capture was delayed by the events of A.D. 68, which drew the attention ot the generals to the West. News came first of the death of Nero, which took place in June, and then, in rapid succession, of the accession of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. In July A.D. 69 Vespasian’s legions took the law into their own hands, and proclaimed him emperor. One of his first acts as emperor was to liberate Josephus, whose prophecy had now come true; his chains, so the historian _ tells us, were, at Titus’ suggestion, not merely loosed, but struck off, to indicate that he had been unjustly kept in bonds (BJ Iv. 622). He now accompanied the emperor to Alexandria, and from there was sent back with Titus to take part in the siege of Jerusalem (Vita, 416). Itis not the place here to describe the course of that memorable siege, which the historian has narrated in the fifth and sixth books of the Jewish War. The services of Josephus as interpreter and intercessor were more than once requisitioned by Titus (BJ vy. 361, VI. 96); on one occasion he was hit by a stone, and barely escaped capture and death at the hands of his countrymen (BJ y. 541). He was, he tells us, at this time between two fires; for, while bitterly hated by the Jews, he was suspected b the Romans of treachery whenever they met with a reverse (Vita, 416). After the capture of the city and the destruction of the temple he was offered by Titus the choice of what he would from the ruins, but was content with requesting a copy of the Scriptures and the life of his brother and fifty friends. Subsequently he obtained the release of about a hundred and ninety of his friends, and was granted an estate outside Jerusalem (Vita, 422), He sailed with Titus to Rome, and witnessed
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the gorgeous triumphal procession of the two emperors, of which he has left us a description (BJ vit. 123 ff.). And now the erstwhile Jewish priest and patriot settled down to a life of ease as a littérateur. He was given apartments by Ves- pasian in the house which the latter had occupied before he became emperor, and honoured with the Roman citizenship and a pension (Vita, 423): he was thus among the first to be placed on the ‘civil list’ which was instituted by that emperor (Suet. Vesp. 18: ‘Primus e fisco Latinis Grecisque rhetoribus annua centena constituit’). He was also awarded a further grant of land in Judea. But the hatred of his countrymen still pursued him, and his security was from time to time endangered by their accusations. He mentions one Jonathan in particular, the leader of a Jewish revolt in Cyrene, who accused him of complicity in his designs; Vespasian, however, befriended Josephus, and had Jonathan put to death (BJ Vit. 437; Vita, 424). Under Titus and Domitian he continued to receive the same honourable treat- ment ; the latter emperor exempted his estate in Judea from taxation. We know nothing as to the date of his death, except that he must have lived into the 2nd cent., since he wrote the Life after the death of Agrippa Il. (Vita, 359), who died in the third year of Trajan’s reign, A.D. 100 (Photius, Bibliotheca, Cod. 33).
The accuracy of the statement of Photius has, however, been called in question, and Niese (Hist. Zeitschrift, Bd. Ixxvi. 193 ff.), identifying Epaphroditus, the patron of the historian, with the freedman of Nero, has conjectured that Josephus was involved in the ruin of his patron (Suet. Dom. 14), falling a victim to the suspicions of Domitian about A.D. 95.
Eusebius-tells us that Josephus was honoured with a statue at Rome, and that his works were placed in the public library (H# iii. 9). He was married at least four times (BJ v. 419; Vita, 414, 415, 427): for his family connexions, see Schiirer, GJIV? i. 77 (HJP I. i. 81].
ii. Worxks.—In the leisure which he enjoyed at Rome, Josephus composed the four works which, owing, no doubt, to the high esteem in which they were held by early Christian writers, have come down to us entire, namely, the Jewish War, the Antiquities, the Life, and the treatise Against Apion ; nor is there sufficient ground for believing that he wrote any others. ‘
1. The Jewish War.—This is the oldest of Josephus’ works, having been written during the latter half of the reign of Vespasian (A.D. 69-79).
- That it was written late in this reign is shown by the fact that it had been preceded by other accounts of the war (BJ, ad init.), and also by the mention of the completion of the building of the temple of Pax (BJ VII. 158), which, according to Dio Cassius (Ixvi. 15), was dedicated in A.D. 75. It was composed, in the first place, in the writer’s native tongue, that is to say Aramaic, for the benefit of the Semitic peoples of inland Syria (rois dvw BapBdpaus, BJ 1. 3), and was afterwards ren- dered into Greek for the use of readers throughout the Roman empire. The original writing has not been preserved ; probably it was a much shorter work than the Greek, and did not contain the two introductory books and the closing book of the BJ. For the translation, which shows no traces of its Aramaic parentage, and must have been practically a new work, Josephus employed certain collaborateurs (xpnodpmevds tise mpds Thy “ENAqvida poviy owepyois, c. Ap. i. 50). Copies were pre- sented to Vespasian and Titus, and to many Romans who had taken part in the war, and sold to Herod Agrippa II. and other learned men among his countrymen, all of whom, Josephus asserts, attested the accuracy of his work (¢. Ap. i. 51f.). Titus himself affixed his imprimatur, and Agrippa