Between Flavian Power and Jewish Trauma
The Unemotionality of Josephus’ Triumph Narrative
Abstract
This paper addresses the unemotionality of Josephus’ narrative of the Flavian triumph in the Jewish War in light of other passages from the BJ in which Josephus’ writing is expressly emotional. Examining several instances in which the recollection of trauma leads Josephus’ author-persona to express grief, pity, or other allied emotions, this paper argues that a lamentation of this type is to be expected on the occasion of the triumph. However, none is given. This absence, it is argued, results from an expectation on the part of the Flavians that their triumphal procession is to be a celebratory occasion and not a traumatic one. However, the triumph pericope is not celebratory, and signs of discomfort are present between the lines, reminding the reader of other scenes where Josephus’ author-persona is explicit about his lamentation. From this evidence it is argued that Josephus’ author-persona intentionally removed himself from the narration of the triumph in order to compose a scene that would pass muster with the Flavians while still expressing the trauma that the triumphal procession inflicted.
Literaturhinweise
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Cohen, Shaye J.D. “Josephus, Jeremiah, and Polybius.” History and Theory 21, no. 3 (October 1982): 366–81.
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Mason, Steve. “Josephus’ Portrait of the Flavian Triumph in Historical and Literary Context.” In Der römische Triumph in Prinzipat und Spätantike, edited by Fabian Goldbeck and Johannes Wienand, 125–75. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016.
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Mason, Steve. “When Suffering Meets Passion: Pathos in Josephus’ Judean War and Its Context.” In Jews and Christians in the Roman World: From Historical Method to Cases, by Steve Mason, 187–209. Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 116. Leiden: Brill, 2023.
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Mirguet, Françoise. An Early History of Compassion: Emotion and Imagination in Hellenistic Judaism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Mirguet, Françoise. “Emotional Responses to the Pain of Others in Josephus’s Rewritten Scriptures and the Testament of Zebulun: Between Power and Vulnerability.” Journal of Biblical Literature 133, no. 4 (Winter 2014): 838–57.
Mirguet, Françoise. “Josephus’s Lamentations in the Judean War: Body, Emotional Resistance, and Gender.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 53 (2022): 524–66.
Parente, Fausto. “The Impotence of Titus, or Josephus’ Bellum Judaicum as an Example of ‘Pathetic’ Historiography.” In Josephus and Jewish History in Flavian Rome and Beyond, edited by Joseph Sievers and Gaia Lembi, 45–70. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 104. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
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Rajak, Tessa. Josephus: The Historian and His Society. 1st ed. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983.
Rengstorf, Karl Heinrich, ed. A Complete Concordance to Flavius Josephus. 4 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1973.
Rocca, Samuele. “Flavius Josephus and the Arch of Titus: Commemorating the Jewish War in Word and Stone.” In The Arch of Titus: From Jerusalem to Rome—and Back, edited by Steven Fine, 43–53. Leiden: Brill, 2021.
Schwartz, Seth. “The Composition and Publication of Josephus’s Bellum Iudaicum Book 7.” Harvard Theological Review 79 (1986): 373–86.
Spilsbury, Paul. “Josephus on the Burning of the Temple, the Flavian Triumph, and the Providence of God.” Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 41 (2002): 306–27.
Sterling, Gregory E. Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephos, Luke-Acts and Apologetic Historiography. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 64. Leiden: Brill, 1992.
Stern, Menahem. “Josephus and the Roman Empire as Reflected in the Jewish War.” In Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity, edited by Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata, 71–80. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987.
Swoboda, Sören. “Tragic Elements in Josephus: Pity as a Goal of the Jewish War and Greek Tragedy.” Journal of Ancient Judaism 8, no. 2 (2017).
Teets, Sarah Christine. “The Trauma of Autopsy and the Transgression of History in Josephus’ Jewish War.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 51 (2020): 261–84.
Weitzman, Steven. “Warring against Terror: The War Scroll and the Mobilization of Emotion.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 40 (2009): 213–41.
Ash, Rhiannon. “Fractured Vision: Josephus and Tacitus on Triumph and Civil War.” In Roman Rule in Greek and Latin Writing: Double Vision, edited by Jesper Majbom Madsen and Roger David Rees, 144–62. Impact of Empire 18. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Barclay, John M.G. “The Empire Writes Back: Josephan Rhetoric in Flavian Rome.” In Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, edited by Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason, and James Rives, 315–32. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Beard, Mary. The Roman Triumph. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.
Beard, Mary. “The Triumph of Flavius Josephus.” In Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text, edited by Anthony Boyle and William J. Dominik, 542–58. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
Brighton, Mark Andrew. The Sicarii in Josephus’s Judean War: Rhetorical Analysis and Historical Observations. Early Judaism and Its Literature 27. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2009.
Chapman, Honora Howell. “Spectacle and Theater in Josephus’ Bellum Judaicum.” PhD diss., Stanford University, 1998.
Chapman, Honora Howell. “Spectacle in Josephus’ Jewish War.” In Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, edited by Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason, and James Rives, 289–314. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Cohen, Shaye J.D. “Josephus, Jeremiah, and Polybius.” History and Theory 21, no. 3 (October 1982): 366–81.
Damon, Cynthia. “Emotions as a Historiographical Dilemma.” In Emotions in the Classical World: Methods, Approaches, and Directions, edited by Douglas Cairns and Damien P. Nelis, 177–94. Heidelberger althistorische Beiträge und epigraphische Studien 59. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2017.
Eberhardt, Barbara. “Wer dient wem? Die Darstellung des flavischen Triumphzuges auf dem Titusbogen und bei Josephus (B.J. 7.123-162).” In Josephus and Jewish History in Flavian Rome and Beyond, edited by Joseph Sievers and Gaia Lembi, 257–77. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 104. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
Fine, Steven, ed. The Arch of Titus: From Jerusalem to Rome—and Back. Leiden: Brill, 2021.
Frilingos, Christopher A. “More Than Meets the Eye: Incongruity and Observation in Josephus’s Account of the Triumph of Vespasian and Titus.” History of Religions 57, no. 1 (2017): 50–67.
Goodman, Martin. Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations. London: Allen Lane, 2007.
Henten, Jan Willem van. “Josephus as Narrator.” In Autoren in religiösen literarischen Texten der späthellenistischen und der frühkaiserzeitlichen Welt: Zwölf Fallstudien, edited by Eve-Marie Becker and Jörg Rüpke, 121–50. Culture, Religion, and Politics in the Greco-Roman World 3. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018.
Huitink, Luuk, and Jan Willem van Henten. “Josephus.” In Space in Ancient Greek Literature: Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative, edited by Irene J. F. de Jong, 199–217. Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava. Supplementum 339. Leiden: Brill, 2012.
Josephus. The Jewish War. Translated by H. St. J. Thackery. 3 vols. Loeb Classical Library 203, 487 and 210. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927-8.
Josephus. The Jewish War. Translated by Martin Hammond. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Lange, Carsten Hjort. “Triumph and Civil War in the Late Republic.” Papers of the British School at Rome 81 (2013): 67–90.
Levene, D. S. “Pity, Fear, and the Historical Audience: Tacitus on the Fall of Vitellius.” In The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, edited by Susanna Morton Braund and Christopher Gill, 128–49. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Luce, T. J. “Ancient Views on the Causes of Bias in Historical Writing.” Classical Philology 84, no. 1 (January 1989): 16–31.
Mader, Gottfried. Josephus and the Politics of Historiography: Apologetic and Impression Management in the Bellum Judaicum. Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava. Supplementum 205. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Marincola, John. Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Marincola, John. “Beyond Pity and Fear: The Emotions of History.” Ancient Society 33 (2003): 285–315.
Mason, Steve. “Figured Speech and Irony in T. Flavius Josephus.” In Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, edited by Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason, and James Rives, 243–88. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Mason, Steve. “Flavius Josephus in Flavian Rome: Reading On and Between the Lines.” In Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text, edited by Anthony Boyle and William J. Dominik, 559–89. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
Mason, Steve. A History of the Jewish War: A.D. 66-74. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Mason, Steve. “Josephus’ Portrait of the Flavian Triumph in Historical and Literary Context.” In Der römische Triumph in Prinzipat und Spätantike, edited by Fabian Goldbeck and Johannes Wienand, 125–75. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016.
Mason, Steve. “Of Audience and Meaning: Reading Josephus’ Bellum Iudaicum in the Context of a Flavian Audience.” In Josephus and Jewish History in Flavian Rome and Beyond, edited by Joseph Sievers and Gaia Lembi, 70–100. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 104. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
Mason, Steve. “When Suffering Meets Passion: Pathos in Josephus’ Judean War and Its Context.” In Jews and Christians in the Roman World: From Historical Method to Cases, by Steve Mason, 187–209. Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 116. Leiden: Brill, 2023.
Mermelstein, Ari. Power and Emotion in Ancient Judaism: Community and Identity in Formation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Mirguet, Françoise. An Early History of Compassion: Emotion and Imagination in Hellenistic Judaism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Mirguet, Françoise. “Emotional Responses to the Pain of Others in Josephus’s Rewritten Scriptures and the Testament of Zebulun: Between Power and Vulnerability.” Journal of Biblical Literature 133, no. 4 (Winter 2014): 838–57.
Mirguet, Françoise. “Josephus’s Lamentations in the Judean War: Body, Emotional Resistance, and Gender.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 53 (2022): 524–66.
Parente, Fausto. “The Impotence of Titus, or Josephus’ Bellum Judaicum as an Example of ‘Pathetic’ Historiography.” In Josephus and Jewish History in Flavian Rome and Beyond, edited by Joseph Sievers and Gaia Lembi, 45–70. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 104. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
Popović, Mladen. “The Jewish Revolt Against Rome: History, Sources and Perspectives.” In The Jewish Revolt Against Rome: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Mladen Popović, 1–25. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 154. Leiden: Brill, 2011.
Rajak, Tessa. Josephus: The Historian and His Society. 1st ed. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983.
Rengstorf, Karl Heinrich, ed. A Complete Concordance to Flavius Josephus. 4 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1973.
Rocca, Samuele. “Flavius Josephus and the Arch of Titus: Commemorating the Jewish War in Word and Stone.” In The Arch of Titus: From Jerusalem to Rome—and Back, edited by Steven Fine, 43–53. Leiden: Brill, 2021.
Schwartz, Seth. “The Composition and Publication of Josephus’s Bellum Iudaicum Book 7.” Harvard Theological Review 79 (1986): 373–86.
Spilsbury, Paul. “Josephus on the Burning of the Temple, the Flavian Triumph, and the Providence of God.” Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 41 (2002): 306–27.
Sterling, Gregory E. Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephos, Luke-Acts and Apologetic Historiography. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 64. Leiden: Brill, 1992.
Stern, Menahem. “Josephus and the Roman Empire as Reflected in the Jewish War.” In Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity, edited by Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata, 71–80. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987.
Swoboda, Sören. “Tragic Elements in Josephus: Pity as a Goal of the Jewish War and Greek Tragedy.” Journal of Ancient Judaism 8, no. 2 (2017).
Teets, Sarah Christine. “The Trauma of Autopsy and the Transgression of History in Josephus’ Jewish War.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 51 (2020): 261–84.
Weitzman, Steven. “Warring against Terror: The War Scroll and the Mobilization of Emotion.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 40 (2009): 213–41.
Veröffentlicht
2024-09-13
Zitationsvorschlag
Steinberg, J. (2024). Between Flavian Power and Jewish Trauma: The Unemotionality of Josephus’ Triumph Narrative. Judaica. Neue Digitale Folge, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.36950/jndf.2024.1.14
Ausgabe
Rubrik
Literary Powerplays – Jewish Authors and Power in the Graeco-Roman Period
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Copyright (c) 2023 Jeremy Steinberg
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