Florus and the End of the Antiquities

Gessius Florus, whom Nero sent as Albinus’s successor, filled the Jews with many miseries. He was a native of Clazomenae, and he brought with him his wife Cleopatra, through whose friendship with Poppaea, Nero’s wife, he obtained this office; she was no different from him in wickedness. Florus was so wicked and so violent in the use of his authority that, because of the excess of the evils, the Jews praised Albinus as a benefactor. For Albinus concealed his wickedness and took care not to be caught out in it altogether; but Gessius Florus, as if he had been sent on purpose to put wickedness on display, made a parade of his lawless acts against our nation, leaving out no kind of plunder and no kind of unjust punishment. He could not be moved to pity, and no gain was ever enough for him; he made no distinction between the largest sums and the smallest, but even went into partnership with the robbers. For many took to robbery then without fear, trusting that in return for a share they had his pledge of their safety. [a]

There was no limit to this. The unhappy Jews, unable to bear the ravages of the robbers, were all forced to leave their own homes and flee, thinking they would live better anywhere at all among foreigners. What more need I say? It was Florus who forced us to take up the war against the Romans, since we thought it better to perish all at once than little by little. The war began in the second year of Florus’s rule and the twelfth year of Nero’s reign. But what we were forced to do, and what we had to endure, anyone who wishes may learn accurately from the books I have written about the Jewish war.

Here, then, I will bring my Antiquities to an end; it was after these events that I began my account of the war. This work contains what has been handed down from the first creation of man to the twelfth year of Nero’s reign: all that befell us Jews in Egypt, in Syria and in Palestine, what we suffered from the Assyrians and the Babylonians, and how the Persians and the Macedonians, and after them the Romans, treated us. I think I have composed it all with accuracy. I have tried to keep the record of our high priests through two thousand years. I have also set out without error the succession of our kings, reporting their deeds and their governments and the powers of our monarchs, as the sacred books record everything; for that is what I promised at the beginning of this history to do. [d]

Now that I have completed what I set out to do, I venture to say that no one else, Jew or foreigner, however much he wished it, could have presented this work to the Greeks so accurately. My own countrymen admit that I far surpass them in the learning of our nation. I have also worked hard to master Greek letters and have gained a grammarian’s knowledge of them, though the long habit of my own country kept me from exactness in pronouncing the language. For among us they do not think much of those who have learned the speech of many nations, because they regard this accomplishment as common not only to any free man but to any slave who cares to learn it. They grant the name of wise only to those who know our laws exactly and are able to interpret the meaning of the sacred writings. That is why, though many have labored hard at this training, hardly two or three have succeeded, and they at once reaped the reward of their labors.

Perhaps it will not be thought offensive if I also go briefly through my family and the events of my life, while there are still people living who can either refute me or bear witness to what I say. With this I will end the Antiquities, which are contained in twenty books and sixty thousand lines. And if God permits, I will go over the war again briefly, together with all that has befallen us down to this present day, which is the thirteenth year of the reign of Domitian Caesar and the fifty-sixth year of my own life. I have also resolved to write four books, according to the beliefs of us Jews, about God and his being, and about our laws: why, according to them, some things are permitted us and others are forbidden. [f]