The Truth About the War

The war that the Jews waged against the Romans was the greatest not only of our own times but very nearly of all the wars we have ever heard of, whether between city and city or nation and nation. Yet some who were not present at the events have collected idle and contradictory stories from hearsay and written them up in the manner of rhetoricians, while others who were present have falsified the facts, either to flatter the Romans or out of hatred for the Jews; and their writings contain accusation in one place and praise in another, but nowhere the accurate truth of history. For this reason I have resolved to set out this history in Greek, for those who live under Roman rule, translating what I composed earlier in my native language and sent to the barbarians of the interior. I am Josephus son of Matthias, a priest from Jerusalem, who at first fought against the Romans myself and was present, of necessity, at what happened afterward. [a]

For, as I said, when this very great upheaval took place, the Romans’ own affairs were sick. Those of the Jews who wanted revolution rose up in that time of disorder, at the height of their strength and wealth, so that the troubles in the East were extreme: some hoped to gain by them and others feared to lose. The Jews hoped that all their kinsmen beyond the Euphrates would rise together with them. The Romans, for their part, were unsettled by their neighbors the Gauls, and the Celts were not quiet either. After Nero everything was full of turmoil; the moment tempted many to reach for kingship, and the soldiers were eager for change in the hope of profit. I thought it absurd, then, to stand by and watch the truth go astray in matters of such importance. The Parthians and the Babylonians, the most distant Arabians, our kinsmen beyond the Euphrates and the people of Adiabene knew accurately, through my care, how the war began, through what sufferings it passed, and how it ended; while the Greeks, and those Romans who had not served in it, knew nothing of these things and read only flattery or fiction. [d]

Yet these writers dare to call their works histories, though besides telling nothing sound they seem to me to miss even their own aim. They want to show that the Romans are great, yet all the while they run down and belittle what the Jews did. But I do not see how those who have conquered little men can appear great. Nor do they have any respect for the length of the war, the size of the Roman army that labored in it, or the greatness of its generals, whose many hard toils around Jerusalem go without glory, I think, when their achievement is belittled.

Still, I have not resolved to magnify the deeds of my own people in rivalry with those who exalt the Romans. I will set out the actions of both sides accurately; but my comments on the events I give over to my own feelings, and I allow my emotions to lament the disasters of my country. For it was civil strife at home that destroyed it, and it was the tyrants of the Jews who drew the unwilling hands of the Romans and the fire upon the holy sanctuary. Titus Caesar himself, who sacked the city, is my witness. Throughout the whole war he pitied the common people, who were held under guard by the rebels, and he often put off the capture of the city of his own accord and gave the siege more time, so that those responsible might repent. If anyone should find fault with what I say in accusation of the tyrants and their gangs of robbers, or with my mourning over my country’s misfortunes, let him pardon my grief, even though it goes against the rule of history. For of all the cities under Roman rule it was our city that rose to the highest prosperity, and it was our city that fell back again into the lowest depth of disaster. Indeed, the misfortunes of all peoples since the world began seem to me small compared with those of the Jews; and no foreigner was to blame for them. That made it impossible for me to hold back my lamentations. But if anyone is too hard a judge to feel pity, let him credit the facts to the history and the lamentations to the writer. [f]

And yet I might justly blame the learned men among the Greeks. Events so great have happened in their own day that by comparison the wars of old look very small; yet they sit as judges of these events and abuse those who take pains to record them — men whom they may surpass in eloquence, but fall short of in purpose. Meanwhile they themselves write the histories of the Assyrians and the Medes, as though the ancient writers had told them badly; yet they are as far below those writers in the power to write as they are in judgment. For the ancients each took care to write the history of their own times, when being present at the events made the account vivid and lying was shameful before readers who knew the facts. Surely it deserves praise and acknowledgment to preserve the memory of what has not been recorded before, and to set down the events of one’s own time for those who come after. The hard worker is not the one who merely rearranges the plan and order of another man’s work, but the one who tells new things and builds up a body of history that is his own. As for me, though I am a foreigner, I offer this record of great achievements to the Greeks and the Romans at very great expense and labor. But the native-born Greeks, when it comes to profit and lawsuits, have their mouths gaping open at once and their tongues let loose; when it comes to history, where they must tell the truth and gather the facts with much labor, they are muzzled, and leave it to weaker men who do not even know what the commanders did. So let the truth of history be honored among us, since it is neglected among the Greeks. [g]

To write the ancient history of the Jews — who they were and how they broke away from the Egyptians, how much country they wandered over and how much they seized in turn, and how they were carried away from it — I thought both out of place here and in any case unnecessary. Many Jews before me have recorded the history of our ancestors accurately, and some Greeks have translated those records into their own language without straying far from the truth. So where their writers and our prophets leave off, there I will begin my work. Of what follows, I will go through the war of my own time in fuller detail and with all the care I can; what came before my lifetime I will run over briefly: how Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, took Jerusalem by storm, held it for three years and six months, and was driven out of the country by the sons of Asamoneus; then how their descendants, quarreling over the kingship, drew the Romans and Pompey into their affairs; how Herod son of Antipater put an end to their dynasty by bringing in Sosius; how the people rebelled after Herod’s death, while Augustus ruled the Romans and Quintilius Varus was in the country; how the war broke out in the twelfth year of Nero’s reign, what happened to Cestius, and what places the Jews attacked with arms in the first onrush of the war; [j]

how they fortified the neighboring towns; how Nero, after Cestius’s defeats, grew afraid for the whole outcome and put Vespasian in charge of the war; how Vespasian, with the elder of his sons, invaded the land of the Jews; how large a Roman army he used, and how many of his allies were cut down throughout Galilee; and how he took some of its cities outright and by storm and others by agreement. At that point I will also describe the Romans’ good order in war and the training of their legions; the dimensions and nature of each of the two Galilees and the boundaries of Judea; the peculiar features of the country, its lakes and springs; and what each city suffered as it was taken — all accurately, as I saw it or suffered it. For I will not hide any of my own misfortunes, since I will be telling them to people who know them. [m] Then I will tell how, when the Jews’ affairs were already failing, Nero died, and Vespasian, who was on his way to attack Jerusalem, was drawn back by the imperial power; the signs that came to him concerning it, and the changes of government at Rome; how he was proclaimed emperor by his soldiers against his will; how, when he left for Egypt to settle the affairs of the empire, the Jews fell into civil strife; and how the tyrants rose up against them, and their quarrels with one another.

Then how Titus set out from Egypt and invaded the country a second time; how, where and how many forces he gathered; the state to which faction had brought the city when he arrived; how many assaults he made and how many earthworks he raised; the circuits of the three walls and their measurements; the strength of the city and the plan of the temple courts and the sanctuary, with the measurements of these and of the altar, all exactly given; certain customs of the festivals, the seven degrees of purity, the services of the priests, the robes of the priests and of the high priest, and what the holy place of the sanctuary was like — concealing nothing and adding nothing to what has been established. [n]

After that I will describe the cruelty of the tyrants toward their own people and the Romans’ forbearance toward a foreign nation, and how often Titus, in his desire to save the city and the sanctuary, invited the rebels to come to terms. I will distinguish the sufferings and disasters of the people: how much they endured from the war, how much from the civil strife, and how much from the famine, before they were taken. Nor will I leave out the misfortunes of the deserters or the punishments of the prisoners; how the sanctuary was burned against Caesar’s will, and how many of the sacred treasures were snatched out of the fire; the capture of the whole city, and the signs and portents that came before it; the capture of the tyrants, the number of those sold as slaves, and the fortune each of them was allotted; how the Romans pursued the remnants of the war and pulled down the strongholds of the country; how Titus went through the whole land and set it in order; and his return to Italy, and his triumph. [o] All this I have contained in seven books. I have left no ground for blame or accusation to those who know the facts and took part in the war, and I have written for those who love the truth, not for those who read for pleasure. I will begin my narrative where I began the summary above. [p]