For Jan Willem van Henten
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1 Historical Preamble
The fledgling Flavian dynasty, which came to power through a bloody and traumatic civil war in 69 CE, could use a military victory over barbarian outsiders to divert attention from that unsavoury fact and to bolster its claim to the imperial purple. They were in luck.1 Vespasian, soon followed by his son Titus, had in 66 CE been sent by Nero to suppress a large uprising in the unruly province of Judaea, which had been dependent on Rome since Pompey had invaded Jerusalem in 63 BCE, and had been formally annexed by Augustus in 6 CE. Vespasian and Titus decided to pass off their actions in Judaea as if it were a war of foreign conquest and a glorious victory for Roman arms. Their realization that the Judaean campaign could serve this propagandistic purpose probably contributed substantially to the escalation of the war, which had come to a pause on Nero’s death and the ensuing struggle for power, into a full-scale siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, which ended with the destruction of the city and the burning down of its famous Jewish Temple.2 Although pockets of resistance persisted (most famously Masada, of course), the Flavians felt that they had done enough to cash in on their success.3
They did so, in the first instance, by celebrating a triumph over Judaea in the summer of 71 CE.4 Although it was the first ever triumph celebrated over a pacified province rather than a conquered foreign enemy, it ‘deployed techniques of staging which were historically associated with precisely that sort of victory’.5 That meant, above all, that the vanquished Jewish enemy were presented as the ‘other’, according to a general principle underlying the ritual of the triumph:
The triumphal procession staged spoils, captives, and representations in marked polarization to the celebrating Romans. By this repeated ritual performance, with vibrant emotion, Rome time and time again emphatically expressed and created views of what she was and should be. In the triumph, Rome defined herself by displaying others. (Östenberg 2009: 262)
Portraying Jews as barbarian outsiders was not necessarily straightforward or easy, given their status of provincial subjects and the presence of an old and flourishing Jewish community in the city of Rome itself.6 Our main sources for the triumph make clear that ritual objects taken from the Jerusalem Temple played a major role in establishing the Jews’ fundamental otherness. First, Josephus’ elaborate narrative of the triumphal procession (7.121–152) states that among the spoils on display those ‘captured in the Jerusalem Temple stood out above all’ (7.148:
The political needs of the Flavians had fateful consequences for the Jews. They dealt a fatal blow to Temple Judaism, setting the religion on its slow course to Rabbinic Judaism. The Flavians also set the tone for a marked increase of hostility in ‘the relations of Rome to the Jews for the rest of antiquity’.10
2 Flavius Josephus
The complex and ambivalent history of Vespasian’s and Titus’ Judaean campaign and its entanglement with the Roman civil war was chronicled by a complex and ambivalent historian. Born Joseph Ben-Matityahu into the ruling priestly elite of Jerusalem, Flavius Josephus (37/38–c.100 CE) at first became a prominent figure in the resistance against Rome, but was taken captive at Jotapata. After predicting that Vespasian would become emperor, he was released and took up residence in Rome as a friend or client of Titus (travelling with him to Rome on the same ship not long before the triumph).11 The preface of the Bellum Judaicum (Jewish War, completed between 78 and 81 CE, possibly with later revisions) at once shows that Josephus is well acquainted with all the ins and outs of Graeco-Roman historiography. But while he emphasises his autopsy and promises to record ‘the actions of both parties with accuracy’ (1.9:
The Bellum Judaicum certainly offers a narrative full of drama and pathos, which seeks to elicit compassion from his Roman and Greek readership.13 However, Josephus reserves most of his bile, not for the Roman troops and their commanders – although there are plenty of descriptions of Roman cruelty – but for various competing Jewish factions; as he makes clear in the prologue, a running theme throughout the Bellum Judaicum will be that ‘civil strife brought ruin to [the country] and the Jewish tyrants drew upon the Temple the unwilling hands of the Romans and the fire’ (1.10:
τί τηλικοῦτον, ὦ τλημονεστάτη πόλις, πέπονθας ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίων, οἵ σου τὰ ἐμφύλια μύση πυρὶ καθαροῦντες εἰσῆλθον· θεοῦ μὲν γὰρ οὔτε ἦς ἔτι χῶρος οὔτε μένειν ἐδύνασο, τάφος οἰκείων γενομένη σωμάτων καὶ πολέμου τὸν ναὸν ἐμφυλίου ποιήσασα πολυάνδριον δύναιο δ’ ἂν γενέσθαι πάλιν ἀμείνων, εἴγε ποτὲ τὸν πορθήσαντα θεὸν ἐξιλάσῃ. ἀλλὰ καθεκτέον γὰρ καὶ τὰ πάθη τῷ νόμῳ τῆς γραφῆς, ὡς οὐκ ὀλοφυρμῶν οἰκείων ὁ καιρός, ἀλλ’ ἀφηγήσεως πραγμάτων. δίειμι δὲ τὰ ἑξῆς ἔργα τῆς στάσεως. Oh, my poor city, what did you ever suffer from the Romans compared to this? They invaded to purge with fire the pollution among your own people. You were no longer God’s place. You could not survive once you had become a cemetery filled with your own dead, and your internecine warfare had turned the sanctuary into a mass grave. Yet even now you could recover, if only you would make atonement to the God who brought you to ruin! But the convention is that historians should suppress their own emotions, and this is not the place for personal expressions of grief. So back to the plain narrative of events, and I continue with an account of the subsequent course of this internal war.
This passage brings out some of the complexities of interpretation with which Josephus and his position as a one-time Jewish leader and dependent of Titus confront readers. There is his highly accomplished and typically Graeco-Roman rhetoric, as exemplified by the use of an apostrophe, and there is the fact that he uses it to stir up strong emotions for the demise of one of Rome’s enemies and especially for the irrevocable loss of his ancestral religious practices, which were bound up with the Temple. There is his claim to objectivity and his projection of an authoritative, omniscient narratorial voice, and there is the fact that he employs that voice to settle partisan scores. Perhaps most difficult to assess is his attitude towards the Roman conquerors and their commanders. While it is often thought that his focus on Jewish factitiousness serves to absolve his Flavian patrons from blame, that conclusion is probably too easy. In a provocative paper on ‘figured speech’ (oratio figurata) and irony in the Bellum Judaicum, Mason has argued that, by attributing the outcome of the war to internal Jewish conflicts and God’s wrath, Josephus in fact subtly undermines the official Flavian version of events.16 After all, as the very decision to stage a triumph over Judaea makes clear, Vespasian and Titus had no interest at all in disclaiming responsibility for what had happened. In the light of the prominent role which the Temple treasures played in the triumphal parade, even the fact that Josephus consistently presents the burning down of the Temple as going against Titus’ wishes can be seen as part of that larger ironic scheme: rather than being one of history’s agents, Titus is a helpless bystander at the unfolding of God’s plan.17
Nicolas Poussin, The Conquest of Jerusalem by Emperor Titus (1635)
Wikimedia Commons3 Josephus’ Account of the Triumph
Possibly inspired by Pliny the Elder’s lost history of his times, which may have ended with a climactic description of the Flavian triumph, Josephus devotes a substantial part of the final book of the Bellum Judaicum to the parade (7.121–152) and its immediate aftermath (7.153–157).18 He reports how at dawn the crowds gathered in such large numbers ‘that they barely left enough space for the passage of those they had come to see’ (7.122:
ἀμήχανον δὲ κατὰ τὴν ἀξίαν εἰπεῖν τῶν θεαμάτων ἐκείνων τὸ πλῆθος καὶ τὴν μεγαλοπρέπειαν ἐν ἅπασιν οἷς ἄν τις ἐπινοήσειεν
It is impossible to give an adequate description of the wealth of spectacle on view in this procession, or of its magnificence in every conceivable display
What follows is, of course, an elaborate description indeed (though whether it is also an adequate one is a different matter, as we shall see). It starts out with a general account of the rich booty passing by ‘like a flowing river’ (7.134:
The spatial and temporal structure of the passage is not very transparent. In particular, it is unclear whether the floats and Temple spoils follow the booty, animals and prisoners in the procession, or whether they are two items from among those groups which Josephus singles out for more elaborate treatment (in that case
καὶ γὰρ ὑφάσματα πολλοῖς διάχρυσα περιβέβλητο, καὶ χρυσὸς καὶ ἐλέφας οὐκ ἀποίητος πᾶσι περιεπεπήγει. διὰ πολλῶν δὲ μιμημάτων ὁ πόλεμος ἄλλος εἰς ἄλλα μεμερισμένος ἐναργεστάτην ὄψιν αὑτοῦ παρεῖχεν· ἦν γὰρ ὁρᾶν χώραν μὲν εὐδαίμονα δῃουμένην, ὅλας δὲ φάλαγγας κτεινομένας πολεμίων, καὶ τοὺς μὲν φεύγοντας τοὺς δ’ εἰς αἰχμαλωσίαν ἀγομένους, τείχη δ’ ὑπερβάλλοντα μεγέθει μηχαναῖς ἐρειπόμενα καὶ φρουρίων ἁλισκομένας ὀχυρότητας καὶ πόλεων πολυανθρώπους περιβόλους κατ’ ἄκρας ἐχομένους, καὶ στρατιὰν ἔνδον τειχῶν εἰσχεομένην, καὶ πάντα φόνου πλήθοντα τόπον, καὶ τῶν ἀδυνάτων χεῖρας ἀνταίρειν ἱκεσίας, πῦρ τε ἐνιέμενον ἱεροῖς καὶ κατασκαφὰς οἴκων ἐπὶ τοῖς δεσπόταις, καὶ μετὰ πολλὴν ἐρημίαν καὶ κατήφειαν ποταμοὺς ῥέοντας οὐκ ἐπὶ γῆν γεωργουμένην, οὐδὲ ποτὸν ἀνθρώποις ἢ βοσκήμασιν, ἀλλὰ διὰ τῆς ἐπιπανταχόθεν φλεγομένης· ταῦτα γὰρ Ἰουδαῖοι πεισομένους αὑτοὺς τῷ πολέμῳ παρέδοσαν. ἡ τέχνη δὲ καὶ τῶν κατασκευασμάτων ἡ μεγαλουργία τοῖς οὐκ ἰδοῦσι γινόμενα τότ’ ἐδείκνυεν ὡς παροῦσι. τέτακτο δ’ ἐφ’ ἑκάστῳ τῶν πηγμάτων ὁ τῆς ἁλισκομένης πόλεως στρατηγὸς ὃν τρόπον ἐλήφθη. πολλαὶ δὲ καὶ νῆες εἵποντο.
Many of them were hung with gold-laced curtains, and all had gold and polished ivory facings to their framework. Numerous tableaux presented in series the most vivid picture of the war in its various stages. You could see a prosperous countryside being devastated; whole battalions of the enemy being cut down; people running for their lives, and others led off to captivity; huge walls demolished by siege engines; fortress strongholds captured, cities with masses of defenders on their walls totally conquered; an army streaming inside the walls, slaughter surging everywhere, defenceless people raising their arms in supplication, temples set on fire, houses flattened on the heads of their owners; and then, after scenes of total destruction and humiliation, another picture of rivers, not this time irrigating farmed land, not watering men or beasts, but flowing through a landscape which was all on fire. Such were the terrible experiences which the Jews let themselves in for when they committed to the war: and now the consummate artistry of these reproductions portrayed the events to those who did not witness them as vividly as if they had been there in person. On each of the floats was figured the commander of a captured town, shown at the moment of his own capture. Behind the floats there came a parade of several ships.
Josephus then makes the transition to the Temple treasures in a passage which contains brief comments on their appearance (7.148–149):
λάφυρα δὲ τὰ μὲν ἄλλα χύδην ἐφέρετο, διέπρεπε δὲ πάντων τὰ ἐγκαταληφθέντα τῷ ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις ἱερῷ, χρυσῆ τε τράπεζα τὴν ὁλκὴν πολυτάλαντος καὶ λυχνία χρυσῆ μὲν ὁμοίως πεποιημένη, τὸ δ’ ἔργον ἐξήλλακτο τῆς κατὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν χρῆσιν συνηθείας. ὁ μὲν γὰρ μέσος ἦν κίων ἐκ τῆς βάσεως πεπηγώς, λεπτοὶ δ’ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ μεμήκυντο καυλίσκοι τριαίνης σχήματι παραπλησίαν τὴν θέσιν ἔχοντες, λύχνον ἕκαστος αὐτῶν ἐπ’ ἄκρον κεχαλκευμένος· ἑπτὰ δ’ ἦσαν οὗτοι τῆς παρὰ τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις ἑβδομάδος τὴν τιμὴν ἐμφανίζοντες. ὅ τε νόμος ὁ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐπὶ τούτοις ἐφέρετο τῶν λαφύρων τελευταῖος .
Most of the spoils were carried along in a miscellaneous mass, but special prominence was given to those captured in the Temple at Jerusalem. These were a gold table, many talents in weight, and a lampstand also made of solid gold, but shaped differently from those we use in ordinary life. Fixed to these was a central column, from which slender branches extended rather like the prongs of a trident, with a lampholder welded at the tip of each branch: there were seven of these lamps, reflecting the particular importance of that number to the Jews. After these, and carried last in the parade of spoils, was the Jewish Law.
All in all, Josephus has furnished us with the longest verbal account of any Roman triumph which we still possess, and it is an implied eyewitness account to boot. As such, it has received much attention from historians.22 Closer scrutiny of the passage throws up some uncomfortable conundrums, however. For one thing, scholars have doubted that Josephus was actually present, because his exact vantage point remains unclear, and because his tone is for the most part so very conventional: he chiefly offers a series of rhetorical commonplaces, vaguely writing about the floats representing ‘cities being conquered’ and ‘fortresses being taken’ and even ‘temples [plural!] burning’, without mentioning Jerusalem or any of the other actual theatres of war. His description at this point reads more as a template for what to include when writing an ekphrasis of a triumph than as a verbal representation of this particular triumph. The only specific details provided concern the inclusion of the Temple spoils in the procession and the execution of Simon – but information about both events he could easily have gathered afterwards (by visiting the Temple of Peace, for instance, where the objects ended up).23
Furthermore, scholars who have considered the passage in terms of the wider context of the Bellum Judaicum have been struck – shocked even – by what they see as the generally positive tone of the account: where are those outbursts of emotion and laments for the fate of the fatherland now? Commenting on the ‘disconcertingly deadpan fashion’ in which Josephus describes the parade, Beard goes so far as to call him a ‘Jewish turncoat’:24 ‘With Josephus’ Bellum Judaicum we are probably getting as close as we ever can to the “official version” (or one of the “official versions”) of the Flavian accession’.25 Rajak, too, detects a marked change of emphasis in this part of the Bellum Judaicum, claiming that ‘Josephus can for the first time be said to glorify his patrons at the expense of his people in the passages about the triumph of Vespasian and Titus’.26 Spilsbury suggests that Josephus may have been wary of offending his Flavian patrons, but is none the less puzzled that Josephus could include an account of the Temple spoils being carried in the triumph and ‘not indulge the kind of emotions we might have expected of a priest at the sight of the sacred objects being subjected to such indignities’.27
Other scholars, however, have suggested that on a careful reading more is going on than meets the eye, and that there are tensions between the surface of the spectacle and what Josephus conveys about its underlying significance. A first hint of tension can be detected quite early on, in the description of the captives being taken along in the parade (7.138):
ἐπὶ τούτοις οὐδὲ τὸν αἰχμάλωτον ἦν ἰδεῖν ὄχλον ἀκόσμητον, ἀλλ’ ἡ τῶν ἐσθήτων ποικιλία καὶ τὸ κάλλος αὐτοῖς τὴν ἀπὸ τῆς κακώσεως τῶν σωμάτων ἀηδίαν ἔκλεπτε τῆς ὄψεως.
Furthermore, not even the crowd of prisoners was to be seen unadorned, and the variety of their fine clothing concealed the unpleasantness of their disfigured bodies from view.
In a passage that promises to focus on the visual spectacle which the parade offered the Roman onlookers, Josephus here draws attention to something which they could not see, but was highly significant none the less. Frilingos and Mason have – surely correctly – detected a note of compassion as well as a hint of sarcasm in Josephus’ comment on the invisible ‘unpleasantness’ of the prisoners’ mangled bodies.28 Readers who have worked their way through the Bellum Judaicum, moreover, share Josephus’ privileged perspective, as they cannot help but be reminded of earlier scenes of Roman cruelty, especially those detailing how Roman soldiers entered Jerusalem and ‘murdered indiscriminately’ (6.404:
In this light, Josephus’ opening statement, that it is impossible to give an adequate description, is perhaps not simply a hackneyed topos contributing to a triumphant, pro-Roman tone, but becomes suggestive of how the language of ekphrasis and its relentless focus on the glittering surface of the parade does indeed not tell the whole story.29 Continuing his work on oratio figurata and irony in the Bellum Judaicum, Mason has in a recent contribution tried to demonstrate how virtually every element in Josephus’ account of the triumph on closer consideration reflects badly on the new Flavian regime.30 Even if one does not wish to go that far, it is certainly possible, as various other scholars have done, to point to ways in which Josephus’ narrative invites a nuanced range of emotional responses, including opportunities for lament.31 Important in bringing this out is an analysis of how Josephus implicates various internal and external perspectives – of the Roman and possibly other onlookers, including Jews, as well as his narratorial persona and the readers – in his description and of how he sets up a dense network of correspondences between the triumph narrative and his account of the war in earlier books. Building on existing interpretations, I will in the remainder consider some possible responses to the floats and Temple spoils, especially to the extent that they relate to the themes of ‘appropriation’ and ‘otherness’ that are central to the concerns of the present volume.
4 The Floats
In narratological terms, it can be said that from the moment the spectators of the triumph take up their positions ‘in the theatres’, the focalization is generally theirs – though not without possibilities for a different interpretation.32 The description of the floats (7.141–147, quoted above) is a case in point. The opening phrase
However, the language of ekphrasis – the floats are said at the beginning to offer ‘a most vivid vision’ (
Specific reminiscences of the earlier narrative creep in. Already near the start, the tableau representing a ‘fertile (
The vagueness of Josephus’ description of what is to be seen on the floats serves to drive a wedge between the focalizing Roman spectators on the one hand and Josephus and his readers on the other hand. To the spectators, the scenes do remain opaque – they may not even know the name of many of the places depicted and they may not know the difference in importance between general temple-like structures being set on fire and the Temple itself. Furthermore, vivid as the depictions may be, the spectators of the triumph were not there at the events themselves, and do not share Josephus’ and his readers’ knowledge of what really happened and of the suffering which the war brought. Josephus may be suggesting that the visual representations of the war in the triumph are no substitute for his verbal representation in the Bellum Judaicum for those who truly wish to understand the events: the written work is both a more permanent and a more accurate account of the war.
Furthermore, I should like to suggest that the vagueness of Josephus’ description may also serve another, and equally subversive, purpose. After all, many of the Roman spectators probably also could not help but filter the jubilant celebration of the triumph through past horrors. Not a few of them may have picked a different side in the newly concluded Roman civil wars and were now present at the foundational act of the new Flavian regime they had not wanted. Not all of them will have been fooled by Vespasian’s and Titus’ efforts to divert attention from the civil war by celebrating a triumph over Judaea, and not all of them will have found it easy to be exposed to scenes of war and suppress associations with their own recent experiences. The Roman civil war is not the main focus of the previous narrative, but Josephus does devote attention to it, in suggestive ways.38 One of the vignettes which he includes, concerning Galba’s death and Otho’s succession, is introduced with the transitional phrase that ‘not only in Judaea was there dissension and civil war, but also in Italy’ (4.545:
It is suggestive for some of the darker associations which at least part of the Roman spectators may have had that the triumphal parade ends at the Capitol – so recently the scene of a bloody battle and empty of treasure – and with the execution of Simon, who had besieged the Temple in Jerusalem as Vitellius was besieging the Capitol. In that light, the Roman spectators who see how on one tableau ‘fire is being set to temples’ (
5 The Temple Spoils
The passage dealing with the Temple treasures in the triumphal procession has often been compared with the depiction of some of the same treasures on the Arch of Titus (see above), but rather less often with earlier passages in the Bellum Judaicum which mention them.40 Yet, such a comparison yields interesting insights. The first time we get a glimpse of the objects is in the long preamble to the work, which contains an ‘archaeology’ that focuses from time to time on earlier violations of the Temple. Special attention is devoted to Pompey’s entry into the Temple after he conquered Jerusalem in 63 BCE (1.152–153):
οὐδὲν δὲ οὕτως ἐν ταῖς τότε συμφοραῖς καθήψατο τοῦ ἔθνους ὡς τὸ τέως ἀόρατον ἅγιον ἐκκαλυφθὲν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀλλοφύλων· παρελθὼν γοῦν σὺν τοῖς περὶ αὐτὸν ὁ Πομπήιος εἰς τὸν ναόν, ἔνθα μόνῳ θεμιτὸν ἦν παριέναι τῷ ἀρχιερεῖ, τὰ ἔνδον ἐθεάσατο, λυχνίαν τε καὶ λύχνους καὶ τράπεζαν καὶ σπονδεῖα καὶ θυμιατήρια, ὁλόχρυσα πάντα, πλῆθός τε ἀρωμάτων σεσωρευμένον καὶ τῶν ἱερῶν χρημάτων εἰς τάλαντα δισχίλια. οὔτε δὲ τούτων οὔτε ἄλλου τινὸς τῶν ἱερῶν κειμηλίων ἥψατο, ἀλλὰ καὶ μετὰ μίαν τῆς ἁλώσεως ἡμέραν καθᾶραι τὸ ἱερὸν τοῖς νεωκόροις προσέταξεν καὶ τὰς ἐξ ἔθους ἐπιτελεῖν θυσίας.
In all the national disasters of this time nothing touched such a sensitive nerve as the exposure by aliens of the Holy of Holies, never yet open to view. Pompey and his staff had made their way into the sanctuary, to which only the high priest was allowed access, and examined its contents – a lampstand and lamps, a table, libation vessels and censers, all of solid gold, a wealth of spices heaped high, and some 2,000 talents of sacred funds stored there. Pompey did not touch the money or any of the holy treasures, but just one day after its capture he instructed the sacristans to cleanse the temple and resume the usual rites.
There is, right from the start, an emphasis on vision: that which has never before been seen (
Apart from an emphasis on vision, there is a further emphasis on touching – or, rather, on not touching (
The second time the ritual objects are mentioned in the Bellum Judaicum is in the long description of Jerusalem which takes up a large part of book 5. It moves from the city’s geographical setting to the circuit of its walls, its towers, Herod’s palace and then finally the Temple (5.136–247), which is presented as the geographical and spiritual centre of the world.46 The narrator guides an anonymous witness from the outer courts to the inner courtyards and finally into the temple itself, ending with the Holy of Holies (5.215–218):
παριόντας δ’ εἴσω τὸ ἐπίπεδον τοῦ ναοῦ μέρος ἐξεδέχετο. τούτου τοίνυν τὸ μὲν ὕψος ἑξήκοντα πηχῶν καὶ τὸ μῆκος ἴσον, εἴκοσι δὲ πηχῶν τὸ πλάτος ἦν. τὸ δ’ ἑξηκοντάπηχυ πάλιν διῄρητο, καὶ τὸ μὲν πρῶτον μέρος ἀποτετμημένον ἐπὶ τεσσαράκοντα πήχεις εἶχεν ἐν αὑτῷ τρία θαυμασιώτατα καὶ περιβόητα πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις ἔργα, λυχνίαν τράπεζαν θυμιατήριον. ἐνέφαινον δ’ οἱ μὲν ἑπτὰ λύχνοι τοὺς πλανήτας· τοσοῦτοι γὰρ ἀπ’ αὐτῆς διῄρηντο τῆς λυχνίας· οἱ δὲ ἐπὶ τῆς τραπέζης ἄρτοι δώδεκα τὸν ζῳδιακὸν κύκλον καὶ τὸν ἐνιαυτόν. τὸ θυμιατήριον δὲ διὰ τῶν τρισκαίδεκα θυμιαμάτων, οἷς ἐκ θαλάσσης ἀνεπίμπλατο καὶ τῆς τε ἀοικήτου καὶ οἰκουμένης, ἐσήμαινεν ὅτι τοῦ θεοῦ πάντα καὶ τῷ θεῷ.
Passing through here one entered the ground floor of the sanctuary. This was 90 feet high, 90 feet long, and 30 feet wide. But this 90-foot length was further divided. The first section, partitioned off at 60 feet, contained three quite remarkable objects which were famous throughout the world – a lampstand, a table, an incense altar. The seven lamps branching from the lampstand symbolized the planets; the twelve loaves on the table symbolized the zodiac circle and the months of the year; and the incense altar, with its constantly replenished supply of thirteen spices culled from sea and land, both desert and inhabited, signified that all things are from God and for God.
The three main objects are introduced in asyndeton, in the manner of an inventory list. They are also introduced afresh, without the article, as if they are presented to a first-time observer. Both this and the fact that they were normally hidden from view (and not to mention the fact that Pompey, no doubt reflecting common Roman attitudes, did not think much of them) sit somewhat uncomfortably with the claim that the objects were famous (
Apart from foreshadowing the future loss of the Temple and the repurposing of its ritual objects, the passage also brings a new perspective on their significance. Here we hear the voice of the authoritative narrator, whom we may identify with Josephus himself, who did after all emphasize his priestly credentials in the preface (1.3). He explains, for example, that the seven individual lamps branching out from the lampstand symbolize the seven planets, and the other objects receive similarly learned religious explanations. The cosmological interpretation which Josephus gives to the menorah, the table of showbread and the incense altar has parallels in other early Jewish writings, but it was not the only possible interpretation in Jewish thought.47 One reason why Josephus adopts it is because it suits his treatment of Jerusalem as the spiritual and geographical centre of the world and even entire cosmos.48 Given that Rome was often seen as the centre of the world as well,49 Josephus also suggests – not for the last time, as we have seen – that both cities are in a sense mirror images of one another.
Model of Herod’s Temple on the Temple Mount; detail of the Holyland Model of Jerusalem (1966), displayed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem
WikiMedia CommonsThis is the background which readers of Josephus bring to their perusal of Josephus’ very different account of the Temple treasures as they are being carried in the triumph (7.148–149, quoted above). The differences with the second mention of the objects in book 5 is particularly remarkable and finds its cause, I claim, in the fact that the description given here in book 7 is focalized by the Roman spectators. In the actual parade, the most important spoils were likely preceded by a man carrying a placard (titulus) which identified the display, and that may well have been necessary, because, as we have seen, a Roman like Pompey did not understand much about the objects even when he observed them in situ.50 Still, those placards cannot have given much explanation and the Roman spectators turn out not to be very knowledgeable. Once again, each object is introduced by means of an indefinite noun phrase, reflecting how the Roman onlookers now set eyes on them for the first time.51 Like Pompey, they notice the expensive material of the lampstand and the table (both are said to be made of gold, and the lampstand is said to weigh many talents). They also remark on the shape of the former, which is said to be unusual ‘given our own practice’ (
Readers who remember the description in book 5 realize that the Roman spectators have a limited understanding of the sacred objects of the Jerusalem Temple, certainly much more limited than that of the authoritative Josephan narrator and, thanks to his earlier remarks, of themselves. Transferred to a Roman context, the Temple spoils are, as it were, stripped off their Jewish symbolical significance. Having been removed from the centre of the cosmos, they do no longer symbolize the temporal and spatial dimensions of that cosmos, as governed by the Jewish God. The menorah and table have been ‘objectified’ in a Roman triumph and then ‘transformed’ by their dedication as votive offerings to the goddess of Peace in Vespasian’s new temple precinct.54 Josephus’ narrative forcefully reminds us that the essence of a material object is determined by who looks at it and who gives it meaning. There is pathos in all of this, but also, I think, a note of defiance: Josephus and readers of the Bellum Judaicum know something about the Temple treasures which no visitor of the triumph or Vespasian’s Temple of Peace knows. In that sense, Josephus intimates, the Romans as staged in Josephus’ narrative fail truly to ‘incorporate’ the Jewish sacred objects.
Acknowledgements
This chapter was written in the context of the ‘Anchoring Innovation’ research programme of the Netherlands National Research School in Classical Studies (OIKOS), supported by a 2017 Gravitation Grant (Ministry of Education of the Netherlands, NWO); see https://www.anchoringinnovation.nl/. I thank Eric Moormann, Jan Willem van Henten, Eelco Glas and the editors of this volume for their valuable feedback. – I wish to dedicate my work to Jan Willem van Henten on the occasion of his retirement, as a small token of gratitude for everything he has taught me over the years about Josephus, epigraphy, and much else besides.
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On the historical and ideological background, see, e.g., Goodman 1987: 235–239; 1994: 42–45; 2007: 452–454; Noreña 2003; Ash 2014: 144–146.
For a provocative account of the Jewish War, which actively seeks to read against the grain of what it regards as Flavian propaganda, see Mason 2016. Telling is Josephus’ statement that, when Vespasian hears in Alexandria that his final rival claimant to the throne, Vitellius, has been killed, he at once sends Titus to Judaea ‘in order to see to the destruction of Jerusalem’ (
Although the Jewish War has been called ‘the routine suppression of a provincial insurrection’ (Barnes 2005: 129), it must be kept in mind that the siege of Jerusalem, which lasted five months, ‘had been a major event in Roman military history, demanding a massive concentration of forces’ (Millar 2005: 101).
For the impressive ensuing building programme, which kept the memory of the triumph alive (we know that even the Colosseum was built ex manubiis, ‘from the spoils of the war’), I refer to the chapter of Moormann in this volume.
Ash 2014: 145.
Ash 2014: 145, with n. 6. For the Jewish community in Rome, see Williams 1998.
All references are to Josephus’ Bellum Judaicum, unless stated otherwise.
Östenberg 2009: 114 speculates that the man carrying a placard (titulus) on the far left of the relief may have announced the next item in the procession as the Torah scroll (which was itself not depicted, however, because it may not have been large and precious enough). For differences in emphasis between Josephus and the Arch of Titus, see Eberhardt 2005 and Rocca 2021.
Östenberg 2009: 116.
Goodman 2007: 452, also pp. 578–585 on the origins of antisemitism in Roman imperial policy. For the transformation of Judaism, see Stroumsa 2005. Cf. the stark words of Mason 2017: 125: ‘The Flavian triumph, fons et origo of Judaean humiliation, was a sham’.
Bilde 1988 and Rajak 2002 offer succinct introductions to Josephus’ political and literary career. The details of Josephus’ relationship with Titus and the ruling classes of Rome are a matter of debate; see Den Hollander 2014. For the joint voyage, see 7.117–120 and Vita 422–423, with Mason 2017: 151–152.
Translations from longer passages are taken from Hammond and Goodman 2017, with modifications. On Josephus’ self-presentation in the preface of the Bellum Judaicum, see Van Henten 2018: 124–126. On Josephus’ display of emotions and its relation to Graeco-Roman historiographical conventions, see Glas 2020.
See Swoboda 2014: 238; 417–426. For Josephus’ varied readership, see Huitink and Van Henten 2009.
See for a list of passages in which the theme is reactivated, Mason 2005: 256; see also Mason 2016: 101–130.
On the defiling of the Temple Mount and this apostrophe, see Huitink and Van Henten 2012: 207–208.
Mason 2005.
See Mason 2005: 254–258. As the survey of Barnes 2005 shows, other sources do claim that Titus decided to burn down the Temple, usually after careful deliberation – which may indicate that the destruction of foreign sanctuaries was controversial; cf. Goodman 2007: 452–453, arguing that it contravened normal Roman practice. Rives 2005 suggests that Josephus’ presentation of Titus reveals a misunderstanding of Roman religious policy vis-à-vis the Jews. In any case, even if the burning down of the Temple was more or less accidental (and that is a big ‘if’), Titus must soon have realized that it could be turned to good propagandistic use.
See Barnes 2005: 142, who claims that Pliny was Josephus’ main source (and, incidentally, notes that Pliny refrained from publishing his history at first, afraid of being suspected of currying imperial favour). See Ash 2014: 147 for the Flavian triumph as having a ‘pivotal role in terms of periodisation and organising a meaningful historical narrative’ for this period. If so, it is interesting to note that Josephus does not end the Bellum Judaicum with the triumph: importantly, the episode detailing heroic Jewish resistance at Masada is still to follow (7.252–406), undermining the sense of closure which the description of the triumph brings.
On ekphrasis and attendant topoi, see Webb 2009. For spectacle in Josephus’ Bellum Judaicum, see Chapman 2005; Lovatt 2016.
The final part of the triumph narrative (7.158–162), which describes the subsequent placement of the spoils in the Temple of Peace and the imperial palace, is cited and analysed in the contribution of Moormann to this volume.
So Östenberg 2009: 111–113, after careful consideration of the passage and external evidence about the order of triumphal processions. The moving floats (
It takes pride of place in the accounts the Roman triumph of, e.g., Künzl 1988, Itgenshorst 2005, Beard 2007 and Östenberg 2009.
Cf. e.g. Künzl 1988: 14–15; Itgenshorst 2005: 27–28. Josephus’ description is in some ways quite close to the template offered by Quintilian for how to write a vivid ekphrasis of a city being captured (Inst. 8.3.67–69). For the Temple of Peace and other traces of the triumph in the city of Rome, see the contribution of Moormann to this volume. See also Section 5 below.
Beard 2007: 152; see also Beard 2003: 556: a ‘Flavian apparatchik’, 558: a ‘lackey’.
Beard 2007: 156.
Rajak 2002: 219.
Spilsbury 2002: 322.
Frilingos 2017: 62: Josephus ‘sees better and knows more than other observers’. Mason 2017: 162: ‘The parade is all about cosmetics’.
So, Ash 2014: 152, worth quoting in full: the aporia topos ‘is unusually expressive when considered in context. For this statement functions in multiple ways, as a general literary motif on the one hand and as a reflection of the narrator’s specific lived experience on the other. For from Josephus’ perspective, the hackneyed topos has fresh resonances: he himself lacks adequate language to describe the triumphal procession because of his perspective as a former inhabitant of the city whose destruction is being depicted and celebrated. Not only that, but his readership includes the very men who engineered that defeat. In this sense, words really cannot describe the triumph adequately for much darker and more personal reasons. Josephus’ expression of aporia can be seen to reflect his emotional turmoil within, however safe and familiar the protestation appears on the surface.’
Mason 2017.
Huitink and Van Henten 2012; Ash 2014; Lovatt 2016; Frilingos 2017.
Huitink and Van Henten 2012: 214.
Cf. Ash 2014: 154.
Lovatt 2016: 370; on the increasingly dark description, see Ash 2014: 155–156.
The application of this adjective to countries is conventional in historiography (often in combination with
On these parallels, see Huitink and Van Henten 2012: 215–216.
Lovatt 2016: 370; Ash 2014: 157–158, also seeing pointed parallels with the ekphrasis of the peaceful and wartime cities depicted on the shield of Achilles (Hom. Il. 18.490–540).
Apart from picking up a few discrete episodes, Josephus very briefly sums up the main events of the Roman civil war at 4.491–496, a passage explicitly marked as a praeteritio. One is tempted to suggest that the floats and the Roman audience’s interpretation of them at 7.141–147 function as a sort of completing analepsis. For that concept in Josephus, see Van Henten and Huitink 2007. Glas (2022) independently arrives at similar conclusions as I do about the suggestive parallelism between the two wars.
I suspect that the strangely convoluted phrase which introduces the floats,
The main exceptions are Chapman 2005: 296–303 (more generally on the Temple as spectacle throughout the Bellum Judaicum); Huitink and Van Henten 2012: 216–217; Mason 2017: 167–169.
Chapman 2005: 298 notes the play on words and argues that the inner sanctum of the Temple serves as a kind of anti-spectacle in a world (and work) full of spectacles.
Cf. e.g. Hammond and Goodman 2017 (‘the lampstand and the lamps, the table, the libation vessels and censers’); Whiston 1987 (‘the candlestick with its lamps [sic], and the table, and the pouring vessels, and the censers’); Thackeray 1928 (‘the candelabrum and lamps, the table, the vessels for libation and censers’); Meijer and Wes 2010 (‘de kandelaar en de lampen, de tafel, de schalen voor de plengoffers en de wierookvaten’).
See Mason 2017: 139, with further bibliography.
There is a historical issue here, pertaining to the question just how sacred the objects were considered to be, and just how much they were perceived as symbolic of Judaism. It seems that Jews felt that the objects could simply be replaced in the case of loss (cf. Brighton 2016: 249–250) and there were certainly several lampstands in use in the Temple in various times; see Yarden 1991 on the question which lampstand and table we actually see on the Arch of Titus. Furthermore, although the last Hasmonean king, Mattathias Antigonus, issued a coin with the lampstand and the table of showbread depicted on either side to proclaim his claim on Jerusalem in 39 BCE, there is little evidence of the symbolical use of these objects outside of Jerusalem prior to the first century CE (Fine 2016: 21–22). There is some reason to assume, then, that the very attempt on the part of the Flavians to appropriate the Temple objects and present them in a triumph did much to promote their symbolical value.
Mason 2017: 167.
For a narratological analysis, see Huitink and Van Henten 2012: 208–212.
See Pena 2020.
Huitink and Van Henten 2012: 211–212.
See Winther 2014.
See Östenberg 2009: 114–116; they are depicted on the Arch of Titus.
Oddly, Rocca 2021: 52 states that ‘Josephus adds that the Menorah exhibited in the triumphal procession was different from that used in the Temple’ – if he bases this claim on the absence of the article, an alternative explanation is available and in my view preferable.
Pace Mason 2017: 169, who claims that
See Fine 2016: 21 (though not in terms of focalization): ‘Josephus’s language was intended to quickly make the unfamiliar familiar, within the context of what was, after all, a military parade. The truth is, every time I see a trident I can’t help but recall that Josephus must have seen the form of the menorah held by a fighter in the games while the menorah itself was accessioned to the Temple of Peace.’
For this terminology, see the chapter of Versluys in his volume.