THE WORLD OF JOSEPHUS by G. A. Williamson. 318 pp. Little, Brown. $6.
Two of the most momentous centuries in the history of the Jewish people would be almost a total blank were it not for the writings of one incredibly durable historian: Flavius Josephus. Only the New Testament and a few other fragments deal with the period 100 B.C.-A.D. 100; yet posterity has not thanked Josephus for his labors. One writer recently accused him of "cowardice, duplicity, treason, arrogance, deviousness, horrifying brutality and foul deception"; and historians have agreed that he was at least a traitor to the Jewish people.
For Josephus was a turncoat. During the savage Roman-Jewish war that destroyed the Jewish state and scattered its people around the world, Josephus expediently forsook his Jewish citizenship to become a Roman. In countless apologias, he argued that his aim was not to save his skin but to convince his countrymen that their defeat was inevitable. Later, as a court favorite in Rome, he turned out voluminous histories extolling the grandeur of the Roman Empire. But while rendering unto Caesar, he was a lucid, readable historian, whose chronicles are packed with largely reliable political and social detail.
Jewish Roulette. Biographer G. A. Williamson, a British classical scholar, has more to say about Josephus' times than about the man. Indeed, all that is known about his life comes from Josephus' own account. Born in A.D. 37 in Roman-ruled Palestine, Josephus grew up in a fervently religious household and joined the priesthood at 18. When the Jews rebelled in 66 A.D., Josephus was sent to defend the region of Galilee. Though nearly all his troops deserted him, Josephus made a stubborn last stand in the cliff-perched city of Jotapata. The garrison held out for 47 blood-soaked days against a vastly superior Roman force commanded by Vespasian, the earthy, upright soldier who had earlier helped conquer Britain.
When Vespasian finally took the citadel, Josephus went into hiding with 40 other Jews in a cave beneath the city. His companions were resolved to resist to the death, but Josephus, impressed in spite of himself by Roman might and discipline, wanted to surrender. To solve the impasse, Josephus proposed a kind of Jewish roulette: they would kill each other, one by one, by drawing lots; the survivor would then kill himself.
As it turned out, Josephus, by chance or cheating, survived; he promptly scampered out and gave himself up.
Brought before Vespasian, Josephus pleaded for his life by relating a dream he had had: Vespasian would become Emperor of Rome. Vespasian was so delighted by the news that he set Josephus up in style and provided him with a wife; in turn, Josephus spent the rest of the war trying to persuade the Jews to surrender. He believed it to be God's will that Rome, the mightier culture, should prevail. In their bullheadedness, the Jews ignored the classic portents of disaster: chariots darting through the clouds, a cow giving birth to a lamb in the Temple of Herod. When Palestine was finally crushed, its people scattered in the Diaspora that was to be their fate for nearly 19 centuries, Josephus, the survivor, coolly observed: "Such were the agonies to which the Jews condemned themselves."