Josephus in the Flavian Age and Beyond (on Davies, Representing the Dynasty in Flavian Rome)

o one nowadays can dispute the timeliness of a book about a war sparked by violence against Jews in their homeland, the devastation to infrastructure and mass casualties, and regime change.One such book, Bellum Judaicum, was written almost 2,000 years ago by a historian who introduces himself as 'Joseph, son of Matthias, a Hebrew by race, a native of Jerusalem, and a priest'. 1 Joseph had served as a rebel general in this war, was captured and enslaved in 67 CE, then freed two years later by the Roman commander and his son, Vespasian and Titus, who were both acclaimed emperor of Rome (in 69 and 79 CE), thereby forming a new dynasty capped by the younger brother Domitian, whose assassination in 96 CE ended the Flavian family's reign.Known by his Latinised name Josephus, this Jewish historian provides in his four extant works 2 the most complete historiographic picture of the Early Principate from the first century, yet many classicists and historians who focus on this period have never taken the time to read or study in depth Josephus' works and the scholarship on them produced in the past fifty years.There are interesting exceptions, such as Wiseman's foray into Josephus' Antiquitates Judaicae 19.1-273 to produce a text and commentary on the assassination of Caligula, 3 but Josephus generally lingers on the sidelines of current academic study of the history of Roman and imperial Greek literature.Why?Is it because he was a 'traitor', 'turncoat', 'toady', or any other derogatory label that scholars have applied to Josephus, since he survived the war as a captured rebel general, multilingual interpreter, and eventually historian living in the 1 Joseph.BJ 1.3: [ ] (with bracketed om.P Eus.); Hammond (2017) 3.For the most recent modern account, see Strauss (2025).2 BJ (seven books), AJ (twenty books), Vit.(an appendix to AJ in one book), and Ap.(two books).3 Wiseman (2013).