at play seriously irony and ironic humor in the vita of josephus.pdf

8/14/2019 At Play Seriously Irony and Ironic Humor in the VITA of Josephus.pdf

1/72

At Play Seriously:

Irony and Ironic Humour in the V itaof JosephusSteve Mason, York University

SBL Josephus Seminar, Denver, November 2001

DRAFT: PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT CONSULTATIONAPOLOGIES FOR LENGTH!

It is also necessary that he [sc. the great man, ] be bothcandid about hatred and candid about affection, because concealmentimplies fearbeing careless of the truth in favour of reputation; and thathe speak and act candidly, for in view of his disdain [for others opinions]he is frank and truthful, except of course whatever [he says] by way of irony, tothe masses.

(Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics3.28; 1124b, line 1)

Extreme fear took hold of us as we saw the populace with weapons. In aquandary as to what we should do ourselves, unable to halt therevolutionaries, and given the clear and present danger to us, we begansayingthat we concurred with their opinions. . . .

(Josephus, Life22)

Critical scholarship has long been intrigued by the double

gameprosecuting the war while asserting friendship with Romethat

Josephuss Vitapresents him as playing while he was commander of Galilee in

early 67. In our post-Enlightenment sincerity, we have assumed that his

admission of duplicity must have been embarrassing to him, and therefore

forced upon him. The universally accepted candidate for the main provocation is

Justus of Tiberiass account of the war, which is thought to have challenged

Josephuss, and therefore put him on the defensive (Schrer 1901-11: I. 59, 97;


2/72

2

Niese 1896: 228-29; Niese 1914: 575; Luther 1910: 8, 65-81; Laqueur 1970 [1920]:

44-55, 75-83; Drexler 1925: 293-312; Thackeray 1967 [1929]: 5-12; Schalit 1933: 67-

95; Gelzer 1952: 89; Shutt 1961: 6; Rajak 1973; Barish 1978: 64; Cohen 1979: 126-28;

Mason 1991: 316-24).1Justus, the theory goes, adduced evidence to show that the

avowedly Rome-friendly Josephus had in fact been a fomenter of rebellion, a

warlord, in Tiberias and elsewhere (cf. V 340, 350). Extrapolation from the few

charges that Josephus actually attributes to Justus has rendered his attack the

hidden hand behind Josephuss entire autobiography (esp. Luther 1910). The best

Josephus could produce by way of response was a series of damning new

admissions,2couched in the feeble excuse that he had been forced to conceal his

true motives during the early revolt (e.g., V22, 175-76); hence the literary artifice

of the double game.

The argument that the Vitasystematically responds to Justus has further

enticed historians to imagine that in Justuss work, reconstructed through a

mirror-reading of the Vita, we have recovered an independent source. On the

basis of this virtual external evidence we can proceed to build probable historical

scenarios.3

1 An important qualification is that Laqueur, Thackeray, Gelzer, and Cohen all propose that theVitais based upon an administrative account or possibly field notes ( ), written longbefore Justus published his account. In arguing that Josephus reused this earlier material to replyto Justus, however, these scholars still hold that our present Vitaappeared as a response to theTiberian.2For example: he had initially been friends with John of Gischala, his notorious enemy accordingto the War( 43-4, 86), and John in turn had been as well-connected in Jerusalem as Josephus (189-91); Josephus had been eager to undertake such belligerent actions as the removal of imagesfrom the Herodian palace at Tiberias ( 63-5); he had not been appointed general at the outset, asthe Warclaimed, but only as one member of a commission ( 29); he had energetically attackedSyrian cities ( 81) and authorized the building of defensive walls from the sale of royal grain (72-3).3 I phrase this in methodological terms: historical reconstruction normally requires at least twolines of independent evidence (Bloch 1953: 110-13). Most scholars put it in other terms: that theVitais to be trusted in those places where Josephus was forced to admit things by Justus (cf.Luther 1910: 8, 81; Thackeray 1967 [1929]: 5), but this amounts to the same logic: the Vitais not


3/72

3

In this essay I mainly presuppose what I have argued elsewhere: that the

Vitadoes not work as a response to Justus. If Justuss account had placed

Josephus in jeopardy, and the Vitawas his defence, then he was in trouble. The

book does not deal critically with any significant aspect of his past, nor bother to

defend his War. To the contrary, he takes a novel approach to the period in

question and contradicts the Warin almost every case, even in small details,

where the two works overlap (cf. Cohen 1979: 110-11, 126; Mason 2001: 213-22).

A critical audience impressed by Justus could hardly have been won back by

such aggressive carelessness. Further, the structure of the Vitadoes not give any

prominence to Justuss challenge.4And it is hard to see why Josephus, living

comfortably in Rome in the 90s, could have been much threatened by the

Tiberianespecially by claims about his past as a combatant prisoner from the

Judean revolt, which was already well known (cf. Suetonius, Vesp. 5.6; Dio

65.1.4). Laqueurs partial solution to these problems (Laqueur 1970 [1920]: 1-127),

that in response to Justus Josephus lightly reworked an account of his Galilean

administration that he had written for other purposes a quarter of a century

earlier, creates more problems than it solves.5It is simpler to accept that the Vita

itself, rather than a precursor, was written for other purposes; Justuss

provocation was quite incidental.

simply Josephus left to his devices, but Josephus under constraint from a nearly visibleindependent source.4 That is, the introductory and concluding matter (AJ20.266-67; V430) does not mention Justus,to whom Josephus only responds directly in very deliberate excursus near the end of the Vita(336-67). So, in part, Cohen 1979: 121-37; Rajak 1983: 154.5 Laqueurs argument is intricate and cannot be fully examined here. See, however, Thackeray1967 [1929]: 18-19; Schalit 1933 [both arguing that the extant Vitais a stylistic and conceptualunity]; Barish 1978 [rejecting Laqueurs notion that theAntiquitieswas provided with anadditional ending to accompany the final (anti-Justus) Vita]; and more generally Cohen 1979: 18-21, 128-32; Mason 2001: xxx-xxxii. Cohen maintains that Josephus reworks an earlier sketch of hiscareer, but for reasons different from Laqueurs; cf. Mason 2001: xxxii-l.


4/72

4

Josephus frames this autobiography as an exposition of his character (V

430) on the evidence of his ancestry and curriculum vitae(AJ20.266:

), and this frame matches the content well enough.

After sketching his glorious ancestry and precocious youth, he turns to his public

life (V12), presenting in some detail the five months that, as far as we know,

constituted his most serious claim to military and governmental prominence. His

many hapless opponentsJustus is one of the less visibleare brought forward

in series and dispatched with perceptible glee.6Their vices and abject failures

appear mainly to highlight his virtues (e.g., clemency, perseverance, loyalty,

incorruptible justice, mastery of the passions) through the familiar technique of

polemical contrast ( ).

So the Vitais a true autobiography in the Roman sense, a piece of

epideictic rhetoric inviting praise and blame (Neyrey 1994). In general, we

interpreters of Josephus have overlooked the rhetoricized mentality (Rudich

1993: xxx-xxxi; Rudich 1997: 1-16; cf. Bartsch 1994: 148-93) of his time and place,

which seems crucial for understanding the Vitas rhetorical preoccupations and

its cavalier disregard for historical detail. My goal in this paper is to explore only

one aspect of Josephuss rhetoric in the Vita, namely: irony.

Several recent studies have described the mood of lite society in first-

century Rome as one of thoroughgoing dissimulation (Rudich 1993: xvii-xxiv),

doublespeak (Bartsch 1994: 63-97), or irony. Irony had been widely adopted in

earlier literary contexts (below), but it seems that under the emerging principate

6 So: Josephuss two priestly colleagues (V63, 73); John of Gischala (V70-6, 85-103, 368-72); fatherPistus and son Justus of Tiberias (V34-42, 88, 336-67, 410); the admittedly eminent Simon son ofGamaliel (V189-96); Jonathan and the delegation members (V196-335); cf. Agrippas viceroyVarus (V46-61).


5/72

5

most performers and authors, including historians, became reflexive ironists:

they routinely said things other than what they meant and expected their

audiences to perceive these indirect signals. Josephuss contemporary Quintilian,

discussing various kinds of rhetorical figures (figurae), observes that in his

timeunder Domitianthe term figure [here: schema]7was all but reserved for

what we would call irony: hence the current abundance of veiled, so-called

figured, controversies (controversiae figuratae). He elaborates on this form of

speech:

It is one [sc. a figure] whereby we excite some suspicion to indicate that

our meaning is other than our words would seem to imply . . . , a hidden

meaning which is left to the hearer to discover (Quintilian 9.2.65).8

The rhetor prescribes three reasons for using this figure: when it is either unsafe

or unseemly to speak frankly, or merely for subtle effect. He repeats that this

manner of discourse is very much in fashion, used with great frequency (qua

nunc utimur plurimum. . . quod et frequentissimum est) in Domitians era.

So candid confrontation was out and irony was in. This point was not lost

on theprincipes, who accordingly became accomplished ironists. They upped the

ante by seeking out sedition in plays, recitals of poetry, gestures, and literary

allusions (figurae) in all genres, trying to censor any uncontrollable subtext,9

though sometimes ignoring potential slights. Playwrights and actors may have

fared worst as victims of such imperial sensitivity: in their case, it was always

7 Quintilian more or less equatesfiguraand schema: cf. 1.8.16; 6.3.70.8 In the part omitted by ellipsis here, Quintilian distinguishes this kind of speech from ironia, butthat is because he (oddly) understands the latter in a narrow sense: saying the oppositeof whatone means.9 I owe the suggestive term to Rudich (1997: 11), who relates that this was the criterion used by aSoviet censor for rejecting an article of his, on the reign of Claudius, for publication in a minorscholarly journal.


6/72

6

possible that an audiences determination to find topical allusion would itself

generate subversive interpretations that had never been intended (Bartsch 1994:

67-8). The senatorial class was also vulnerable if its members unwisely referred

to precedents from the republican era or from contemporaries already punished

(cf. MacMullen 1966: 1-45).10Evidently Domitian was closely attuned to such

figural representation: he executed Hermogenes of Tarsus for certain allusions

(figurae) in his history (Suetonius, Dom. 10.1), the younger Helvidius Priscus for

having allegedly criticized his divorce in a farce concerning Paris and Oenone

(Dom. 10.4).

Rudich proposes that the cornerstone of the new language structure was

laid by Augustus when he ironically proclaimed a restored republica

diarchic deceit that most of his monarchical successors would propagate anew at

the outset of each new reign (Rudich 1993: xvii, 6, 11-12). It was also Augustus,

supported immediately by Tiberius, who provided an incentive to doublespeak

by extending the capital charge of diminishing the majesty of the Roman

people (maiestas) to include slander of the emperoror perceived slander

(Suetonius,Aug. 55; Tacitus,Ann. 1.72; Dio 57.22.5; cf. Bartsch 1994: 66). Bartsch,

for her part, shows that Cicero had already made much of topical allusion in the

theatre, which was an important aspect of the political climate of the late republic

(1994: 72-3): the great orator remarked that there was never any passage in

10Bartsch (1994: 78-9) gives several examples from Suetonius of persons convicted on the basis oftheir plays (Cal. 27.4; Nero39.3; Dom. 10.4). Otherwise, the senator Cremutius Cordus wasprosecuted in 25 CE on the charge that the praise of Brutus and Cassius in his histories impliedcriticism of Tiberius (Tac.,Ann. 4.34-5). Under Nero, by contrast, Seneca prudently denied Stoicjustification to Caesars assassins (de Ben. 2.20.2). Tacitus reports other examples of sensitivity tothis issue of Caesars killers (Ann. 3.76; 16.7, 22), as does Pliny (Ep. 1.17.3). From at least theautumn of 93, Domitian became adept at reading between the lines. In addition to Hermogenesand Helvidius, mentioned in the text, he executed Rusticus Arulenus and Herennius Senecio for


7/72

7

which, if something the poet said seemed to refer to our times, the whole people

did not notice or the actor himself did not insist upon this meaning (Pro Sest.

118). Still, Bartsch identifies Neros move to the stage, from which he could

closely observe the senators in their reserved (and obligatory) seating area, as the

decisive moment from which audience members became actors, both in the

theatre and in life (Bartsch 1994: 1-62).

Throughout the first century, says Rudich, senators increasingly made

peace with the new pretences, though the dissonance between their outward

profession and their real values created a sometimes unbearable tension. It was

unwise to point out the resulting duplicity, however: in 39 CE, according to Dio

(59.18.5), one Titius Rufus committed suicide, having declared that the Senate

thought one thing but propounded another view, and having been scheduled

for trial on account of this impolitic insight (Rudich 1993: xxiii).

Communication within Roman lite circles, or between them and the

princeps, was not the only sphere in which ironic discourse became de rigueur.

The opening quotation from Aristotle (above) seems to reflect a much older

rhetorical assumption that political leaders ordinarily needed to dissemble when

they addressed the masses; their peers, of course, would detect this as irony. In

Josephuss day, Plutarch confirms that Roman hegemony had rendered the

obligation to dissemble an even more urgent necessity for public figures. In his

tractate offering advice to the Greek statesman, he describes the need for

duplicity when dealing with the populace, which is always restive and

impetuous, unable to bear any frustration of its aspirations. Plutarch advises the

praising long-dead critics of Nero and Vespasian (Suetonius, Dom. 10.3-4; Tacitus,Agr. 2.1; Pliny,Ep. 7.19.5; Cassius Dio 67.13.2).


8/72

8

statesman first to listen and learn about his peoples distinctive character, so that

he might accommodate himself to them and win their confidence (Praec. ger. rei

pub. 3.799B-800A). Compare Josephuss first actions in Galilee (V30-61). Further,

the statesman must possess great oratorical skill (Praec. ger. rei pub. 3.799B-800A

5.801a-9.804c) for softening by persuasion and overcoming by charms the fierce

and violent spirit of the people (801e). Given the inevitability that the masses

will dislike political leaders, statesmen must resort to cunning schemes. For

example, they might arrange for a few of their colleagues to pretend to speak

against a measure in the assembly, and then seem to be won over by those

colleagues, in order to bring the audience along with them (16.813a-c, 25.818e-

819b). Plutarch emphasizes that the chief task and test of the statesman under

Roman rule is to maintain the peace, avoid internal conflict ( ), and keep

Roman forces from needing to enter the scene (19.814f-816a). This intersects

perfectly with Josephuss expressed motives and language.

My thesis is that Josephus, who may already have found his entire

situation while defending Galilee against the Romans tragically ironic, in any

event chose for his narrative logic, when he came to write up the story a quarter

of a century later in the Vita, an irony that is often comic. For this he presumably

expected an appreciative audience. Alas we, his scholarly readers, have tended to

assume that his every statement buttresses some ponderous apologetic purpose.

Confident that we can reason out his political and personal motives, we have

sought to circumvent these biases in historical reconstruction. By definition,

however, an ironic mode of representation would interpose a certain distance,

even a playful disposition, between Josephus and any such sincere aims, thereby


9/72

9

undercutting our use of his narrative for a historical reconstruction that operates

by excising apologetic bias.

We begin with a survey of the ironic contexts in which Josephus found

himself in late first-century Rome, then examine two kinds of irony in the Vita:

text-dependent and audience-dependent. I deal mainly with the former.

1. Context: Characterizationsnot Definitionsof Irony

Although we should ideally begin with a definition of the critical term,

irony, it appears from specialist analysis that one might as well try to define

religion, poetry, or love.11Dictionaries are not helpful for such a diverse

collection of phenomena, and critics routinely observe that the term has been so

inflatedto encompass everything from mere dissimulation to tragic, modern

romantic, and post-modern existential ironyas to be almost meaningless (Knox

1972; Fowler 2000: 7-9). In place of a definition, this first section of the paper

offers a sketch of ironic qualities and possibilities in other ancient literature and

in Josephus, to establish a context for reading the Vita.

Greek was the quality characteristic of the . We first meet

an in Aristophanes Clouds(Thomson 1926: 3), produced in 423 BCE, but

there is insufficient context there to provide clear guidance about the sense of the

term. In order to escape his mounting debts, Strepsiades is willing to become

even an , one of a long list of undesirable personae, in order to train as a

sophist (so that he can make the worse argument appear the better!), ironically


10/72

10

under the tutelage of Socrates (Nub. 449). In two later Aristophanic contexts, the

word group might signify either generic duplicity or more particularly a

duplicitous claim to innocence(Vesp. 174;Aves1211). In subsequent Greek

literature, however, the word group seems often to indicate little more than a

distasteful evasiveness or lack of candour (Demosthenes, Exordium4.3; Phil. 1.7.5,

37.5 [=Orat. 4.7.5, 37.5]; Plutarch, Fabius11.1; Timoloeon15.7;Marius24.4; 43.3;

Lucullus27.4; Pomp. 30.6).

According to Aristotles ethical treatises, however, which discuss the

language of irony systematically for the first time, an is one who

dissembles by understating his knowledge: he says less than he knows, pretends

innocence. We might call this narrower sense of irony disingenuousness. In

these treatises the consistently stands opposite the , the braggart or

empty boaster; is thus the opposite of , and straightforward

truthfulness ( ), the accurate appraisal of ones knowledge, is

the desirable middle way between these two kinds of deceit. I give but one

example:

Now one who is truthful and simple, whom they call straightforward, is

midway between the and the For one who is not actually

ignorant but speaks falsely against himself implying inferiority is an

, whereas the one [who speaks falsely] implying superiority is an

. One who [speaks of] what one actually has is truthful and, after

Homer: sagacious. Overall, then, this kind is a friend of truth, the other

kind a friend of falsehood (

11 One gains a sense of the problem from D. C. Mueckes wry remark (1969: 14): Since, however,


11/72

11

; Eth. Eud. 1233b).

Although Aristotle usually implies, as here, that the ironists self-deprecation is

as bad as boastfulness, he sometimes allows that this form of deception is the

more forgivable fault. Insofar as ironists try to avoid ostentation, like Socrates,

they at least reveal a commendable graciousness of character (NE1127b.30-31; cf.

Rhet. 1419b.8).

Indeed, Aristotles ambiguity about as well as his particular take

on its meaning may result from his view that Socrates was the embodiment of

the . That Socrates epitomized irony was a common view throughout

Greco-Roman antiquity. In Platos SymposiumAlcibiades describes the

philosopher as having a contrary inside and outside, like a Silenus doll, which

opens up to reveal inner layers (Sym. 216e):

Again, he [Socrates] is completely ignorant and knows nothing (

)so he affects. Is not this like a Silenus? It

certainly is. This is something he wears on the outside, just like the

sculptured Silenus. But on the inside, were he to be opened up: how full

he is, dear drinking-mates, of prudence (

)! . . . I tell you: he occupies

his whole life being ironic and poking fun at his fellow-men

Erich Heller, in his Ironic German, has already quite adequately not defined irony, there would be


12/72

12

(

).

In what already appears to be a send-up of his reputation, the Republic has

Socrates characteristically dismiss any claim to knowledge about justice, to

which Thrasymachus responds with uproarious laughter:

Ye gods, this is it: the typical irony ( ) of Socrates! I myself

predicted these things already to these men, that when you came to reply,

you would decline and rather speak disingenuously ( ) and do

anything rather than answer, if anyone should ask you.

Unfazed by the jab, Socrates continues with equally typical and ironic praise of

his interlocutors wisdom (Resp. 337a; cf.Apol. 37e; Sym. 216e; Gorgias489e).

Socrates reputation for irony persisted through the Latin authors (Cicero, Brut.

292-93; Quintilian, Inst. Or. 9) and well into the period of the Second Sophistic

(Plutarch, Quaest. Conv. 612d.12; Lucian, Demonax6.1; Dial. Mort. 7.5.17; Diogenes

Laertius 2.19).

Cicero and Quintilian were the two main (surviving) Latin authors to

discuss irony, and they fully incorporated it into their rhetorical analyses, further

dignifying it in the process. In the Brutus, after Cicero recounts with high praise

the list of eminent Latin orators, his friend Atticus (ironically) attributes this to

irony (Brut. 292):

That irony which they say was found in Socrates (ironiam illam quam in

Socrate dicunt fuisse), and which he uses in the books by Plato, Xenophon,

and Aeschines, I myself consider pleasant and tasteful (facetam et elegantem

[ego] puto). For it is hardly impertinent of a fellow, and even pleasant of

little point in not defining it all over again.


13/72

13

him (est enim et minime inepti hominis et eiusdem etiam faceti), when

judgements are being made about wisdom (cum de sapientia disceptetur), to

disassociate the thing from himself and to attribute it playfully to those

who arrogate it to themselves (hanc sibi ipsum detrahere, eis tribuere

illudentem, qui eam sibi arrogant). So Socrates in Plato exalts to heaven

Protagoras, Hippias, Prodicus, Gorgias and others with adulation,

whereas he portrays himself as untutored in all matters and uncultivated

(in caelum effert laudibus . . . , se autem omnium rerum inscium fingit et rudem).

This suits him in some strange way, and I cannot agree with Epicurus who

censures it.

In theDe oratore, Cicero speaks in one place of words being inverted

(invertuntur), as when Crassus responded to his legal opponent, a disfigured man

named Lamia: Lets hear the pretty little boy (De orat. 2.262). Whereas we

would call this a nasty form of irony, Cicero equates Greek rather with

Latin dissumulatio. He defines both terms while discussing pleasant (faceta[2.264],

urbana) forms of speech (De orat. 2.269):

Dissimulation also is pleasant (urbana etiam dissimulatio est), when your

words differ from your thoughts, not in the way I spoke of earlierwhen

you say the opposite (cumcontraria dicas), as Crassus did to Lamiabut

when in your whole manner of speaking you are at play seriously (cum

toto genere orationissevere ludas), when you are thinking something other

than what you say (cum aliter sentias ac locquere). . . . Fannius in his

Chronicles records that Africanus (the one named Aemilianus) was

outstanding in this kind of thing, and describes him by the Greek word ,


14/72

14

but on the evidence of those who know these subjects better than I do my

opinion is that in this sort of ironyand dissimulation Socrates far surpassed

everyone for wit and refinement (Socratem opinior in hac ironia

dissimulantiaque longe lepore et humanitate omnibus praestitisse).

Elsewhere too Cicero confirms that irony benefits from its connection with

Socrates:

As for Socrates, he used to depreciate himself in discussion and assign

greater weight to those whom he wished to refute; thus, as he said

something other than what he thought, he was fond of regularly

employing the practice of dissembling that the Greeks call ,

which Fannius says was also a feature of Africanus, and one not to be

reckoned a fault in him,for the same thing was to be found in Socrates.

Socrates autem de se ipse detrahens in disputatione plus tribuebat iis quos volebat

refellere; ita cum aliud diceret atque sentiret, libenter uti solitus est ea

dissimulatione quam Graeci vocant; quam ait etiam in Africano fuisse

Fannius, idque propterea vitiosum in illo non putandum quod idem fuerit in

Socrate.

The element of knowing playfulness in Ciceros use of irony reappears in

Quintilian, who includes irony as one form of jest: Is not even the most serious

kind (quae severissime fit) [of irony, ironia] a sort of joke (joci prope genus est?)?

(Inst. Or. 6.3.68). He cites the example of Afer, who responded to a friends

pretended reluctance about accepting a governorship for which he had been

aggressively vying, Well, then, do something for your countrys sake!

Quintilian can equate ironiawith illusio, when a speaker says the opposite of


15/72

15

what he means: praising in order to vilify or blaming in order to praise (Inst. Or.

6.6.54-7). Elsewhere, however, he insists on using the Greek because he

does not think, in contrast to Cicero, that it is captured by the Latin dissimulatio

(Inst. Or. 9.2.44-6). He seems to have caught that special sense of expected

detection that is essential to irony but not required of mere dissembling. In the

same passage he makes a distinction between irony as a single turn of phrase

(tropos) and as the stance of an entire text (schema,figura) or even a whole

lifelike Socrates.

This brief survey of irony language in antiquity shows already a variety of

nuances, from mere slipperiness of speech to false modesty, insincere praise or

praise in order to blame, blame in order to praise, and knowingly barbed

humour. Although it began with mostly bad press, this form of speech gained

respectability with Aristotle and especially the Roman orators because of its

connection with Socrates. But we are still left with a somewhat limited semantic

range in relation to the wider phenomenon of irony in ancient literature. Greek

tragic and comic irony, for example, though easily recognizable as such to us, did

not receive the label irony until the nineteenth century (Muecke 1969: 7-9).

Since my pursuit in this paper is not only Josephuss use of words, but his

actual employment of what we call irony, I must offer some criteria also for

detecting this in his writings.

the irony that is not named

While avoiding definitions, in the ironologists manner, D. C. Muecke has

proposed three formal requirements of irony (Muecke 1969: 19-20), which may


16/72

16

serve us as a test for its presence in Josephus. It is as efficient to quote as to

summarize his remarks:

In the first place irony is a double-layered or two-storey phenomenon. At

the lower level is the situation either as it appears to the victim of irony

(where there is a victim) or as it is deceptively presented by the ironist

(where there is an ironist). . . . At the upper level is the situation as it

appears to the observer or the ironist. The upper level need not be

presentedby the ironist; it need only be evoked by him or be present in the

mind of the observer. . . .

In the second place there is always some kind of opposition

between the two levels, an opposition that may take the form of

contradiction, incongruity, or incompatibility. What is said may be

contradicted by what is meant . . .; what the victim thinks may be

contradicted by what the observer knows. . . .

In the third place there is in irony an element of innocence; either

a victim is confidently unaware of the very possibility of there being an

upper level or point of view that invalidates his own, or an ironist

pretends not to be aware of it. There is one exception to this; in sarcasm or

in a very overt irony the ironist does not pretend to be unaware of his real

meaning and his victim is immediately aware of it.

To these three conditions A. C. Romano adds a helpful fourth: ironic intention.

Since irony is a deliberate fallacy, it requires reception and acknowledgement

for the circuit to be closed. There is thus no such thing as private irony in

literatureor we could not recognize it (Romano 1979: 23). In brief, then: What

can be said, putting it very simply, is that the art of irony is the art of saying


17/72

17

something without really saying it. It is an art that gets its effects from below the

surface (Muecke 1969: 5).

J. A. K. Thomsons classic study of irony in the ancient world (Thomson

1926) identifies many varieties of the phenomenon in Greek authors, without the

language of irony being used. Homers Iliadis ironic because Achilles and the

reader know from the start that he is doomed, even though the story is about his

rage and transformation (Thomson 1926: 96); Herodotuss history, because he

takes so much trouble to explore the customs of a nation everyone knows to have

been vanquished (1926: 116-34); Thucydides, because his rigorous detachment as

an author conceals the personal cost of the events he describes (1926: 139-40).

With respect to Aristophanes Thomson points out that, besides the explicit

interplay between the and the , and also the authors frequent

exploitation of current affairs understood by the audience, which creates irony,

there is an additional irony arising from Aristophanes detachment as author

from the story. One does not sense that any of the characters in his plays

represents Aristophanes himself: to the extent that he manipulates his characters

from a distance, placing himself (and the audience) in the position of knowing

more than all of them, he is being ironic (Thomson 1926: 33).

According to Thomson, Aeschylus and Sophocles both depend heavily

upon the audiences prior knowledge for their irony: the former by holding back

the expected dnouement until the latest possible moment, anticipating it with

teasing lines, the latter by setting the wheels of the familiar plot in motion early,

then building speed consistently until the conclusion approaches with

overwhelming force (Thomson 1926: 69). Euripides, by contrast, is ironic in the

modern sense (1926: 75), for he adopts the vantage-point of the outsider: in


18/72

18

TrojanWomenand Ionhe challenges his Athenian peers assumptions against

other nations claims to virtue. Much later, Lucian would prove to be a brilliant

ironist, anticipating Jonathan Swift in the shining defence he provides for a

tyrant (Phalaris2) (1926: 203-5).

Though it was understandable that Thomson should have passed over

New Comedy with little comment, since the plays of Menander were known

only in small fragments when he wrote, it seems unbelievable today that he

should have given short shrift to Roman irony. He proposed that this art was not

native to the Roman mind because it was inimical to the rhetorical concerns that

were so pervasive among Roman authors: rhetoric tries to make things obvious,

thus undercutting irony (Thomson 1926: 216). Whatever the abstract merits of

this position, it collapses when we read the rhetoricians talking about irony as a

figure. And scholarship has since demonstrated the deep ironic veins that run

through Latin literature, from Plautus and Terencenow recognized as

distinctively Roman adapters of their Greek models through bronzeto Tacitus

and Juvenal. As we have seen, Rudich and Bartsch both trace a seismic shift

toward irony to the reign of Nero: Bartsch on the argument that the ironic tactics

of stage actors then became widely adopted by both writers and their audiences

(Bartsch 1994: 1-62); Rudich with attention to the dissident mentality that the

Julio-Claudian autocracy provoked, which reached critical mass under Nero

(Rudich 1993: xix):

This schizophrenic state of affairs led to further complexities. The

primary discrepancy between the de iureand de factoaspects of societal life

meant a variety of gaps between verbaand acta, words and deeds,

manifest in collective as well as individual behavior. It was an uncanny


19/72

19

world of illusion and delusion, of ambivalences and ambiguities on all

levels of social interaction.

For example, Tacitus now appears as one of the great ironists of all time (Plass

1988: 15-89; O'Gorman 2000: 3-11); Plinys Panegyric12and some of Juvenal

(Romano 1979; Bartsch 1994: 98-187) have also been fruitfully analyzed from this

perspective.

Thus far, we have observed a broad interest on the part of Greco-Roman

authors in what we would consider ironic discourse. They do not agree about the

terminology: what should be called ironical, whether Greek has exact

parallels in Latin, and whether irony is an acceptable or even praiseworthy art.

Whatever language they might use for it, however, many ancient writers

enriched their compositions at all levels, from the simple trope to deep

structures, with irony. I do not claim that this is a stunning or in any way original

insight, but it seemed important to scout the terrain of ironic possibilities in

Josephuss background before considering his own practice.

irony in Josephus (outside the V ita)

Josephus was well attuned to both the language of irony and the idea of

the thing. He employs words seventeen times in all, once in the Vita

(below), a ratio that makes him a conspicuously heavy user. In every case the

connotations of the word group are negative: they indicate dissimulation,

deception, and derision (BJ1.209, 523; 2.26, 29, 298, 153;AJ15.279, 374), or he

raises the possibility of such behaviour only to deny it. For example, Hyrcanus

12So Pliny to Trajan: You order us to be free, and so we shall be; you order us to bring out whatwe feel into the open, and so we shall bring it forth! (Pan. 66.4; cf. Rudich 1993: xvii-xxxiv).


20/72

20

IIs advisers claim that the brash young Herod and his family were no longer

speaking of themselves ironically as a mere secretariat under the king (

), but were now openly behaving as

despots (BJ1.209). Herods son Archelaus likewise is accused of irony in using

empty words to present his claim to rule, when his actions indicate his real,

tyrannical intentions (BJ2.26, 29).

About one third of the occurrences of the word group in Josephus are in

the fourth book of the Bellum, where the rebels activities are the subject. First,

when John of Gischala enters the city of Jerusalem, he conceals the fact that he

and others have been driven there by the Roman advance, and emptily boasts

that the Romans will never take Jerusalem: He also spoke ironically about the

ignorance of the inept [Romans], that even if they should take wings, the Romans

would never surmount the wall of Jerusalemthose who already suffered so

terribly throughout the villages of Galilee also breaking their machines against

the walls there! (

; BJ4.127). Here is a double irony. Within the story John attempts

dissimulation with his audience, since he knows better than he speaks. But for

the literary audience the whole effort is ironic because the outcome is well

known to themfrom the prologue as also from recent events: the Romans will

bring wings (cf. the alaeof cavalry) and engines, and they willindeed

surmount and destroy Jerusalems walls. John is thus a pathetic figure, a

misguided hero railing against fate.


21/72

21

Next, the rebels mixed irony ( ) in with their

terrible behaviour, Josephus says, when they undertook to appoint a new high

priest by lot, behind a screen ( ) of alleged ancient practice (BJ4.151-53).

A little later, the Idumean leader Simon stood outside the walls of Jerusalem and

(ironically) complained about the ironic speech of the former high priest Jesus,

who had refused him entry on what he considered specious grounds (BJ4.279).

Then comes a passage in which -words occur three times in a short

space. The scene itself is ironical. An eminent citizen named Zacharias has

become a target of the Zealots and Idumeans (by now in the city) because of his

wealth and virtue. Rather than killing him outright, however, the rebels cleverly

plan to hold a mock trial, empanelling seventy leading citizens as judges, who

should know what they are expected to conclude in view of the mass slaughter

just concluded (BJ4.326-33). In the event, however, the prosecutors are unable to

offer convincing evidence for their charge that Zacharias has held treasonable

communications with Vespasian, and the accused easily demolishes their

arguments. So, with unimaginable innocence, the panel of judges votes to acquit

him. The result:

A cry went up at this acquittal from the Zealots, and they were all

aggravated at the judges for not perceiving the ironic nature of the

authority they had been given (

; BJ

4.342)

How important it is, when attempting irony, to know your audience! To make

their point, the Zealots move forward and dispatch their intended victim on the


22/72

22

spot, punning incessantly and declaring (ironically) that this was theirverdict,

and now the man has received a more perfect acquittal ( i.e., from

life). In addition to the passage quoted, language appears in the

introduction to the story, where Josephus speaks of ironical trials and courts

(4.334), and again in the middle, where the Zealots must restrain themselves

from expressing rage at Zacharias for his defence, to maintain the faade and

ironic nature ( ) of the trial (4.340).

Finally, when Josephus riffs on the meaning of the name Zealot, he

includes the claim that their name suited them only ironically (BJ2.270):

Although they applied the label to themselves by virtue of their zeal for

the good, they were really speaking ironically in view of their injustices,

on account of their animal-like nature, or supposing the greatest evils to

be the greatest goods.

These episodes highlight the fact that, -language aside, theJudean

Waris unavoidably an ironic book. That is because the outcome of the story and

the future of its main protagonists are well known to the literary audience: by the

time they hear the story, the revolt has been quashed and the Judean temple

destroyed; the Roman generals who were leading the campaign have risen to

supreme power on the strength of their victory; the faithful client King Agrippa

has received singular honours, and his sister Berenice fame of a sort, in the

capital city; the notorious rebel leaders (Tacitus,Hist. 5.12) have been duly


23/72

23

punished; reprisals have occurred in various places; the air is still charged with

post-war tension; and the enemy general-cum-author Josephus now stands

before them in Rome.

All of this the audience knows in advance, which means that every rebel

ploy, every misguided motive and deceitful speech in Josephuss War,has an

ironic quality. The deliberative speech of Eleazar ben Yair at Masada, reflecting

on the crimes committed by his band and the likely consequences if they

surrender, not to mention his philosophical justification of suicide, in contrast to

Josephuss earlier repudiation of it, fairly drips with irony (BJ7.320-36, 341-88).

Similarly, the speeches of Agrippa and Josephus concerning the terrible cost of

pursuing the revolt and the indomitable fortune of the Romans (BJ2.345-401;

5.362-419), can be read only from the standpoint of the known outcome, which

raises immeasurably the level of pathos. Josephus resorts to pointed irony when

he stands before the walls of Jerusalem and pleads for surrender:

Again you are indignant and scream abuse at me, and indeed I deserve much

worse than this: I, who offer some advice in opposition to fate, and try

forcibly to rescue those whom God has condemned (BJ6.108)

So again, the story summarized above is doubly ironic: whereas the miserable

Zealots could not carry off successful irony even in one case, no matter how

obvious and deliberate they were about it, Josephus employs this art in the most

effective waywithout having to name itto drive home his fundamental

points about the virtue of his priestly colleagues.

A major theme of the Bellum, that of civil war ( ; BJ1.10),

likewise gains its force from the audiences immediate external knowledge of this


24/72

24

evil. The much-discussed literary parallels with Thucydides, historian of

many centuries before Josephus (Rajak 1983: 91-4; Feldman 1998: 140-48; Mader

2000: 55-103),13are not to be doubted. But the fact remains that civil war had been

a Leitmotifof Roman history for about two centuries, culminating in the blood-

soaked long year of 69 CE, immediately before the arrival of Josephus and the

Flavian rulers. Civil war (bellum civile) is arguably the most prominent theme in

Roman literature throughout this period: from Cicero and Sallust to Caesar,

Lucan, Tacitus, and Appian.14It is inconceivable that Josephuss Roman audience

would not think of their experience of civil war when they heard about Judea

from him, not least because he often draws explicit connections: in the prologue

(BJ1.4-5, 23-4)with the Romans too, domestic affairs were in disarray (

)and later in more detail (BJ4.486-503). It is

difficult to believe, then, that he did not write the Bellumintending to exploit the

audiences well-tutored revulsion at power-hungry tyrants ( ),

demagogues, and bandits; that this shared semantics of civil war was not his

(ironic) explanatory matrix for the catastrophe in his beloved homeland. In this

sense too, the Bellumbecomes an ironic work, when Josephus evokes his

audiences prior understanding with apparently simple but coded words such as

tyrants and bandits.

TheAntiquitiesis not such an ironical book. Its purposes appear more

earnest: to enlighten foreigners about the Judean constitution. Most of its

characters, unlike those of the War, will have been largely unknown to its first

13 The locus classicusis Thucydides 3.82-4.14 See for example Roller 2001: 17-63.


25/72

25

audiences, and Josephus typically introduces them on this assumption.

Nevertheless, we still find a number of ironic twists and turns in the narrative.

In particular, in the final quarter of theAntiquitiesJosephus deals at length

with names more familiar to a Roman audience and with well-known

constitutional issues. Whereas in the earlier part of the book he makes direct

claims on behalf of the Judean senatorial aristocracy (AJ4.223; 5.135; 6.36; 11.111),

and repudiates monarchy with equal frankness (AJ6.36; 13.300; 14.41), in the last

five volumes he seems to rely much more upon the audiences extra-textual

knowledge. His charting of Herods inevitable slide from monarch to tyrant (AJ

14.165; 15.354; 16.4; 17.304, 310) would have been understood by them as true to

type (cf. Herodotus 3.80; Plato, Resp. 8.565-69; Aristotle, Pol. 3.5.4 [1279b]; 4.8

[1295a]; Polybius 6.4.8; Dionysius Halicaranassus,Ant. Rom. 7.55.3). For a Roman

audience under Domitian, it becomes ironic, without his having to spell this out,

that Herods terrible succession woes should have been brought for arbitration to

Augustus (AJ17.304-20), whose own problems in finding a successor had become

legendary (Syme 1939: 418-39); ironic that Josephus should highlight the absurd

situation faced by Tiberius (AJ18.205-27), who is alleged to have been Domitians

model (Suetonius, Dom. 20), in naming his own heir; ironic that Tiberius and

Gaius (AJ18.226; 19.2), again following the type, should have behaved so high-

handedly towards the traditional nobility (cf. Domitians practice in Suetonius,

Dom. 12.1-2; Dio 68.1.1-2); ironic and perhaps even risky for the author that the

senator Gaius Sentius Saturninus should be allowed to praise Gaiuss assassins

as worthy of more honour than Brutus and Cassius (AJ19.182-84)the mention

of whose names in the early principate tended to correlate, as we have seen, with

death of the author. It seems that, having made his theoretical case for the Judean


26/72

26

constitution directly in the first half of theAntiquities, when he comes to his

critique of the Roman constitution in modern times Josephus relies mainly upon

citing exempla, with the possibility of an uncontrollable subtext, in keeping with

the tenor of the times.

In addition to this larger and portentous ironic tendency, we should not

miss the incidental ironic situations in theAntiquities, some of them taken over

from the War. An easy example is the story of the Essene seer Judas, who once

came to doubt his abilities. Although he had predicted the murder of King

Aristobuluss brother Antigonus on a certain day at Stratos Tower, he

happened to see Antigonus in Jerusalem on the appointed day, too far from the

coastal city of that name to fulfill the prediction. Judass faith was restored,

however, when Antigonus was indeed murdered by the king later in the day, in

an underground passage coincidentally called Stratos Tower (AJ13.311-13; cf. BJ

1.78-80). This doubted-prediction episode recalls Iocastes ironical decision to

swear off prophets after a prediction that her husband would be killed by his son

had proved (seemingly) impossible, given that her son had been exposed as a

newborn and her husband had recently been killed by robbers (Oed. Tyr. 707-22).

To conclude thus far: Josephus reflects the ironic possibilities developed in

literature before his time and the generally duplicitous atmosphere in which

public life and literature were being pursued in late first-century Rome. It is not

clear whether his restriction of -language to distasteful contexts reflects a

view that only unworthies resort to this art, or whether the art is in those cases

contaminated by its practitionersso that it is only the irony that can be named15

(inept, because in the service of vice) that is objectionable. Irrespective of his


27/72

27

language, he makes liberal use of irony. We are now almost ready now to

consider the Vita, after attempting a summary classification.

two kinds of irony

It is said that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who think

that there are two kinds of people and those who do not. Critics like to divide

irony into two kinds, but they do not agree on the basic division. One might

distinguish situational (including cosmic) irony from the verbal and literary

kinds, or irony as an ongoing state from ironic tropes, or the irony of an author

from the irony expressed by a character within the story, or intentional from

unintentional irony (cf. Muecke 1969: 40-63). Though all of these distinctions

have merit, for analyzing the VitaI would posit another classification. Irony

might either be framed within the text, so that all audiences and readers should

detect the better part of it, or it might be mainly tacit, depending upon the extra-

textual knowledge of an envisioned audience.

Textually driven irony was the brief of New Comedy. In distinction from

Old Comedy, which depended for much of its humour on topicality (below),

Menander and his peers wrote plays that were more self-contained, with the

necessary information for the audience embedded in the work itself. That is why

these Greek plays were so portable for adaptation in other contexts, with Plautus

and Terence. Authoritative prologues, often from a divine being, guaranteed the

audiences readiness to follow the plot (Zagagi 1994: 142-43). A crucial function

of the prologue was (Ireland 1995: 19; cf. Balme 2001: xix):

15 With apologies to Lao-tse (Tao te ching1): The Tao that can be told is not the true Tao. . . .


28/72

28

the revelation to the audience of some important information unknown to

the humans involved in the action, very often the true origin of one of the

characters. Such revelation then allowed the development of New

Comedy's major effect, dramatic irony, when the audience's superior

knowledge enabled it to appreciate the mistaken thought-processes and

resultant embarrassment of the stage-characters.

Even though these plays dealt in standard comedic situations and character

typesthe young man who is in love but broke, requiring the help of a crafty

slave, the old miser, or the boastful soldiereach plot showed surprising twists

and distinctive personalities. To make such turns effective, the audience required

beforehand that authoritative orientation to the scene andpersonae, given by

someone other than a character involved in the process. It is because of this

reliable foreknowledge that the audience of MenandersAspis(97ff.) knows that

Smikrines will be frustrated in his attempt to seize his nieces fortunefor the

heir still lives; knows what the misanthrope and the love-struck young man of

the Dyskolosdo not know about each other; and is immediately ready to find

hilarity, as theMiles Gloriosusbegins, in the alazons confident ignorance of what

is happening next door.16An additional layer of irony was always possible

through the inclusion of topical references that only the first audience would

understand, but that audience knowledge was not crucial because the play took

responsibility for its own ironic framework.

17

16 Significantly, the Greek name for the original of this play was The Alazon.17 A contemporary analogy: in the Black Adder millennial film special (Back and Forth), aStephen Fry character attempts to persuade Elizabeth I of a certain course of action byentertaining her with a brief mime-dance. When she seems resolute in her original decision, andthe Fry character repeatedly objects, she interrupts: Who is the Queen? Now this is ironic (andfunny) on the textually explicit level because of course there is no doubt who the sovereign is:she is seated on her throne, crowned and sceptred. That she should need to ask is contrary to the


29/72

29

Comedy was not the only venue for such self-contained textual irony. The

most famous example of the form is perhaps the Gospel of John, which includes

an authoritative divine prologue (John 1.1-18) concerning Jesus heavenly origin,

a point reiterated through speeches at every opportunity (John 3.11-21; 5.19-47;

6.35-58; 8.12-58; 10.1-38). The repeated claims of ignorant characters in the story

to certain knowledgeabout Jesus origins (John 1.45-6; 6.42; 7.41-3) are devastating

because the readerany reader at any timeknows better. Even though the first

audience of John was probably expected also to have extra-textual knowledge of

these matters, this explicit framework ensured the success of the irony for

posterity. Today, television situation comedy works in much the same way,

especially in the many remakes of the Gospel of John, which deal with beings

from other worlds.18

Audience-dependent irony, by contrast, operates without the safety net of

prologues or other such authoritative guides. It can be subtler and more effective,

but it is also riskier. The author must be confident that the audience will know

certain crucial items without being told. This was the way of Old Comedy, which

was filled with topical references to conditions in Athens around the year 420:

many of the main characters are famous figures from the period (Ireland 1995: 1-

2). The modern reader of Aristophanes can only appreciate these references

through diligent background study; one aim of the commentary supplied in

modern editions is to put the reader in the ironic picture.

obvious facts. But a contemporary audience finds another layer of irony in their prior knowledgethat Stephen Fry is a famous gay actor. Given the double meaning of queen in the vernacular,the question Who is the Queen? has a particular irony for this audience only. It seems likelythat we miss many such allusions, which would provide another layer of irony, in New Comedy.18Thus each episode of Third Rock from the Sunbegins with a visual reminder of the protagonistssituation, an authoritative prologue, which guarantees that the audience will see the ironicmisunderstanding of some character who innocently asks: Where are you folks from?


30/72

30

Topical references were not, again, the only means of tapping an

audiences extra-textual resources for ironic purposes: Greek tragedy and later

pantomime depended upon an existing familiarity with the traditional story

lines, which would be presented again in new forms. It was prior audience

knowledge of the plot that gave poignancy to Oedipuss vow to find and punish

the one who was polluting Thebes (Oed. Tyr.135-45). For the case of Rome,

Bartsch traces the development of staged irony (not her words) from the late

republic, when it was largely determined by authors and actors through their

deliberate emphasis and gesture, to the early principate, when the initiators

backed away out of caution, and audience detection became the more important

component of the ironic circuit (Bartsch 1994: 71-82).

Much of this audience-dependent irony had comical overtones. Today, in

a distant parallel, stand-up (as distinct from situational) comedy typically

depends upon an irony that comes from the specific audiences knowledge of

current affairs. The comedians one-liners lose all their effect if an explanation of

the back-story is required.19The speakers challenge is to find ironic statements

appropriate both to the audiences knowledge and to their taste, for an audience

who fully understand the allusion may still find unwelcome the speakers

attitude toward this unspoken, shared knowledge.20In the case of Josephus, too,

we need to reflect on both what his audience knew and how they felt about his

presentation.

19It is enough for a comedian to mention former U.S. President Clinton in conjunction withinterns, or cigars, and an American audience will immediately supply the back story.20Witness U.S. President Bushs ironic quip at Yale Commencement, 2001, to the effect that youcan go a long way with a C average. This audience evidently understood the reference to thePresidents poor record at Yale, and (we are told) kept a stony silence.


31/72

31

We turn, then, to irony in Josephuss Vita. Somewhat surprisingly, to

generations of sincere scholars, Josephus illustrates his sterling character as

Galilean commander through the use of irony as his principal administrative

tactic. According to his account, he was not the only one to attempt irony in

Galilee on the eve of the war; but he happily reports that he was the only one to

use it successfully.

2. Text-Dependent Irony in the V itathe ironic framework

The transition to Josephuss public life ( ) follows the opening

survey of his ancestry and education (V1-11) in V12. After a brief embassy to

Neros Rome (further below), which appears to serve as the proving ground for

the young aristocrats abilities (V13-16; cf. Plutarch, Praec. ger. rei publ. 10.804D-

12.806F), we find him back in Jerusalem assuming a position of leadership and

facing popular demand for secession from Rome (V17). Here he begins

immediately to establish the ironic context for the work.

He makes a first, dutiful attempt at the recommended by

Aristotle:

17Now I was surprised already to find the beginnings of revolutions,

with many [people] grandly contemplating defection from the Romans. So

I tried to restrain the insurgents and charged them to think again. They

should first place before their eyes those against whom they would make

warfor not only with respect to war-related expertise but also with

respect to good fortune were they disadvantaged in relation to the


32/72

32

Romans18and they should not, rashly and quite foolishly, bring upon

their native places, their families, and indeed themselves the risk of

ultimate ruin. 19I said these things and was persistently engaged in

dissuasive pleading, predicting that the outcome of the war would be

utterly disastrous for us. I was not convincing, to be sure, because the

frenzy of the desperadoes prevailed.

Even this description of Josephuss earnest efforts, especially V18-19, includes

irony, given the audiences knowledge that the foresight he articulates here has

turned out to be precisely accurate. Yet this first effort is presented as a sincere

one. When he fails with frankness, however, he resorts without hesitation to the

doublespeak that Aristotle identifies as appropriate in dealing with the mob (V

20-23).

20I became anxious now that by saying these things constantly I might

incur hatred and suspicion, as though conspiring with the enemy, and I

would risk being taken and done away with by them. . . . . 21After the

removal of Manaem and the principal men of the bandit brigade, I came

back out of the temple and held discussions with the chief priests and

principal men of the Pharisees. 22Extreme fear took hold of us as we saw

the populace with weapons: we were unsure what we should do

ourselves and were unable to halt the revolutionaries. Given the clear and

present danger to ourselves, we began saying ( ) that we

concurred with their opinions. But we counseled them to stand fast, even

if the enemy soldiers had advanced, so that they should be given credit for

justly taking up weapons in defense. 23We did these things hoping that


33/72

33

before long Cestius would come up with a large force and halt the

revolution.

Here Josephus parades before the literary audience his calculated effort to

deceive the common folk, confiding now his hope that legions from Antioch

would solve his problem. The double game has begun. Notice incidentally that

the Vitawill disproportionately use the language of deception: 5 of 13

occurrences of (fabricate); 2 of 6 occurrences of (clever

trick); and 5 of 20 occurrences of (generals trick) are in this little

book. Josephus will become an expert deceiver.

But the game has only just begun. The interpreters problem is to know

how far it goes. For example, a few sentences later Josephus reports the decision

of the Jerusalem leaders to send him and two others to Galilee (V29):

to persuade the wretches to put down their weapons and to instruct them

that it was preferable to reserve these for the nations lite. It was agreed

that these latter would hold the weapons constantly ready for the future,

but would wait patiently to learn what the Romans would do.

.

Does Josephus mean that the leaders really wereintending to establish a select

army for the coming conflict? Or does he mean that he and his colleagues were

instructed to refer to such an army as apretextfor persuading the rebels to lay

down their weapons? We cannot be sure, I think. But in support of the latter


34/72

34

reading: nothing in the narrative thus far has prepared the audience for the

notion that the Jerusalem leaders wished to create any sort of rebel force, and we

have already seen them appeal for a strictly defensive posture as a deliberate

pretextfor stalling until Cestiuss arrival (V22-23). It seems plausible, then, that

here too, after Cestiuss intervention has failed, Josephus is simply providing

further examples of the doublespeak that he and his colleagues were forced to

use with the masses in order to buy time.

With the lengthy digression on Philip son of Iacimus, in connection with

his initial description of Gamala (V48-61), Josephus introduces many of the

ironical tactics that will reappear in the later narrative. Varus, the power-hungry

deputy of Agrippa II, is a past master of what many Greek writers called

simple dissimulation. His clever modus operandiwas first to fabricate a

scandalous accusation against the king, thus to put it in circulation, and then to

deny it indignantly so that he could execute its alleged perpetrator(s). Varus sets

the tone for the deceptions that will follow from Josephuss opponents.

Josephus himself is by now deeply involved in the deception game, and

we see this as he plans his Galilean strategy in consultation with the Jerusalem

leaders (V62-3). After assessing the situation, his first action in Galilee is to

summon the council of Tiberias (V64), before whom he claims( ) that the

Jerusalem council has instructed him to demolish the house of Herod the tetrarch

on the ground that it contains animal images (V65). Some of the councilors, led

by Capella, strongly disagree with the plan but eventually are persuaded by

Josephus (V66).


35/72

35

If this story is taken straightforwardly, as scholars usually do take it, it

creates a number of problems. First, even though he has just described his most

recent instructions from Jerusalem (V62-3), he has mentioned nothing at all

about such attacks on royal property, and they appear quite out of character with

the leaders reported sentiments. Second, he uses the same ironic code as in the

programmatic V22 ( ), which should give us pause: he saidthat the

Jerusalem leaders had sent him to demolish the house. Third, in spite of his

declaration and the alleged urgency of the matter (V65: ), Josephus does

not actually begin action against the Herodian residence, but rather leaves town

for Upper Galilee (V67). Fourth, when a Tiberian faction led by Jesus goes ahead

and attacks the palace, Josephus becomes furious becausethey have acted

contrary to his intention (V68). Finally, he responds to their raid by quickly

recovering as much as possible of the pilfered furnishings and handing them

over for safe keeping to none other than Capellas groupthe very men who had

objected to the operation in the first place. Josephus plainly tells the literary

audience that he wanted to return the goods to King Agrippa (V68). It seems to

me that this account makes sense only if it is read ironically: Josephus is relating

that he had no intention of actually raiding royal property, but boldly declared

his intention to do so in order to consolidate his support base among the militant

Galilean populace, in keeping with the policy initiated at V22. On this reading,

the passage provides no support for the historical argument that the Jerusalem

council was aggressively prosecuting the revolt at this time (contraLuther 1910:

17-8; Drexler 1925: 297-98; Goodman 1987: 218; Price 1992: 32).


36/72

36

The Josephus character in the Vitais not the only one playing a double

game. According to Josephus as author, one of the three factional leaders in

Tiberias, Justus, was playing a game that was the inverse of his own. Whereas

Josephus really wanted to peace but had to pretend that he was planning for

war:

36Iustus son of Pistus, the principal man of the third bloc, although he

kept pretending to be in doubt about the war, was actually longing for

revolutionary activities, intending to manufacture power for himself out

of the upheaval (

). 37So he came along into the [city] center and tried to teach

the mob that the city had always been the capital of Galilee since the times

of Herod the Tetrarch, who was its builder, and who had wanted the city

of the Sepphorites to submit to that of the Tiberians. They had not

relinquished this primacy under King Agrippa the father, but it remained

until Felix was put in charge of Judea.38Now, he was saying:

You yourselves just happen to have been given to the younger

Agrippa as a gift from Nero! And because it submitted to Rome,

Sepphoris immediately became the capital of Galilee, and both the

royal bank and the archives, having been dismantled, are with

them.

39 These and many other things against King Agrippa he said to them, for

the sake of provoking the populace to defection. . . .


37/72

37

Here Josephus emphasizes, by the way he frames it, that Justuss argument,

which he tries out on the mob ( ), is utterly

specious. Further, his literary audience mighthave noted these obvious

weaknesses: that Josephus has already said that Sepphoris had by far the more

ancient claim to supremacy in Galilee (BJ1.170; 2.56); that if Tiberias had not

been ceded to Agrippa II, it would nothave been a free city but would have

remained under the Roman governor Felixs direct control (BJ2.253); and so its

transition to the client kings hands had quite likely been a benefit for both king

and residents. From what follows it is plain that Justuss position is crafted for

one purpose only (so Josephus): to assemble a following that will help him to

fulfill his ambition.

Josephus continues, with his usual resignation about mob fickleness (cf.AJ

3.24-7, 68-9, 295-315; V77, 103, 113, 140, 149, 271, 315, 388):

40By saying these things, he won over the mob. For he was rather good at

manipulating the populace and at overcoming the better arguments of

disputants by craftiness and a kind of guile through words. In fact, he was

well trained in the Greek sort of education, on the basis of which he

audaciously took it upon himself to record also the history of these

eventsas if he could overcome the truth itself by means of this speech-

craft.


38/72

38

Here Josephus balances Justuss intended dissimulation with his own irony by

evoking his audiences prior knowledge of the old charge against the sophists:

that they make the worse argument appear the better one (Aristophanes, Nub.

94-8, 112-18; Isocrates,Antid. 15; Plato,Apol. 19b; Aristotle, Rhet. 2.24.11.1402a).

More significantly, he characterizes the art that teaches rhetorical versatility at

the expense of truth, though this had been thoroughly domesticated in Rome (cf.

Cicero, Brut. 322), as the Greeksort of education. This approach seems to

presuppose a Roman audience, for Roman authors had a long (rhetorical)

tradition of expressing such contempt for deceptive Greek ways, over against

their own simplicity and faithfulness (Polybius 6.56; 31.25.4; Cicero, Brut. 247;

Flac. 9, 24, 31, 57;Tusc. 4.33.70; 5.20.58; Sallust, Bell. Jug. 85.32-3; Lucan 3.302;

Tacitus,Ann. 14.20; Dial. 28.4-29.2; cf. Balsdon 1979: 30-54; Gruen 1992: 52-83,

223-71). In the works of Plautus, Erich Segal counts more than seventy-five

different expressions to denote Greek perfidy, the most famous of which is the

ironic Graeca fidesofAsinaria199 (Segal 1987: 37-8). So whereas Justus attempts

real dissimulation as a character within the story, the author Josephus neutralizes

it, in retrospect, with an ironic disparagement that he expects his audience to

share.

We next meet John of Gischala, who claims( ) that he wants to raid

some imperial grain storehouses in order to rebuild the walls of his native town

from the proceeds (V71). Although Josephus does not tell us here what he

understood Johns real intentions to be, he allows that it was because he


39/72

39

understood these that he wanted to withhold his authorization. Possibly, since he

knew (as his audience knows) that John had already fortified Gischalas walls (V

45)though John perhaps did not know that he knew, he realized that Johns

worthy-sounding goal must have been a pretext for a fundraising effort that was

really designed to make himself general (V70). John later becomes a determined

ironist, however: he will request permission to take physical therapy at the baths

near Tiberias, though his real goal is to inspire defection from Josephus there (V

85-7). And after another failed attempt at revolt he will write to Josephus with

oaths and awesome vows, assuring him that he has played no role in these

unfortunate events (V101).

Josephus, for his part, continues undaunted in his own ironic campaign.

Only because he wants to keep an eye on the Galilean leadership, on a pretext

of friendship ( ) as he says, he designates seventy of them his

friends ( ) and travel companions; he will take them around with him,

trying casesall in order to secure the loyalty of the people. He is disarmingly

open about this pretence (V79). He maintains his deceitfulness in Sepphoris,

where he affects ( ) to be unaware of the townspeoples plot against

him (through the agency of Jesus), until just the right moment (V107, 109).

Josephuss cheerful willingness to deceive the populace is displayed

before his literary audience following the incident with the Dabarittan young

men: they rob the wife of the kings administrator, Ptolemy, and bring the

plunder to their leader Josephus. With the literary audience he is perfectly

candid about his intention (thirty years earlier) to return the goods to their

rightful owner. Notice his ironic logic (V128):


40/72

40

Wanting to preserve these things for Ptolemy, since he was a

compatriotand even robbing adversaries is proscribed by our laws, I

asserted ( ) to those who had brought them that it was necessary to

keep them so that the walls of Jerusalem might be repairedfrom their sale.

Because he wanted to return the goods to Ptolemy, he saidthat he would use them

for repairing Jerusalems walls, something he hoped would satisfy the mob.

Josephus appears to assume throughout the audiences understanding that one

simply does not declare ones true intentions before a mob, especially in times of

unrest. Thus, while assuring the masses in this way, he secretly hands the gear

over to friends of the king for safe conduct back (V131).

When this secret action is suspected, the mob is whipped up to a frenzy

and makes a charge on Josephuss residence. Now we see possibly a different

sort of ironyintertextualcoming into play. Josephuss lone attendant urges

him to die nobly by my own hand, as a general, before my adversaries came to

compel me or to kill me [themselves]. Although he was saying these things, I,

having entrusted my affairs to God, set out to meet the mob in advance (

[138]

; V137-38). Especially since

Josephus has dramatically altered the story against its parallel in the Bellum(BJ

2.601), which instead has four colleagues urging him toflee, showing deliberation

in shaping the story, we seem justified in finding here an evocation of a more

important story in the Bellum. At the siege of Iotapata, namely, Josephus had also

been pressed to die willingly, as a general of the Judeans (


41/72

41

), and he even

refers to a that generals ought to die by their own hands (BJ3.400). But

there, as here, he chose instead to trust his safety to God the protector (

). Outside the walls of Jerusalem, later

in the conflict, he repeatedly implored the citizens likewise to entrust themselves

to God ( ; BJ5.382, 390, 400). It is admittedly unclear whether

the audience could have been expected to make this connection with the central

story of the Bellum, but the parallel seems undeniable.

When he encounters the advancing Tarichean mob, Josephus further

deepens his pretence, winking ironically at his literary audience as he narrates.

First, he falls down and begs for mercy, conceding that he may indeed have

seemed to commit an injustice (V139). Observing that this incipient contrition

favourably affects the mob, on the spot he fabricates the entirely new proposition

that he had wanted to keep the captured goods as a surprisefor rebuilding the

walls of noble Tarichea(V142)! On a roll now, our reporter decides to gild the lily,

with what must have seemed to him and his literary audience biting sarcasm:

For because I understood well that this city, so hospitable toward

foreigners ( ),

was eagerly accommodating such men as these, who have left behind

their native places and made common cause with our fortune (

), I wanted to construct walls. . . .

Although in V143 and 162 Josephus will indeed refer to resident aliens in

Tarichea, which gives his bid a certain plausibility, he makes a much larger issue

of the Taricheans extreme lack of hospitality towards the dignitaries who had


42/72

42

fled from Agrippas territory (V149-54; cf. 112-13). It is also ironic that he should

refer to our fortune, since he has consistently placed fortune ( ) entirely on

the side of the Romans (BJ2. 360, 373, 387, 390; 3.368; 5.367; 6.409-13), as also in

the Vita(17).

Yet further, when the Taricheans predictably respond to the building

proposal with huzzahs, but the Tiberians and other visitors become envious, he

spontaneously adds that of course he planned to fortify the other locations as

well (V144). Josephus leaves little room for doubt that now, as author, he is

positively reveling in his rhetorical exploits of a generation ago, when he could

have any crowd he wanted eating from his hands. In the service of his ultimate

virtue and genuine concern for the welfare of the state, he can do exactly what

Cicero required of oratory: to direct the audience wherever he wishes, to make

whatever persuasive case the situation demands (cf. Brut. 322; De orat. 1.30). Such

a narrative, it seems, requires a well-disposed audience.

Josephuss deceptions continue unabated, and he gives every indication

that he enjoys relating them: his intimidation of a raging mob at Tarichea by

isolating and maiming their toughest man (V145-48); his great energy in

spiriting away the refugee dignitaries from Agrippas kingdom (V151-54); his

famous boat trick on the Kinneret, which allowed him to take captive more than

a thousand Tiberians with only sevenhe gleefully emphasizes (V161,

164)seven of his own men (V161-69). With the unfortunate Mr. Famous

( ), identified by the fickle and cowardly mob of Tiberias as the instigator

of their sedition, Josephus resorts to the age-old salesmans ploy of artificially

raising the price in order to offer the appearance of a discount. Not wishing to


43/72

43

harm him beyond usefulnessquite possibly because he is not persuaded by the

mobs eagerness to blame this young man21but still requiring the appearance of

sternness, he first tells him to cut off both his hands, then relents to leave him

one. The absurdity of the initial order only highlights, it seems to me, the ironical

nature of the whole episode.

The decisive incident for establishing Josephuss ironical posture in the

first third of the Vitanarrative comes in the next episode, when he interviews the

Tiberian leaders Justus and his father Pistus after a generous dinner. Hear his

own description (V175-78):

After the banquet I said: I myself know very well that the power of the

Romans is utterly overwhelming; but Ihave kept quiet about it because of

the bandits. 176I counseled them to do the same, to wait patiently for the

necessary amount of time and not become upset with me as general, for

they would not easily have the chance to encounter someone else who

was similarly mild. 177I also reminded Justus that before I came along

from Jerusalem, the Galileans had cut off his brothers hands, adducing

wrongdoing prior to the war in the form of forged letters by him, and that

after Philips withdrawal the Gamalites had risen against the Babylonians

and disposed of Chareshe was Philips relative178and how they had

with no greater consideration disciplined Jesus, that mans brother and the

21 Consider: (a) Josephus has already removed under guard many hundreds of leading Tiberiansas punishment for the attempted sedition, indicating that he holds them at least formallyresponsible; (b) Kleitoss name has not come up before the mob identifies him; (c) Josephusalways considers the mob fickle and impetuous (e.g.,AJ3.24-7, 68-9, 295-315), and Josephusimplies that the mob singles him out and demands punishment in order to deflect criticism fromthemselves (V170); (d) his name, as well as Josephuss comments about his youth and volatiletemperament may be given to explain why the mob would single him out as a plausible suspect;(e) Josephus himself does not indicate that he was persuaded this assignment of blame. He must


44/72

44

husband of Justuss sister. These were the things I discussed with Justuss

group after the banquet. Early the next day I gave orders for everyone

under guard to be released.

This encounter recalls quite plainly the opening scenes of the revolt in V17-22:

the wiser leaders decide upon a policy of irony because they realize that

straightforward opposition to the sentiments of the masses is pointless and

perilous. Though remarkable for its frankness, from the perspective of the Vitas

audience this exchange must seem fully in accord with Josephuss self-

presentation thus far. The audience can feel only contempt for such parochial

nafs as Justus and Pistus, who cause problems because they lack the requisite

political savvy.

dueling ironies: Josephus and the delegation

We have begun to see how Josephus contrasts his brilliantly successful

irony with the pathetic efforts at dissimulation of his opponents, notably Justus

and John. The Tiberian leaders, too, have tried their hand at duplicity, pressuring

Josephus to finish reinforcing their walls while also appealing to King Agrippa

for his support. Josephus, however, saw right through this and punished them.

Now, with the arrival of the delegation from Jerusalem, the story moves into a

phase of ironic dueling, from which only one party can emerge successful.

Jonathan and his three companions, who have been selected in the hope

that the four of them collectively might convince the Galilean populace that they

match Josephuss claims to eminence (V198), are allowed the first shot in this

discipline the man in some way because he always finds a way to accommodate the wishes of themob (V170-71).


45/72

45

duel. Once again, Josephus makes explicit the ironic framework: he offers an

ostensibly trustworthy narration of the delegations mandate to bring him back

dead or alive (V202). It is not only the literary audience of the Vitawho is in on

the secret, however, for Josephus explains that his character Josephus also

received this crucial intelligence through a friendly informer, via a letter from his

father (V204). When the audience shares knowledge with the character Josephus,

of which the delegation members are confidently unaware, we see the creation of

an impressive ironic situation, akin to that of New Comedy. This is the

background against which all of the delegations subsequent posturing and

dissembling must be read.

Anticipating the delegations arrival, Josephus hastily assembles an army

of about 8,000 men and heads to the western extremityas he explainsof

Galilee. He hurries there, he says, so that he can pretend ( ) to be

preparing for battle with the Roman (tribune) Placidus. But why does he head so

quickly for the western extremity of his region, only to make believe that he is

preparing for battle? The reason emerges from the following sentences. As soon

has he has set up camp there, Jonathans delegation from Jerusalem arrives at the

southern tip of Galilee, and writes requesting an interview. Observe the ironic

nature of their letter:

Jonathan and those with him,

who have been sent by the Jerusalemites,

To Josephus

Greetings!

We were sent by the principal men in Jerusalem, when they heard that

John of Gischala had often plotted against you, to reprimand him and to


46/72

46

exhort him to submi

at play seriously irony and ironic humor in the vita of josephus.pdf

Documents