CONCERNING FLORUS THE PROCURATOR, WHO NECESSITATED THE JEWS TO TAKE UP ARMS AGAINST THE ROMANS. THE CONCLUSION. FJAJ 20.64
1. NOW Gessius Florus, who was sent as successor to Albinus by Nero,
filled Judea with abundance of miseries
He was by birth of the city of
Clazomene, and brought along with him his wife Cleopatra, (by whose friendship
with Poppea, Nero's wife, he obtained this government,) who was no way
different from him in wickedness
This Florus was so wicked, and so violent
in the use of his authority, that the Jews took Albinus to have been [comparatively]
their benefactor; so excessive were the mischiefs that he brought upon
them
For Albinus concealed his wickedness, and was careful that it might
not be discovered to all men; but Gessius Florus, as though he bad been
sent on purpose to show his crimes to every body, made a pompous ostentation
of them to our nation, as never omitting any sort of violence, nor any
unjust sort of punishment; for he was not to be moved by pity, and never
was satisfied with any degree of gain that came in his way; nor had he
any more regard to great than to small acquisitions, but became a partner
with the robbers themselves
For a great many fell then into that practice
without fear, as having him for their security, and depending on him, that
he would save them harmless in their particular robberies; so that there
were no bounds set to the nation's miseries; but the unhappy Jews, when
they were not able to bear the devastations which the robbers made among
them, were all under a necessity of leaving their own habitations, and
of flying away, as hoping to dwell more easily any where else in the world
among foreigners [than in their own country]
And what need I say any more
upon this head? since it was this Florus who necessitated us to take up
arms against the Romans, while we thought it better to be destroyed at
once, than by little and little
Now this war began in the second year
of the government of Florus, and the twelfth year of the reign of Nero.
But then what actions we were forced to do, or what miseries we were enabled
to suffer, may be accurately known by such as will peruse those books which
I have written about the Jewish war. FJAJ 20.65
2. I shall now, therefore, make an end here of my Antiquities; after
the conclusion of which events, I began to write that account of the war;
and these Antiquities contain what hath been delivered down to us from
the original creation of man, until the twelfth year of the reign of Nero,
as to what hath befallen the Jews, as well in Egypt as in Syria and in
Palestine, and what we have suffered from the Assyrians and Babylonians,
and what afflictions the Persians and Macedonians, and after them the Romans,
have brought upon us; for I think I may say that I have composed this history
with sufficient accuracy in all things
I have attempted to enumerate those
high priests that we have had during the interval of two thousand years;
I have also carried down the succession of our kings, and related their
actions, and political administration, without [considerable] errors, as
also the power of our monarchs; and all according to what is written in
our sacred books; for this it was that I promised to do in the beginning
of this history
And I am so bold as to say, now I have so completely perfected
the work I proposed to myself to do, that no other person, whether he were
a Jew or foreigner, had he ever so great an inclination to it, could so
accurately deliver these accounts to the Greeks as is done in these books.
For those of my own nation freely acknowledge that I far exceed them in
the learning belonging to Jews; I have also taken a great deal of pains
to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the
Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our
own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for
our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations,
and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods; because
they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, not only to all sorts
of free-men, but to as many of the servants as please to learn them
But
they give him the testimony of being a wise man who is fully acquainted
with our laws, and is able to interpret their meaning; on which account,
as there have been many who have done their endeavors with great patience
to obtain this learning, there have yet hardly been so many as two or three
that have succeeded therein, who were immediately well rewarded for their
pains. FJAJ 20.66
3. And now it will not be perhaps an invidious thing, if I treat briefly
of my own family, and of the actions of my own life (28)
See the Life at the beginning of the volume.
while there are still living such as can either prove what I say to be
false, or can attest that it is true; with which accounts I shall put an
end to these Antiquities, which are contained in twenty books, and sixty
thousand verses
And if God permit me, I will briefly run over this war
(29)
What Josephus here declares his intention to do, if God permitted, to give
the public again an abridgement of the Jewish War hear of it elsewhere,
whether he performed what he now intended or not. Some of the reasons of
this design of his might possibly be, his observation of the many errors
he had been guilty of in the two first of those seven books of the War,
which were written when he was comparatively young, and less acquainted
with the Jewish antiquities than he now was, and in which abridgement we
might have hoped to find those many passages which himself, as well as
those several passages which others refer to, as written by him, but which
are not extant in his present works. However, since many of his own references
to what he had written elsewhere, as well as most of his own errors, belong
to such early times as could not well come into this abridgement of the
Jewish War; and since none of those that quote things not now extant in
his works, including himself as well as others, ever cite any such abridgement;
I am forced rather to suppose that he never did publish any such work at
all; I mean, as distinct from his own Life, written by himself, for an
appendix to these Antiquities, and this at least seven years after these
Antiquities were finished. Nor indeed does it appear to me that Josephus
ever published that other work here mentioned, as intended by him for the
public also: I mean the three or four books concerning God and his essence,
and concerning the Jewish laws; why, according to them, some things were
permitted the Jews, and others prohibited; which last seems to be the same
work which Josephus had also promised, if God permitted, at the conclusion
of his preface to these Antiquities; nor do I suppose that he ever published
any of them. The death of all his friends at court, Vespasian, Titus, and
Domitian, and the coming of those he had no acquaintance with to the crown,
I mean Nerva and Trajan, together with his removal from Rome to Judea,
with what followed it, might easily interrupt such his intentions, and
prevent his publication of those works.,
and to add what befell them further to that very day, the 13th of Domitian,
or A.D
03, is not, that I have observed, taken distinct notice of by any
one; nor do we ever again, with what befell us therein to this very day,
which is the thirteenth year of the reign of Caesar Domitian, and the fifty-sixth
year of my own life
I have also an intention to write three books concerning
our Jewish opinions about God and his essence, and about our laws; why,
according to them, some things are permitted us to do, and others are prohibited. FJAJ 20.67