Titus Flavius Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus commanded Jewish forces against Rome, surrendered, and wrote the principal account of the war he had lost. Born in Jerusalem around AD 37 into a priestly family with Hasmonean connections, he was highly educated, visited Rome in his twenties, and came back convinced that revolt was hopeless. The revolt began in AD 66 anyway, and he was appointed commander in Galilee — a post he took while doubting the cause, which shaped his conduct. Vespasian besieged Jotapata for forty-seven days in AD 67. When it fell, Josephus and forty others hid in a cistern and agreed on a suicide pact, drawing lots to kill one another in sequence. He and one other were the last two, and he persuaded the man to surrender. He explains the arrangement in a way that has invited suspicion for two thousand years. Brought before Vespasian, he prophesied that the general would become emperor. When that happened in AD 69 he was freed, took the family name Flavius, and served as interpreter and negotiator at the siege of Jerusalem, calling on the defenders to surrender from outside the walls. They regarded him as a traitor, and so have many since. He settled in Rome on an imperial pension and wrote The Jewish War, the Antiquities of the Jews, an autobiography and Against Apion. His work is the main source for the period, including Masada, and contains a disputed passage referring to Jesus that was probably altered by later Christian copyists. He wrote to explain his people to Rome and himself to both. He died around AD 100.
- Lived: 37 CE – 100 CE
- Nationality: Jewish
- Roles: writer
