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Josephus on Agrippa II in Jerusalem

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Josephus on Agrippa II in Jerusalem CHAPTER 4 The Shaping of Memory: Josephus on Agrippa II in Jerusalem Martin Goodman Much Jewish education consists in drawing moral lessons from the past, with memories enshrined in ritual as well as stories, prayers and poems, and few historical events have resonated as profoundly through the centuries in the Jewish imagination as the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE.1 This short study is devoted to the creation of just one aspect of historical memories about this cataclysmic event, with an attempt to explain the rather remarkable historical amnesia of the Jewish tradition about the central role of the Herodian king Agrippa II in the breakdown within Jerusalem society which led to the disaster.2 Agrippa II was the great-grandson of Herod the Great and the Hasmonean princess Mariamme, and for most of the first century CE he was the most pro- minent scion of the Herodian dynasty. Agrippa was educated partly in Rome, like many other members of the Herodian family, but his ties to Jerusalem were cemented by the grant by the emperor Claudius in 41 CE to his father, Agrippa I, of the kingdom of Judea, with a territory as extensive as Herod himself had once ruled. On the sudden death of Agrippa I in 44 CE, “eaten up by worms,”3 Claudius is said to have wished to appoint Agrippa II to his father’s kingdom but to have been dissuaded by his advisers on the grounds that the young prince, aged sixteen or seventeen, was not yet old enough.4 In the event the young Agrippa was never to become king of Judea, but his influence over the politics of Jerusalem over the ensuing decades was 1 Bibliography on the traditions about the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE is extensive. See, for instance, the discussions in Daniel R. Schwartz and Zeev Weiss, in collaboration with Ruth A. Clements, eds., Was 70 CE a Watershed in Jewish History? On Jews and Judaism before and after the Destruction of the Second Temple, AJEC 78 (Leiden: Brill, 2011). 2 On Agrippa II and other Herodians in relation to the Jewish revolt, see now Julia Wilker, Für Rom und Jerusalem: die herodianische Dynastie im I. Jahrhundert n. Chr., Studien zur alten Geschichte 5 (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Antike, 2007), 377–448. 3 Acts 12:19–23. 4 Josephus, A. J. 19.362. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/978900434776�_006 86 goodman nonetheless profound. In 44 CE Agrippa was under the shadow of his pater- nal uncle, Herod of Chalcis, himself a powerful figure in his own right,5 but in 48 CE Herod also died and Agrippa was the most prominent of Herod’s male descendants for the rest of his long life6—although, as we shall see, he shared the limelight with his three younger sisters, Berenice, Mariamne and Drusilla, whose marriages and love affairs were to have their own impact on the politics of Judea. Some time after the death of Herod in 48 CE, Agrippa succeeded his uncle as king of Chalcis,7 but in 53 CE he was deprived of Chalcis by Claudius and instead granted rule over extensive neighbouring territories in Batanea, Trachonitis, Gaulanitis and Abila.8 The towns of Tiberias and Taricheae in Galilee and Livias in Perea had been added to his kingdom by the time of the outbreak of the Judean revolt in 66 CE.9 On the defeat of the rebels in 70 CE, he was rewarded with increased territory in Lebanon, including Arca, north- east of Tripolis,10 so that by the probable date of his death in 92 or 93 CE, he had been ruler over a considerable part of the Levant for nearly half a century. Agrippa’s capital at Caesarea Philippi (modern Banias), near the source of the river Jordan, was a handsome city, with a fine temple to the imperial cult and sufficient amenities to provide entertainment and recuperation in the Roman style.11 It is clear that Agrippa presented himself within his terri- tories as a loyal Roman citizen with sophisticated Hellenistic tastes. His pal- ace in Tiberias, which had been built by Herod Antipas (“Herod the Tetrarch”) was adorned with representations of animals which were destroyed by the Jewish rebels in 67 CE12 and his coins, minted in a remarkable variety of types and distinctive for their explicit reference to the year within his regnal era 5 On Herod of Chalcis, see Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–A.D. 135), a new English version rev. and ed. Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar, Matthew Black, and Pamela Vermes, 3 vols (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1973–1987), vol. 1, 571–72. 6 For the debate over the date of Agrippa’s death, see Nikos Kokkinos, The Herodian Dynasty: Origins, Role in Society and Eclipse, JSPSup 30 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), Appendix 10. 7 Josephus, B. J. 2.223; A. J. 20.104. 8 Josephus, B. J. 2.247; A. J. 20.138 (which mentions that Agrippa’s rule in Chalcis lasted only four years). 9 Josephus, B. J. 2.252; A. J. 20.159. 10 Photius, Bibliotheca 33, notes that Vespasian increased Agrippa’s territory; Josephus, B. J. 7.97 mentions Arcea, north-east of Tripolis, as within Agrippa’s realm. 11 On Caesarea Philippi, see Schürer, History of the Jewish People, vol. 2, 169–71. 12 Josephus, Vita 65..
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