We should know little of the detail were it not for Josephus. A somewhat reluctant Jewish general during the first stages of the revolt, the historian was — on his account — delegated by God to bear witness, and so decamped from the doomed city and rallied, as they say, to the Romans. When his ‘prophecy’, that Vespasian would one day be emperor, came true, the turncoat was confirmed as a court favourite. He was, however, the last Jew to have lobbying access to any emperor. The sack and burning of Jerusalem had supposedly got out of control, but the triumph celebrated over ‘Judaea Capta’ was a trademark blessing for the upstart Flavian emperors. The defeat of the Jews became part of Roman mythology, just as, a few centuries later, their misery would be the ‘proof’ that God had deserted them and transferred his favours to the Christians. These double roots made anti-Semitism part of the language, and practice, of European civilisation.
Goodman’s book is so rich that indigestion becomes a form of tribute. Reading him is never difficult but rarely amusing (‘centre round’ is not a pretty phrase). He is a better historian and archivist than literary critic. Discussing the often callous Roman attitude to animals, he contrasts it with the ‘deep emotion exhibited by [Catullus’] Lesbia for her sparrow’. But wasn’t Catullus regretting his mistress’s ‘bereavement’ mainly because it was an excuse to dodge his kisses?
As for Hadrian’s nickname, Graeculus, Goodman fails to note the scorn implied by it. Romans were gross in their appetites, and in their satisfaction, but wary of sentiment. Hence their embarrassment at Hadrian’s excessive passion for Antinous, the ‘young Bithynian boy’ whose drowning sent him into a decline. The ‘young boy’ was actually 20 years old at the time and getting unboyishly hirsute. When Goodman accuses Nero of adopting a clean-shaven, soft appearance, he fails to remark that, since his family name was Ahenobarbus (‘brazen-bearded’), he had himself depicted with a beard on some of his coinage.
It is a pity that Goodman doesn’t stick more firmly to his central point, that the destruction of Jerusalem was in large part the result of politics (the vacuum caused by Nero’s fall, in the midst of the campaign, upgraded its importance) and that the prestige of the Jews, even those remote from the scene, was permanently damaged by it. Constantine’s improbable assumption of Christianity (he too was an upstart in need of the providential, God-given promise that he would henceforth always be right) was another, collateral, catastrophe for the Jews. Goodman remarks on Constantine being baptised only very late in life, but this was not a rare postponement (and was resumed by the Cathars, among others). The pariahdom of the Jews, downstairs (socially) and upstairs (theologically), was sealed by the scummy place allocated to them by the saintly venom of Augustine (who was challenged in vain by now forgotten, more liberal, Christians). Hinc illae lacrimae, a lot of them.
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