The Life of Flavius Josephus

Flavius Josephusc. AD 94–100

Josephus’s account of his own family, education and conduct, written as an appendix to the Jewish Antiquities. Most of it defends his command in Galilee in AD 66–67; its opening and close give the facts of his birth and of his later life at Rome.

Josephus announces at the end of the Jewish Antiquities that he will add an account of his family and his life while people who could contradict him were still alive, and the Life closes by dedicating the whole of the Antiquities to Epaphroditus. It was therefore written after AD 93–94, the date Josephus gives for finishing the larger work.

It is not a full autobiography. The opening gives his priestly descent, his birth in the first year of the emperor Gaius and his education (1–12). The long middle section is a defence of what he did as commander in Galilee at the start of the revolt, written against critics. The close tells how he was treated by Vespasian, Titus and Domitian after his surrender and quotes letters from King Agrippa approving his history of the war (361–367, 414–430). It is the testimony of a man about himself, written to justify himself, and has to be read as such.

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