Book contents
- The Future of Rome
- The Future of Rome
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Some Remarks on Cicero’s Perception of the Future of Rome
- Chapter 2 Eclogue 4 and the Futures of Rome
- Chapter 3 Imperium sine fine: Rome’s Future in Augustan Epic
- Chapter 4 Posterity in the Arval Acta
- Chapter 5 The Future of Rome in Three Greek Historians of Rome
- Chapter 6 Philo on the Impermanence of Empires
- Chapter 7 From Human Freedom to Divine Intervention
- Chapter 8 Josephus, Caligula and the Future of Rome
- Chapter 9 “Will This One Never Be Brought Down?”
- Chapter 10 The Sibylline Oracles and Resistance to Rome
- Chapter 11 Revelation 17.1–19.10: A Prophetic Vision of the Destruction of Rome
- Chapter 12 Cicero and Vergil in the Catacombs: Pagan Messianism and Monarchic Propaganda in Constantine’s Oration to the Assembly of Saints
- Chapter 13 The Future of Rome after 410 CE
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Index of Names and Places
Chapter 8 - Josephus, Caligula and the Future of Rome
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2020
- The Future of Rome
- The Future of Rome
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Some Remarks on Cicero’s Perception of the Future of Rome
- Chapter 2 Eclogue 4 and the Futures of Rome
- Chapter 3 Imperium sine fine: Rome’s Future in Augustan Epic
- Chapter 4 Posterity in the Arval Acta
- Chapter 5 The Future of Rome in Three Greek Historians of Rome
- Chapter 6 Philo on the Impermanence of Empires
- Chapter 7 From Human Freedom to Divine Intervention
- Chapter 8 Josephus, Caligula and the Future of Rome
- Chapter 9 “Will This One Never Be Brought Down?”
- Chapter 10 The Sibylline Oracles and Resistance to Rome
- Chapter 11 Revelation 17.1–19.10: A Prophetic Vision of the Destruction of Rome
- Chapter 12 Cicero and Vergil in the Catacombs: Pagan Messianism and Monarchic Propaganda in Constantine’s Oration to the Assembly of Saints
- Chapter 13 The Future of Rome after 410 CE
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Index of Names and Places
Summary
A Jewish priest, Roman citizen and Greek historian, Flavius Josephus (born Yosef ben Matityahu) is an author whose works are strongly marked by the confluence of traditions. Both the Jewish tradition in which he had been raised and the Graeco-Roman tradition in which he chose to write had long and varied histories of thinking about the future and Josephus, a “prophet” learned in both cultures, could draw on a variety of literary models when forecasting what was to come. Polybius, for instance, one of Josephus’ most important sources, articulates a belief in the Greek idea of cyclical history, but is able to accommodate this schema to the realities of his times by arguing that the Roman constitution had found a way to arrest the inevitable degeneration of anakyklosis. The composite Roman state had been able to postpone its decline and win extraordinary success, but nevertheless its decline would surely come some day.
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- The Future of RomeRoman, Greek, Jewish and Christian Visions, pp. 155 - 168Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020