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Today, one of the modern Israeli Army's mottoes is 'Masada shall not fall again'; Masada has become an iconic event of Jewish-Roman history. Josephus ben Mathias (AD 37-100), an aristocratic Jewish priest, was one of the few to learn first-hand of the events on that terrible night, and it is only from his account that we know of Masada. But who was Josephus?An eyewitness, Josephus' "The Jewish War" describes the Jews' war against the Romans of AD 66-73, the worst catastrophe to afflict the Jewish people between the Babylonian captivity and the holocaust, in which Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed. He alone gives us a picture of contemporary Palestine at the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls, King Herod and Christ. And in telling us of his own life, he gives us as much as we can know of the personal life of any ancient Jew apart from Christ and St Paul.This new book, from acclaimed biographer Desmond Seward, uncovers his story, and asks again, of the man who, brought up a Jew, and having been a General in his country's army after Judea revolted against the Romans, later became a Roman citizen and a knight under Vespasian: was he a patriot trapped by circumstance, for ever dismayed and disturbed by the tragedy of his people; or a ruthless careerist, determined to survive whatever happened - cruel, treacherous and cowardly, even insane?
