The Source

by James A. Michener

Then Josephus, at the threshold of that scintillating career which would bedazzle Rome—he would betray the Jews of Galilee and would hide with forty survivors from Jotapata in a cave and enter with them into a suicide compact, manipulating the straws so that he could die last, and when all but one lay about him with their throats cut, he would flee; he would surrender to Vespasian, and at the moment when the Romans were to kill him he would astound that general by shouting like an ancient prophet that he foresaw Vespasian as emperor of Rome, and Titus, too; as a result he would be informally adopted by Vespasian and would take his name, under which he would help the Romans crush the Jews in Jerusalem and destroy the nation; in Rome he would live in a house of Vespasian’s as an honorary citizen of the empire with a pension; he would be the personal confidant of three emperors in a row—Vespasian, Titus, Domitian—and he would outlive them all; under their patronage he would write extraordinary books that vilified the Jews and extolled the Romans, but at the same time he would write notable apologetics on behalf of Judaism, so that much of what we know of the Jews during a period of four hundred years comes from his gifted pen; and he would die at last, having described himself repeatedly as trustworthy, brilliant, devoted, and heroic beyond the norm—it was this young general who stood at the edge of the well and extended his hand to Yigal, saying, “I shall rouse the countrysi...

Josephus was a traitor and became a Roman citizen