e
proved both incompetent and unreliable. In 67 A.D. he and his followers
were shut up by Vespasian in the Galilean city, Jotapata. During the siege
he vainly tried to desert to the enemy. At the fall of the city he was
captured, but his life was spared by Vespasian. In time he ingratiated
himself with Titus and also incurred the hostility of his countrymen by
trying to persuade them to lay down their arms. He spent the latter part
of his life in Rome, devoting himself to study and writing. As a result of
his long residence at Rome under the patronage of the Roman emperors, he
was powerfully influenced by the Greek and Roman philosophical schools.

Josephus was the great apologist of his race. His chief aims in writing
his histories were: (1) to excuse his own acts in connection with the
great rebellion; (2) to show why the overwhelming calamity had overtaken
his race; and (3) to answer the attack of their Gentile foes by tracing
the remarkable history of his people, and by presenting in attractive
form their beliefs, institutions, and laws. Of his two great historical
works the one entitled _The Jewish War_ was issued probably between 75 and
79 A.D. It opens with the beginnings of the Maccabean struggle, and traces
the history, with increasing detail, to the destruction of Jerusalem and
the suppression of the Jewish revolt at Gyrene, two or three years before
the book was written. His second great work was issued in 93 A.D. under
the title of _The Antiquities of the Jews_. In twenty books it traces
Israel's history from the earliest beginnings to the opening years of the
Jewish war (68 A.D.). The first half of this extensive history is based
on the author's free paraphrase of the Greek version of the Old Testament.
For the latter half he draws largely from the apocryphal book of I
Maccabees and from the writings of contemporary Greek and Jewish
historians. Chief among these are Polybius, Nicolaus of Damascus, and
Strabo. At certain points, where earlier sources fail him, he employs
popular romances and late traditions. The result is that the different
parts of his history are of widely varying values. All must be carefully
tested by the canons of historical criticism. After due allowance has been
made for his apologetic purpose and his well-known tendencies, a large and
valuable body of historical facts remain with which it is possible at many
otherwise obscure points to reconstruct the course of Israel's history.

II.