Review of Davies, Representing the dynasty in Flavian Rome

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Representing the dynasty in Flavian Rome: the case of Josephus’ Jewish War.

Jonathan Davies, Representing the dynasty in Flavian Rome: the case of Josephus' Jewish War. Oxford classical monographs. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. Pp. 256. ISBN 9780198882992.

Review by
Jan Willem van Henten, Universiteit van Amsterdam. j.w.vanhenten@uva.nl

This book offers an excellent, detailed analysis of all the references to the three Flavian emperors in Josephus’s Jewish War. Davies consistently pays attention to Roman and Jewish perspectives and reads Josephus in line with postcolonial theory as a historian who is in between two worlds. His conclusions are well-argued and careful. He rejects the binary oppositions that in his view underly previous scholarship and lead to a one-dimensional interpretation of Josephus’s role as a historian. ...

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