Flavius Josephus and the frieze of the Spoils from the Temple in Jerusalem on the Arch of Titus

Abstract

The participation of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in the imperial triumph of 71 CE at Rome, following the subjugation of Judaea, is a matter of debate; but his account in the Bellum Judaicum along with the relief on the interior south wall of the Arch of Titus document the event for posterity. While Josephus wrote immediately following the Flavian triumph, the completion of the monument only postdates the death of Titus on 13 September 81. After the passing of a decade, it remains uncertain what sources of information were available to the sculptors of the panel of the Spoils from the Temple in Jerusalem. There are striking similarities between features of this relief and passages from the writings of Josephus. As has been remarked in the past, craftsmen at the Arch of Titus may have had access to a copy of the Jewish War with its description of the Flavian Triumph, which Josephus delivered to Titus and Vespasian before the latter’s death in 79. Moreover, there is close agreement between objects depicted on the sculpted frieze and the text of the Jewish Antiquities, which was only to reach the public many years later in 93–94. The appearance of these items in the sculpture would seem to depend on an early version of the Antiquities and for this reason should be attributed to the intervention—in one form or another—of Flavius Josephus himself.