Silent Tyrant

What is it about?

In the fourth book of his Antiquities, as he retells the story of Moses and the rebellion of Zambrias from Numbers 25, the historian Josephus writes a powerful speech denigrating the Mosaic law which the rebel Zambrias delivers. The lawgiver, Moses, makes no response. By exploring the meanings which silence takes on elsewhere in Josephus' works, this paper suggests that Moses' silence, and the silence of the assembled nation, reflects the association between tyranny and legislation which Josephus had picked up from Greek political theory, creating a more complex picture of the legislator than is sometimes allowed for.

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