Note 185 — Chapter XI · JUDAEA AND THE JEWS. (continued 2)

The account of Josephus, that Titus with his council of war resolved not to destroy the temple, excites suspicion by the manifest intention of it, and, as the use made of Tacitus in the chronicle of Sulpicius Severus is completely proved by Bernays, it may certainly well be a question whether his quite opposite account (Chron. ii. 30, 6), that the council of war had resolved to destroy the temple, does not proceed from Tacitus, and whether the preference is not to be given to it, although it bears traces of Christian revision. This view further commends itself through the fact that the dedication addressed to Vespasian of the Argonautica of the poet Valerius Flaccus celebrates the victor of Solyma, who hurls the fiery torches.