I'm reading Josephus' The Jewish War , as you do. I love the bizarre intrigues of the Herod family and the hugely inflated numbers of people involved in everything, although the battles and the long list of forgettable names kind of lose me. Most of all I love this story, about a Roman general called Petronius who has just become my hero of the week. In 37 AD the Roman Emperor Tiberius died and was succeeded by his adopted grandson, Gaius Caligula. Not much good could be said of Tiberius but at least he was not completely crackers. Caligula on the other hand was as mad as a cut snake and poor Petronius, as the chief imperial administrator in the Middle East, was now required to do whatever this madman said. Josephus takes up the story. Gaius Caesar's accession to power so completely turned his head that he wished to be thought of and addressed as a god, stripped his country of its noblest men, and proceeded to lay sacrilegious hands on Judaea. He ordered Petroni
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson