The Fall of the Crassi (Crassus 23.7–24.3, 25.12–14, 26.6–9, 30.2–5)

The Battle of Carrhae gives Plutarch his real opportunity to rival Thucydides on Sicily: a striking example of the second Life outdoing the first. The Life of Crassus is marked by dense passages which are particularly prolonged and amassed. They involve a moment of greatness for Crassus which outdoes a similar moment for Nicias (see ch. 13); it presents direct speech, after the death of Crassus’ son. These especially heightened passages in the Life form an arc, from initial terror at the Parthians, to noble death and acceptance of death; but the detail complicates this structure. The comparison of father and son is also important to the design; so too ethnography and Plutarch’s treatment of the Parthians. Cassius Dio’s later non-rhythmic account provides a foil.

Performing Christian Martyrdoms

Christian martyrdom is a performance that employs the body as both an instrument and an arena in which to portray a message about ideal Christian behavior in opposition to “the world,” enacting a sacrificial death imitating that of Jesus. Drawing upon Greco-Roman traditions of the hero myth and the Stoic noble death, as well as Hellenistic, Jewish narratives of death in obedience to God’s law, Christian martyrologists constructed the propaganda of martyrdom. Their rhetoric of resistance, both spoken and enacted, transformed elite concepts of Roman imperial virtue by applying them to a despised minority. The public ordeal of the martyrs shows their transformation from an identity defined by “the world” into a new identity—that of the triumphant Christ—proclaimed through the spectacle of their dying. Martyrs’ worldly bodies thus are visibly and spectacularly transformed by annihilation into vessels dedicated to the power of their God.

To Die For

This chapter examines the development of early Jewish martyrdom from the Bible to late antiquity. The chapter argues that martyrdom does not exist in the Hebrew Bible and that the stories of Eleazar and the mother with her seven sons from 2 Maccabees are not indicative of an existing Hellenistic tradition of martyrdom. The Jewish concept of martyrdom started to develop in Roman times, due to the influence of the popular Roman idea of noble death. The Jewish acceptance of the Roman idea created also moral and theological dilemmas. The idea of noble death needed to be reconciled with a Jewish tradition that emphasized the holiness of life. These martyrological premises and predicaments continued to be developed in rabbinic literature. The end result was the presentation of a rabbinic martyrological genre that set the Jewish lore and law of kiddush ha-Shem.

A Failed Spectacle: The Role of the Crowd in Luke 23

That Jesus’ death is uniquely portrayed as a spectacle of death in Luke’s Gospel is widely acknowledged. Most scholarship has focused on the figure of Jesus, his self-control and emotions, to debate how much it concurs with the ancient ideal of noble death. Little attention, however, has been given to the role of the crowd in Luke’s passion. This paper analyzes the role of the crowd in Luke’s passion to argue that Luke has framed the cross in a manner fitting of death in the arena. By emphasizing the crowd’s size, placement, and role in the drama, I argue that Luke presents Jesus’ death as a failed spectacle and suggest some political and theological ramifications.

Noble Death and Dynasty: A Popular Tradition from the Hasmonean Period in Josephus

The First Book of Maccabees ends its historical narrative with the murder of Simon at the hands of his son-in-law, Ptolemy. Flavius Josephus offers a more elaborate narrative of the same event. According to his account, Ptolemy took Simon’s wife and two of his sons as hostages and tormented them when John Hyrcanus besieged him in the fortress of Doq. Josephus praises Simon’s wife for taking a heroic stance and stresses her willingness to die for the dynasty. A close analysis of the story suggests that Josephus drew on a popular tradition that emerged shortly after the historical events and adopted stylistic and narratological elements commonly associated with martyrdom stories. The story thus offers insights into dynastic representation in the early Hasmonean period and indicates that the wife of Simon played a prominent role in the propaganda and self-fashioning of the new ruling house.

Scott and Shackleton in the media: a response to Ben Macintyre

An opinion piece by Ben Macintyre entitled ‘Sorry, Scott fans: noble death is so last century’ appeared inThe Times(London) on 20 September 2013. In this, Macintyre argued not only that Ernest Shackleton should be explicitly contrasted against his contemporary and rival Robert Falcon Scott, but that Shackleton should be found superior to Scott in virtually every way. It was a dispiriting piece, strongly suggesting that that the media's understanding of Scott has not greatly advanced since the savage, cod-psychological and often unsubstantiated attacks upon Scott's character and reputation in the 1970s–1990s. Sadly, all too often polar history is reduced to a zero-sum game where praise for Shackleton is directly proportional to insults directed at Scott.