11. The Leader Who Saved Himself With a Rigged Lottery
Yosef ben Matityahu (37 – 100 AD), who went on to Latinize his name into Titus Flavius Josephus, was a Jewish general and leader who commanded rebel forces in Galilee at the start of the Great Jewish Revolt (66 – 73 AD). With a combination of guile and force – such as his bluffing the town of Tiberias into surrender with an overwhelming display of force from a navy of 230 boats that, unbeknownst to the Tibetans carried no more than five men each – Josephus brought Galilee under his control. Eventually, the Roman Empire struck back, and general Vespasian was appointed to crush the revolt. Vespasian marched from Syria into Judea, with Galilee as his first stop. Josephus gathered an army, but its undisciplined ranks broke and ran at the first sight of the Roman legions, and fled to the hilltop town of Jotapata.
There, Vespasian surrounded Josephus and his men, and after a 47-day siege, stormed the town. Josephus and the rebel leaders fled to a secret hiding place down a well. However, a prisoner told the Romans, who shouted an offer down the well for Josephus to surrender, as Vespasian wanted him alive. Josephus wanted to surrender, but the other leaders insisted that they all commit suicide instead – death before dishonor and all that. So Josephus suggested they do so in an orderly fashion, by drawing lots, with the loser of each round getting killed by the others. Josephus rigged the lots, as one by one the leaders were killed, until he was one of only two men left alive, at which point he convinced the other survivor that they should surrender. They did. The Romans summarily executed the other man, but Josephus was taken in shackles to Vespasian.