S. A. Naber (6 vols., Leipzig, 1888-1896). Niese's larger edition is indispensable to the student, but that of Naber forms a useful auxiliary and check upon it. Notwithstanding Niese's work, much remains to be done in establishing the text on a firm basis. In many difficult passages all MSS seem to have gone astray and we are left to conjectural emendation; there are also occasional small lacunæ.
In English Josephus is best known through the translation of William Whiston, first published nearly two centuries ago (1736). A revision of Whiston was produced by the Rev. A. R. Shilleto in Bohn's Standard Library, with brief topographical notes by Sir C. W. Wilson (5 vols., London, G. Bell, 1889-1890). The revised Whiston is the most serviceable rendering of the complete works available. Whiston has many merits, but he had not access to a good text, his rendering is often at fault and he had little regard for style; while Shilleto's revision, which appeared inopportunely just before the two modern editions of the Greek text, unfortunately leaves much to be desired.
Of a very different character is the admirable translation of the Jewish War and the Life made by the Rev. Dr. R. Traill and edited, after his death, with notes by Isaac Taylor (London, 1862). Dr. Traill fell a victim to his exertions in relieving his parishioners during the Irish famine of 1846-7, and the version which he contemplated of the remaining works never appeared. In his translation, which combines faithfulness to the original with a fastidious regard for English style, Traill went far towards accomplishing for Josephus what Jowett did for Thucydides.
My procedure in the following selections has been first to produce a version of my own, and then carefully to revise it with the help of both Shilleto's Whiston and
