03_Biblica_Sharon_Layout 1 01/04/14 11:46 Pagina 52 52 NADAV SHARON pecially given that Josephus’ source for most of his information about Herod was Nicolaus of Damascus 9, if this text has a legal connotation it could only possibly be referring to Roman law. Re- publican law stipulated that the minimum age for holding public office was 27 or 30, and even older for some offices 10; so seem- ingly twenty-five would have indeed been too young for such an appointment. However, there were notable precedents of younger people acquiring positions of authority during the Republic. One prominent case was that of Scipio Africanus who was only twenty- four years old when, in 211 BCE, he received command of Spain during the Hannibalic War (Livy 26.18) 11. A more relevant excep- tion to that age limitation is the election of Octavian (the later Au- gustus) to the office of consul in 43 BCE, before his twentieth birthday. Moreover, Augustus apparently reduced the minimum age for holding public office to twenty-five 12, and according to Cassius Dio 55.9.2 Augustus seems to have allowed for the possibility of consuls from the age of twenty 13. Therefore, if Josephus (or Nico- laus), who wrote later than Augustus’ reform, meant to say that Herod was appointed at an age younger than that which was stipu- lated by law, twenty-five would hardly have been relevant. 2. A Question of Competence and Experience Josephus’ statement does not appear, in fact, to have anything to do with age regulations. Josephus is not saying that Herod was younger than some age limit. It seems, rather, that the second pos- 9 For Nicolaus as Josephus’ main source for Herod’s time (i.e., most of War 1 and Ant. 14–17) see e.g., B.-Z. WACHOLDER, Nicolaus of Damascus (Berkeley, CA 1962) 4-6 (with a brief sketch of scholarship) and 60-64; SCHWARTZ, “Drama and Authenticity”; M. TOHER, “Nicolaus and Herod in the Antiquitates Judaicae”, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 101 (2003) 427-447; idem, “Herod, Augustus, and Nicolaus of Damascus”, Herod and Augustus. Papers Presented at the IJS Conference, 21st-23rd June 2005 (eds. D.M. JACOBSON – N. KOKKINOS) (Leiden 2009) 65-81. 10 T. WIEDEMANN, Adults and Children in the Roman Empire (London 1989) 119; E. EYBEN, Restless Youth in Ancient Rome (trans. P. DALY; London – New York 1993) 8-9. 11 Cf. EYBEN, Restless Youth, 47-48. 12 Cf. EYBEN, Restless Youth, 8-9, 68-69. 13 See also B. RAWSON, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy (Oxford 2003) 325.