Josephus

Born Yosef ben Mattityahu around AD 37 in Jerusalem to a priestly father and a mother claiming Hasmonean royal blood, he commanded Jewish forces in Galilee during the First Jewish-Roman War until the six-week siege of Yodfat in AD 67. After surrendering to Vespasian's army, he declared the Jewish messianic prophecies pointed to Vespasian as future emperor - a claim that earned him slavery, then freedom when Vespasian took the throne in AD 69 and gave him the family name Flavius. He defected fully, became a Roman citizen, and served as translator for Vespasian's son Titus during the brutal siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 that razed the city and destroyed the Second Temple. From that vantage he wrote The Jewish War around 75 and Antiquities of the Jews around 94, works that recorded the Great Jewish Revolt and the siege of Masada while recounting Jewish history for Greek and Roman readers. Next to the Bible, his accounts remain the chief source for first-century Judaism and figures like Pontius Pilate, Herod, John the Baptist, and Jesus of Nazareth.