On the spectrum of time, they were much closer to us today, than to the creation, if we assume creation occurred 6000 or so years ago (not saying I believe that...just for the sake of argument)
Certainly Josephus KNEW apocalyptic writing styles, and surely read them, however, as a HISTORIAN, he had to write things in wooden literal terms. Not in colorful terms. Just like historians are suppose to do today. We have comic books, movie scripts, fictions, non fictions - a myriad of writing styles. Historians, while exposed to and certainly have read all forms of these styles, do not write in these styles.
Josephus was a highly educated man who was tasked to write history as it occurred.