Chapter IV: Part 4

“No, not yet,” Pilate said. “Claudia wishes to see the Temple and Antonia Tower before we stop. Don’t you, my dear?”

“I do. Then, after I’ve had a look at them, we can return, can’t we? And if the Procurator is kept at Antonia Tower longer than he expects to be, perhaps the centurion would fetch me back here?”

Longinus smiled. “Of course,” he murmured, then turned to Pilate. “But, sir, you won’t be able to proceed far with the chariots. You’ll have to change to horseback or be borne in a sedan chair. These Jerusalem streets are very narrow, and many of them ascend and descend stairs that a chariot could scarcely manage.”

Pilate nodded. “Thank you, Centurion. In that case we’ll leave the chariots here, and I’ll ride horseback. Claudia can take a sedan chair.” He looked toward his wife, and his eyes were questioning. “That is, if she still wishes to go on to Antonia.”

“Yes, I’d particularly like to see the Temple; I’ve heard stories of what a marvelous structure it is. I’ll go on, and Longinus can bring me back.” She smiled. “Would you?”

“As you wish,” he said.

Pilate nodded. “If you will, Centurion. Or I can send someone to bring you here, Claudia, if the centurion finds that he cannot get away from his duties. I’ll probably be detained for some time at the Tower. I am determined to see the High Priest before the sun sets. I had planned to call on him at his palace, but now, after the reception Jerusalem has given me, by all the gods”—his face was reddening again—“I shall summon him to come to me!”

So the column was halted along the narrow way in front of the sprawling Herod’s Palace. The chariots were driven inside the palace grounds and left there, and a sedan chair was brought out by bearers quickly recruited from the palace’s staff of servants.

“Centurion, if you will ride in the sedan chair with Claudia,” the Procurator said, “you can point out to her the places of importance in this nest of obstinate Jewry.” He mounted a gaily caparisoned horse and rode forward to the head of the column.

“Perhaps, Excellency, it would be best for me to go ahead with the advance guard”—Sergius Paulus smiled grimly as Pilate came abreast of him—“to absorb the stones that may be hurled at the new Procurator, not that there is any personal animosity toward you, sir, but because you are a symbol of Rome’s dominion....”

“No! I’m not afraid of them!” the Procurator angrily interrupted. “And, by great Jove, I’ll teach them to respect the dominion of Rome!” He spurred his horse several paces ahead of the cohort commander.

Meanwhile Claudia and Longinus had settled themselves in the sedan chair. As it moved off, they did not draw the curtains. “It isn’t because I am afraid to draw them,” Claudia said to him. “I’m not afraid of Pilate, nor am I afraid of the people out there. It’s because I want to see Jerusalem.”

“You don’t think Pilate might become suspicious, do you, or even jealous?”

“Pilate thinks only of Pilate and how he can advance his own fortune. He’s ambitious and egotistical; he craves authority, and he covets riches. He’ll do nothing to displease me, not because of affection for me, but because I’m the stepdaughter of the Emperor and because our marriage was arranged by the Prefect. If he’s ever jealous of me—and I think he never will be—I’m quite certain he will make every effort not to show it.”

“Which means?”

“That it should not be difficult for us to contrive to see each other....”

“Tonight?”

Claudia laughed. “Are you, I hope, that eager?”

“I’ve been that eager for many weeks, Claudia.” He leaned across to take her hand. She drew it back.

“Not now, Centurion. The soldiers, you know....”

“Then you are afraid of the Procurator’s knowing....”

“Not afraid, Longinus. Say, rather, discreet.”

Now they were being borne down a flight of stone steps. The hoofs of the horses in front of and behind them clattered and slipped, and sometimes an animal would go to its knees, though the heavily burdened donkeys coming up the stairs and keeping close to the buildings managed to scramble forward on nimble, sure feet. Sometimes a swaying load piled high on a donkey’s back would be overbalanced and topple as its containing straps burst, and in a moment the merchandise would be trampled to bits by the soldiers’ steeds.

When they reached the bottom of the steps and began to move along a level portion of the street where there was an open space between the buildings on the right, Claudia suddenly pointed. “That must be the old Hasmonean Palace where the ancestors of Herodias’ mother lived.”

“Yes.”

She scowled. “It’s a stern and forbidding pile of stones.”

“You’ll find that most Jewish public buildings are that way, the palaces especially. But once you get inside them, you’re bound to find them enchanting. Herod’s Palace has a sumptuous array of grass and flowers and fountains; you should enjoy your stay there.”

“Perhaps.” She smiled coyly. “It depends.” Then she pointed. “What on earth is that next building? It, too, looks like a fortress.”

“That place is called the Xystus; it’s a Roman-style gymnasium built by King Herod, who also constructed down this way”—he pointed off toward the south—“an open-air theatre and”—he nodded in the opposite direction—“northeast of the Temple area a large hippodrome where he held games and gladiatorial sports modeled after ours at home. But the orthodox Jews will have nothing to do with any of these things; they won’t even go near the places. To do so would violate some of their religious laws.”

The sound of the horses’ hoofs pounding ahead suddenly changed.

“Are we on a bridge?” Claudia asked, as she leaned out left. She rode facing forward, while Longinus sat opposite her, his back to the streets unwinding ahead of them. “Yes, I see we are,” she answered her own question. “And it’s a high one. Look, Longinus, by the Bountiful Mother! That structure across there! It’s ... it’s unbelievable!”

“That’s the Temple,” he announced. “It’s the Jews’ temple to their Yahweh. And it is one of the most gorgeous—if that’s the proper word, Claudia—and costliest buildings in the world. It’s made of white marble, the finest cedarwood, and untold bronze and other materials of the most extravagant quality, and trimmed with sheet gold and precious gems. You’ll see when we cross the bridge and enter its walls.” Their sedan chair was nearing the middle of the viaduct now. “See, it’s a high bridge. It connects Zion Hill, which we’ve just left, with the Temple region. Over there”—he twisted about to point to the Temple on his right and behind him—“is Mount Moriah. Between the two hills is this sharp drop called the Tyropoeon Valley; some call it the Valley of the Cheesemongers. In festival times these hillsides swarm with pilgrims coming from all over the world to worship at the Temple, which they consider the residing place of their Yahweh.” He laughed, then gestured with outflung hands. “But we should have Cornelius here to be your guide. He knows far more about the religious customs and beliefs of the Jews than I do; in fact, we had quite a talk about it on the boat coming out, and I charged him with being a worshiper of the Jews’ god himself.”

Near the end of the towering viaduct the procession stopped, and the soldiers dismounted. Quickly a litter was provided for the Procurator, and then the marching column, with Pilate’s sedan chair in the vanguard and Longinus and Claudia some paces behind him, moved off the viaduct and passed beneath a great arch.

“This is called the Gate Shalleketh,” Longinus told her. “It’s the main gate into the Temple area from the Zion section of the city.”

“I’m amazed that you know so much about Jerusalem,” Claudia began, then suddenly stopped as, startled, she caught sight of a veritable forest of marble columns, gigantic, reaching upward out of her range of vision from within the constricting sedan chair. “Bona Dea! Longinus, this is unbelievable! What a majestic structure! And look how far it extends! It’s mammoth, breath-taking!”

“And that’s only one of the porches, as they call it,” Longinus hastened to explain. “This one is styled the Royal Portico of Herod. Its marble columns, as you can see, are more than a hundred feet high. And look, Claudia”—he pointed behind, over his shoulder—“the colonnade itself runs almost a thousand feet. Have you ever seen anything so fantastic?”

“No, and I’m sure the High Priest couldn’t be a bit more effective than you in singing the Temple’s praises,” Claudia declared, laughing. “But it really is a marvelous structure these Jews have built to their superstition.”

“Yes, I agree. And that’s exactly what I told Cornelius.”

The procession turned squarely to the left and started to emerge from beneath the great roofed colonnade into the strong sunlight of an immense open square.

“This is called the Court of the Gentiles,” Longinus explained. “And over there is the Temple proper. Inside it is a place they call the Holy of Holies. Only the High Priest himself, they say, is permitted to enter it, and then only on a feast day, maybe once a year.”

“I’ve heard that inside that room there’s a golden head of an ass and that the Jews actually worship this ass’s head.”

Longinus smiled. It was an old story he had heard many times, he explained, though never from a Jew. Perhaps it started, so far as Rome was concerned at any rate, with the time that Pompey, searching for treasure, invaded the holy shrine of the Jews. “But he found no golden head of an ass. He found only an empty chamber, severe and forbidding, with nothing in it but a few golden vessels and some furniture that was probably used as an altar. That’s the story the Jews tell, anyway.”

“But this one god, Longinus, what did you say they call him?”

“Yahweh, or Jehovah.”

“Yes, I remember. But where is he? Don’t they have any statues of him somewhere in the Temple, Centurion?”

“No, according to what I’ve heard from the Jews themselves and from what Cornelius has told me—and he knows far more about their religious customs and beliefs than I do—statues are one thing they definitely do not have. They declare that their god is a spirit without body and to them any sort of representation in physical form—whether it be statues, carvings, or whatnot—would be sacrilege. That’s why they were so violently opposed to our bringing in unsheathed emblems. They have the strange belief that our army emblems are what they call ‘graven images,’ and their laws expressly forbid any such thing. They won’t even engrave the head of a man or an animal on any of their coins.” He shook his head, as though scarcely able to believe his own words. “Strange, these Jews. But you will discover that for yourself before you’ve been out here many weeks.”

They were coming opposite the eastern face of the Temple proper. “Look at that gate, or door!” Claudia pointed again. “Whatever it is, it’s tremendous! And it shines as though it were gold!”

“They call it the Beautiful Gate. It’s made of Corinthian brass and plates of gold, and it’s so heavy it takes a score of strong men to open and close it. They say it was given by a rich foreign Jew. It must have cost many a sesterce, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure it did.” Her eyes were wide with disbelief. “The whole place is magnificent; why I’ve never seen anything like....” Suddenly she clamped a hand to her nose. “By all the gods, Longinus, what an odor!” She leaned her head out. “Bona Dea, all that cattle. No wonder that awful stench. What on earth are cattle and sheep doing in this beautiful place, Longinus? Can it be for sacrificing, by all the great and little gods!”

“Yes, it’s for sacrificing.” Longinus grimaced. “The Jews think that slitting an animal’s throat and throwing the blood on that great altar somehow cleanses them of their sins. I don’t understand how it could....”

The young woman’s laugh was derisive. “Bringing all those poor animals in here to befoul this beautiful place, these gorgeous mosaics, to pollute the very air, and they call that cleansing themselves. Bona Dea, their Yahweh, if he demands this sort of worship, must be a bloodthirsty god. It just goes to prove, Centurion, that this one-god religion has less sense to it than even our silly superstitions.”

“That’s what I told Cornelius. I see no efficacy in slitting the throats of poor beasts and slaughtering countless doves and pigeons in order to serve some god. Of course, so far as the priests are concerned, it’s a highly profitable business. But, of course, why should we criticize the Jews when we do it in Rome, too, though not on such a grand scale?”

A few paces farther on, the procession turned squarely to the left again and proceeded along a third side of the Temple enclosure, past the stalls of the lowing, frightened cattle and the cages of birds and the money-changers seated behind their tables. From the long portico the marchers pivoted to the right, then ascended steps that led to a wide, paved esplanade.

“This is the platform before the Tower of Antonia. We’re coming to it now.” He motioned behind him. “It’s the Roman military headquarters in Jerusalem. But Pilate must have told you all about it.”

She leaned out and looked westward along the platform. “Pilate tells me very little,” she answered. “By the gods, it’s a tall structure and a grim-looking one. Doubtless overrun with soldiers, too, even in the Procurator’s private apartments.” She winked and smiled. “I’m glad Pilate decided to stop at the Herod Palace during our visit to Jerusalem. He’ll probably be here at Antonia much of the time. It should be easier then to arrange things over there.”

“Things?”

“Well”—her tone was playful, her eyelids fluttered teasingly—“yes, things for people to do ... two people.”

14

It was past midnight when Longinus returned at last to the now quiet Tower of Antonia. Before leaving Caesarea he had arranged with Sergius Paulus to have little more than token duty during the stay in Jerusalem. In the weeks since his arrival in Palestine, he and the cohort commander had come to an understanding; although Sergius knew little of the centurion’s reasons for being in this far eastern province, he did know that Longinus had been sent out by the Prefect Sejanus, and Sergius was not disposed to challenge, or even question actions of the Prefect.

Pontius Pilate had not returned to the palace; presumably he had eaten his evening meal at the tower with the officers there. At any rate, Longinus and Claudia had not been disturbed.

But when Longinus was admitted by the guards at the tower’s outer gate, he deliberately walked past the stairs leading to the southwest tower, where the administrative offices, including the Procurator’s quarters, were situated. Going by the southeast tower would take him a bit out of his way, Longinus reasoned, but he would be less likely to run into the Procurator at this late and embarrassing hour.

The centurion had been assigned quarters in the officers’ section on a floor level with a great gallery along the Temple side of Antonia; a protective rampart ran the length of this gallery, and a door opened onto the gallery from each officer’s quarters.

The air in the small chamber was musty and warm, and Longinus, too, was warm from the exertion of his walk back to the tower. He sat on the side of his bed for a moment, then stood up and opened the outer door. When the draft of fresh air swept in, he stepped out onto the gallery to wait there until his chamber had cooled.

As he stood leaning on the rampart, Longinus heard a door open behind him. Turning, he saw a soldier coming out. Another man too warm to fall asleep, he thought, as he turned back to stare at the still and almost deserted Temple enclosure. Fires smoldered on the great altar, and flickering lamplight from the region of the cattle and sheep stalls gave a look of eeriness to a scene that just a few hours before had been a bedlam of sound and movement.

The other soldier halted near him to look down also on the somnolent Temple. The man pointed over the parapet. “Still an amazing picture, even in the nighttime, isn’t it?”

“Cornelius!” Longinus said, recognizing the voice and whirling around to face the other. “By all the gods, man, I thought you were in Galilee!” He clapped a heavy hand on his friend’s shoulder. “But I’m glad to see you, Centurion.”

“And I had no idea you were in Jerusalem, Longinus!” Cornelius responded with a shoulder-shaking slap. “How long have you been here? Did you come today with the Procurator?”

“Yes, we arrived here a little past midday; we marched out of Caesarea at daybreak day before yesterday. But, by Jove”—he pointed to a stone bench set against the rampart—“let’s sit down, Cornelius. I’ve had a hard day, and I’m sure you have, too. When did you get into Jerusalem, and did you bring your century?”

“We came only an hour before sunset. Yes, I had orders from the new Procurator to meet him here with my century.”

“But why, pray Jove? It’s no festival occasion. Can Pilate be expecting trouble? He didn’t indicate any such thing to me.”

“There’s no reason why he should be anticipating any trouble, so far as I can see ... unless he’s planning to provoke it himself.”

“But why would he do that? He must know that Tiberius and Sejanus are determined to keep our conquered dominions at peace, if for no other reason than to insure the uninterrupted flow of revenue. But”—Longinus shrugged—“maybe Pilate wants to make a show of force in the hope of increasing that very flow—with the increase going into his own pockets, of course—which might be why he’s been conferring at such length with Caiaphas and old Annas.” He pointed toward a lighted window high in the southwestern tower. “Look, they’re still up there. Pilate didn’t even go to the Herod Palace for the evening meal with his new wife.”

“New wife? I didn’t know Pilate was married.”

“Yes. Since we left Rome. And you’ll be surprised to learn who she is.”

“Who?”

“Claudia.”

“By all the great gods! Longinus, I thought you would be marrying Claudia.”

“We had planned to be married.” Longinus paused. “But Tiberius and Sejanus made this other arrangement.”

Cornelius shook his head. “But what does Claudia say about it?”

“What can she say? To them, I mean. But to me she declares that nothing has changed between us. And judging by this afternoon and tonight—I’ve been with her ever since we reached Jerusalem until a few minutes ago—nothing has.”

“But couldn’t that be dangerous for you two?”

Longinus shook his head. “I hardly think so. Their marriage was an entirely arranged one, and furthermore, I’m convinced Pilate would do nothing to offend Claudia.”

“Tell me”—Cornelius leaned forward and tapped his friend’s knee—“you knew before we left Rome that this arrangement had been made?”

“Yes, but I couldn’t say anything about it then, Cornelius.”

“I understand. You were in some kind of cross fire, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And you have an understanding or arrangement with Sejanus, don’t you—I don’t mean about Claudia? Wait....” He held up his hand. “Don’t answer that. But I do want you to remember, Longinus, that regardless of what may happen, I’m on your side ... yours and Claudia’s.”

“I know that, my friend. And I’m on your side ... regardless. And it may be that sometime we’ll need one another’s support. With old Tiberius and crafty Sejanus on the one hand and this vain and ambitious Pilate on the other, and perhaps Herod Antipas....” With mention of the Tetrarch’s name, he paused. “I assume you got him delivered to Tiberias in safety. What did his Arabian Tetrarchess say about Herodias?”

“She had heard about it before we reached Tiberias, perhaps from some of that fellow Chuza’s servants, the ones who fetched the furnishings from Ptolemaïs, you remember. But that was only the beginning. Now they’re wondering at the palace what she’ll do when Antipas gets back with his new wife; he’s already left for Rome, they say, to fetch her, and when Herodias arrives, she’ll probably be taking over as Tetrarchess.”

They sat for a long time in the coolness of the gallery high above the sleeping Temple, and Cornelius related his experiences in escorting the Tetrarch up the narrow defile of the Jordan River and their encounter that day with the strange Wilderness preacher. He described the man’s bitter denunciation of Herod and his sudden and dramatic pointing out of a tall young Galilean carpenter as the Jews’ long looked for Messiah, the man foretold by the ancient Israelite prophets as he who would redeem their historic homeland from its bondage.

“As we were leaving the place, I turned and looked back,” Cornelius added. “The strange prophet and the tall Galilean were standing in the river with the water up to their loincloths; the tall one had asked to receive something they call baptism, a symbolic cleansing of one’s sins, as I understand it.” Cornelius paused and stared thoughtfully at his hands. “I shall never forget the look on that man’s face, Longinus. Ever since that day I have been wondering about him. The Jewish Messiah.” He said it slowly, as though he were talking more to himself than to his friend. “Do you remember that day on the ‘Palmyra’ when we were talking about this Yahweh of the Jews, this one-god spirit? You said then that you would never be able to imagine a being without a body.”

“Yes, I remember it quite clearly. But what are you going to say,” Longinus demanded, “that this tall fellow might have been a god turned into a man? By all the gods, Cornelius, you don’t mean to tell me you think this Galilean could be the Messiah of the Jews? Their Messiah, if I understand it correctly, will be a great military leader who will drive us pagan Romans out of Palestine and re-establish the ancient Israelite kingdom. Even the Jews don’t believe he’ll be a god, do they?”

“I don’t know, Longinus. I think most Jews believe he’ll be a great earthly king, as you say. But listening to that wild fellow and seeing the look on that young man’s face”—he paused, then ventured a hesitant grin—“well, those strange words, the prophet’s evident sincerity, his intense manner....”

“Jewish gibberish.” Longinus shook his head and scowled. “This superstition has captured you, my friend. This eastern mysticism that comes to a head in that cruel and extravagant circus down there.” He pointed toward the great Temple, whose gold-plated roof shone brilliantly in the light of the moon now emerging from behind a cloud. “A carpenter from Galilee to overthrow imperial Rome! What with, pray great Jove! A hammer and a chisel and a flat-headed adz?”

15

For two days after his long meeting with the High Priest Caiaphas and the former High Priest Annas, father-in-law of Caiaphas, the Procurator Pontius Pilate was in a sullen mood. He said little and kept close to his quarters in the Antonia Tower. Now and then he would walk out onto the gallery overlooking the Temple enclosure and, leaning upon the parapet, would stare balefully at the magnificent structure and the stir of life within and around it.

The orderly movements of the priests, set through the long years into an inexorable pattern as they followed the prescribed routine of their duties, seemed almost to infuriate him. “Look at them, Centurion!” he snapped to Longinus on one of these occasions when the centurion happened to be sunning himself on the gallery. “See how smugly they go about their mummery, as if it were the most important thing in the world. They seem studiously to ignore our all-powerful Rome and lavish every attention upon their Yahweh.” He doubled his fist and banged it upon the parapet. “Yet one lone Roman century ordered into that hive of impudent, arrogant busy bees could send them all flying, one Roman century, Longinus. And by the great Jove, I’m tempted to dispatch soldiers down there to clean out that insubordinate, traitorous nest!”

Fortunately, though, the Procurator issued no such order, and the day passed without the Romans’ becoming involved in the religious ceremonies of the Jews. The next morning, however, Pilate called together all his officers on duty in Jerusalem, including Longinus and Cornelius. Immediately it was evident that the Procurator’s hostility toward the Temple leadership had not diminished.

“We are in a war of wits with these obstinate, proud Jews,” he declared, “and I cannot defeat them by remaining on the defensive. It’s been a war of words and gestures thus far, but I have been forced to the opinion that we can have no victory over them until we have had some blood.” His blue eyes swept coldly over the unsmiling faces before him. “So I have determined upon a bold plan in which we shall take the offensive.”

Pilate revealed that Caiaphas and Annas had rebuffed, though with unctuous smiles and sugared words, his every effort even to discuss the possibility of using Temple funds for the improvement of Jerusalem, particularly the health of its residents, through the construction of facilities to enlarge and improve the city’s water supply.

“They insist that this money has been dedicated to their god and belongs to him and that for me to use one denarius of it, even in promoting their welfare, would be a profanation and a sacrilege. Old Annas, may Pluto burn him, even suggested that the people—he emphasized the fact that he was not himself suggesting it—might even believe that _I_ had seized the money for my own use.” Pilate’s anger had turned his face an ugly crimson. His voice rose to a shout. “A profanation indeed! To these insufferable Jews everything they do not wish to do or to have done is a profanation. Yet their priestly caste is sucking the very lifeblood of the people in the name of religion.” He paused for a moment, then continued more calmly. “So I have determined to initiate a bold new plan. I shall have these Temple leaders crawling to me, and on their bellies, cringing!”

When it was clear that Pilate had, at least temporarily, finished, Sergius Paulus ventured to speak. “But, Excellency, do you plan to raid their Temple’s treasury, to commandeer the gold the Jews have stored there? Such a course, you must realize, might provoke the wrath of the Emperor and the Prefect, since they have made a compact with....”

“No, Commander, I am planning no raid on their treasury,” Pilate interrupted. “On the contrary, they will bring their treasure to me and urge me to use it in providing a new water supply for Jerusalem. In so doing they will admit to me and, more importantly, to their fellow religionists that Rome is master and that their puny Yahweh is a lesser god than our Emperor.”

Quickly and more calmly the Procurator unfolded his plan. When three days ago he had come into Jerusalem at the head of the troops, he reminded them, he had suffered the humiliation, for the first time in his military career, of marching with the proud ensigns of Rome all sheathed. This was done, he pointed out, to appease the Jews, to mollify their Yahweh.

“You recall the stony silence with which we were greeted, even the hostile looks of the people peering from behind their screens or down from their housetops; you remember the hatred in their eyes as we crossed through the Temple court on our way here, the taunting remarks flung at us. Rome has lost prestige in Palestine. We must recover it, and this I am determined to do.” The trace of a malevolent smile spread across his round Roman face. “The Emperor must not be made to yield to Yahweh; our eagles and our fasces must no longer be hidden from view as though we were ashamed of them.”

Longinus was watching Sergius Paulus. He saw the commander’s face blanch, but Sergius said nothing. And Pilate continued outlining his plan.

“On top of this tower”—Pilate pointed upward—“is a perpetual flame that burns while the vestments of the High Priest are held safe here in Antonia. Rome therefore is providing and tending a flame that, to my mind, is a memorial of Rome’s yielding. No ensign with the Roman eagle flies above the fortress or hangs from its ramparts. A further testimony to our surrender to the stubborn Jews and their jealous god.” A humorless smile wrote thin lines at the corners of his mouth. “Of course I am telling you what you who are stationed in Jerusalem already know. Perhaps to me it is more galling because it is new.” He paused, as if to consider carefully his next words. “Tomorrow, with Centurion Longinus and his century escorting my party,” he began again, “I shall leave Jerusalem on my return to Caesarea. Centurion Cornelius with his century from Galilee will remain here until after my departure; how long he will stay will be determined by the situation.” His thin smile blossomed into a baleful grin. “During the night, after I have left, the troops stationed here at Antonia will extinguish the flame atop the tower and hang out from the ramparts the ensigns of Rome, including the eagles, the fasces, and the likenesses of the Emperor.”

“But, Excellency”—Sergius’ face was pale, and his expression mirrored alarm—“do you realize how this action will provoke the Jews, how it will inflame them against us, lead perhaps even to bloodshed...?”

“I fully realize that, Commander. That is why I am ordering it. I wish to provoke them. It is only by provoking them that we can demonstrate forcefully to them that Rome is master.”

“But, sir, the Emperor and the Prefect....”

“Are you not aware that since my arrival at Caesarea I represent the Emperor and the Prefect Sejanus in Judaea?” The words were almost a snarl. “If you wish to dispute my authority or my judgment....”

“But I do not, Excellency. The Procurator’s commands to me naturally will be carried out fully.”

“I expected as much, Commander. You will have charge of our forces in Jerusalem in carrying out my orders. If it comes to bloodshed, do not hesitate to shed Jewish blood if the Jews assail you; your only concern will be to prevent the shedding by them of Roman blood. I am confident that they will yield before offering violence to Rome; I think they haven’t the courage to challenge us. What they will do”—his cold, calculating smile overspread his florid face—“is send their priests, including old Annas no doubt, whining to me at Caesarea and imploring me to rescind my orders. Then I will have a lever with which to move them. And thereafter, you may be sure, the legionaries and their ensigns will be respected by the Jews as they are respected by all other conquered peoples. Our Emperor, as he rightfully should, will then take his place, even in Jerusalem, above their vengeful and jealous Yahweh.”

He dismissed the group with instructions to begin at once their preparations for putting his orders into effect.

16

For five days the roads into Caesarea from Jerusalem and central Judaea were clogged with a motley throng of Jews pushing relentlessly toward the Procurator’s Palace. Here and there in the multitude rode a man or woman on a donkey, but countless hundreds trudged on foot, dust-covered and weary in every bone but more outraged in spirit.

Then the dam that was Caesarea’s gates was inundated, and the flood of disgruntled Jewry, sweating, travel-soiled, frightened but still undaunted in its anger despite the long and tiresome journey, poured through the city to fill its market squares and surge upward toward Pilate’s house. The angry flood had burst upon the port city hardly two days behind the messengers sent by Sergius Paulus to warn the Procurator of the multitude’s approach.

The Jews, the messengers informed Pilate, were swarming toward Caesarea to protest with all the vigor they could command his profanation, they called it, of their holy city through the display at the Tower of Antonia of the Roman army’s ensigns, including even the likenesses of the Emperor Tiberius. The morning after the Procurator’s departure, they revealed, the Jews had awakened to behold with horror the flaunted banners. But their vehement protests to the commander of the fortress had been unavailing. Sergius Paulus had told them with firmness that only a command of Pilate could restore the flame above the tower and once again sheathe the offending ensigns.

So, alternately beating their breasts with loud lamentations and angrily calling down their Yahweh’s curses upon the invading Edomites, as they termed the Romans, they had surged into the roads and pushed northwestward to demand of the Procurator himself an end to the profanation of their Jerusalem.

Five days ago these Jews had arrived at Caesarea, but five days of protesting, of threatening, of pleading, and of threatening again had not moved Pontius Pilate. “Rome is master,” declared the stubborn and proud Procurator to the Jews’ spokesmen; “the emblems of Rome’s mastery will not be removed or sheathed. My orders stand.”

But the sons of Israel, too, were unyielding in their demands. “Your Emperor Augustus, your Emperor Tiberius”—Pilate took notice that they did not say “our” Emperor—“have respected our laws, which forbid the display of such emblems, and have been strict in honoring our religion,” the spokesman insisted. “Your Emperor Tiberius cannot but be angered by the refusal of the Procurator to respect in the same manner our ancient traditions.”

“Go home!” Pilate ordered. “Get you back to Jerusalem. I, not you, speak for Tiberius. I was sent out by him to govern this province, and by the great Jove, I will govern it!”

But the Jews did not go home. Hungry, discouraged, exhausted, they were not defeated. They swarmed about Pilate’s palace, they fell in their tracks on the marble of the esplanades to sleep fitfully when sheer exhaustion overtook them; they crowded the market places, they slept in rich men’s doorways. But they would not turn their backs on Caesarea.

On the morning of the sixth day, Pilate called Longinus to the Palace. “Centurion,” he said, his face livid with anger, “since Sergius Paulus continues at Jerusalem, I wish you to take command of the troops here and put into execution the orders I am about to give you. Send out couriers to summon these Jews to come together in the Hippodrome; say that I will meet them there. In the meantime, disguise a sufficient number of your soldiers and place them about the amphitheater in advantageous positions so that should disorder arise among the Jews, you will be ready immediately to put it down.”

Claudia had been listening to her husband. “But, Pilate, aren’t you creating a situation that will produce fighting between our troops and these Jews?”

“And if there is bloodshed?” Pilate’s eyes flashed sudden anger. “Haven’t I been patient with these obstinate rebels? If they choose to get themselves run through with swords, isn’t it their own doing?” Then quickly he recovered his poise. “Claudia,” he said quietly, “I have given them every opportunity to return peaceably to Jerusalem. Have I not?”

“Yes. But you have not agreed to have the ensigns sheathed. And until you do....”

He turned upon her, his countenance flaming, his mood changed completely. “Do you stand with these stubborn provincials against Rome? Are you with them, or are you with me?”

“Before you interrupted me, Procurator,” Claudia’s voice was as cold as her smile, “I was going to observe that in displaying the army’s emblems, you are really breaking a tradition, so far as I have been able to understand it, and this tradition may very well be a long-standing order of the Emperor and, indeed, of Augustus before him. I care not a fig about these Jews. Nor do I care about their High Priest or their Yahweh. I am concerned only with what will be the attitude of the Emperor and the Prefect Sejanus toward the Procurator as a result of this unprecedented breach of the established order.” She turned away, her head high. Pilate seemed taken aback; he looked at her somewhat sheepishly and licked his lips as though he were about to speak. But he said nothing. Instead, he turned abruptly to Longinus. “I take responsibility for the orders I give,” he said tersely. “My orders to you are unchanged.”

Longinus saluted, then without a word turned on his heel and withdrew.

By early afternoon the great concourse had filled with excited, chattering Jews. Their determined stand, they felt confident, had defeated the Procurator; their reminder that the Emperors had honored the Jews and their Yahweh and that Tiberius might not approve a course taken in defiance of the long-established tradition had frightened Pilate. He was calling them together, wasn’t he, to announce that he was withdrawing the hated emblems and to ask them to return home victors?

But they had judged the Procurator wrongly. And they discovered their mistake as soon as he began to address the throng from his box high in the stands of the great oval.

“For five days, and this is now the sixth, you have kept our Caesarea in turmoil. You have been obstinate and insubordinate and have shown little respect to the Procurator, who represents the Emperor and in this province personifies the power and majesty of the Empire. You have threatened him with reprisal, saying that he has flouted the orders of our Emperor. You were not only inhospitable in refusing to welcome the Procurator to Jerusalem, you were actually hostile. In being hostile to us, you have shown yourselves contemptuous of Rome and enemies of our Empire; in being stubbornly hateful to me, you have shown yourselves no friends of the Emperor.”

Pilate paused, his face suffused with color as his anger grew with his listing of their offenses. Then he stood back on his heels, squared his shoulders, and held up his tightly clenched fist. “Now hear me, men of Judaea!” he shouted. “I have asked you to disperse and return to your homes. Stubbornly you have refused to heed my command. I am asking you again to abandon this unreasonable, senseless, and ill-advised effort and get yourselves outside the gates of Caesarea and on the roads that lead homeward. Hear me, by great Jove! This is my last command to you.” He leveled a shaking forefinger toward the multitude. “I have stationed my soldiers in disguise among you, and they are heavily armed. They have been instructed, upon my next command, to spring upon you and run you through with their swords.”

But in the vast oval of the colosseum not an Israelite moved to obey him. Stolidly, calmly, they faced the Procurator; silence was heavy upon the great throng.

Pilate’s face was twisted with wrath. “Then I must give the order, men of Judaea?” He shouted the question.

Not a man moved.

Then from the ranks nearest Pilate a man stepped forward a pace and held up his hand to speak. By his dress it was evident that he was one of the Temple leaders. “O noble Procurator,” he said in a loud voice, “though your soldiers run us through with swords until each of us has perished, we cannot submit to the profanation of God’s holy Temple; we cannot countenance without protest the treading into the dust of our God’s commandments. Before we agree to Rome’s profanation of our holy places and her flouting of our God’s laws, O Procurator, we will bow our necks to the Procurator’s soldiers. We will die, and gladly, for our God!”

“Profanation! Profanation! All I hear is Rome’s profanation of your traditions. By all the gods, in every other land our Emperor is honored, his banners and his emblems, his likenesses paraded on our staffs, all these are hailed with shouts and acclamations! And yet you Jews....”

Suddenly Pilate paused. The priestly leader who had just addressed him had fallen on his face in the dust of the great stadium, and beside him and behind him others now were prostrating themselves. Within moments every Jew in the place was lying face down upon the ground before the Procurator of Judaea. Mouth open, eyes darting from one area of the great concourse to another, aghast, Pilate stood silent. Then quietly he spoke to Longinus, who was standing near him. “Centurion, I cannot order men on their faces ran through with swords. It would be massacre.”

“So it would be, Excellency, on their faces or standing, since they are defenseless.”

Pilate turned back to face the prostrated multitude. “Stand on your feet!” he commanded. “I shall withhold for the moment at least my command to the soldiers.”

Without a word being said, without a change of countenance even, the Jews rose to their feet and faced the Procurator. “Now send me your High Priest and his father-in-law the former High Priest Annas,” Pilate commanded. “No harm will be done them; this I swear by the great Jove.”

Hours later Caiaphas and Annas returned from the conference with the Procurator at the palace. Mounting the rostrum from which Pilate had previously addressed them, Caiaphas held up his hand for silence. “Men of Israel, we have just concluded our meeting with the Procurator Pilate,” he announced. “An agreement has been reached. Now you may return in peace to your homes. The offensive emblems of Rome, the Procurator has assured us, will be removed so that they will no longer profane our holy places. The God of Israel, He is One!”

“The God of Israel, He is One!” The multitude of suddenly exultant Jews echoed his words in a great chorus, and a hosanna of shouts swept wave upon wave across the immense arena. Then, laughing and chattering, the people began pushing toward the Hippodrome’s exits.

And in all the throng not a man ventured to inquire of the High Priest what the terms of the agreement with Pilate had been.

17

An hour before the “Actium” was to sail out of the harbor at Caesarea on the return voyage to Rome, Centurion Longinus went aboard and handed the captain a heavily sealed communication addressed to the Prefect Sejanus.

“This is an army message of great importance,” he announced. “It must be delivered in person to the Prefect. He is expecting it, and if it is not delivered immediately after the docking of your ship, he will begin to inquire why he has not received it.” Actually, the centurion knew that Sejanus was not expecting a message from him on the returning “Actium,” but telling the captain so would insure the message’s getting quickly into the hands of the Prefect. The captain might well think that the centurion’s letter was in reply to a message brought him from Sejanus by the Tetrarch Herod Antipas.

The “Actium” two days before had brought the Tetrarch and his new wife Herodias and her daughter Salome to Caesarea, and from the wharf they had been escorted by Longinus and a detachment of his century to the Procurator’s Palace to be guests of Pilate and Claudia while resting a few days after the long voyage out from Rome. From Caesarea they planned a short visit to Jerusalem, and then they would travel northward through the Jordan Valley to the Tetrarch’s gleaming white marble palace at Tiberias.

It was when Longinus learned that the “Actium” would be returning directly to Rome that he decided to dispatch a report to the Prefect. The report related in considerable detail the events of the Procurator’s recent visit to Jerusalem, his flaunting, in disregard of Sergius Paulus’ warning, of the cohort’s banners from the Antonia ramparts, the subsequent storming of Caesarea by the irate Jews, and Pilate’s yielding to them, after a conference with Caiaphas and Annas. Longinus advanced no suggestion concerning the probable terms of the agreement between the Procurator and the Temple leaders. The centurion was confident, however, that the astute and suspicious Sejanus would infer from what he had left unwritten that Pilate had profited handsomely. Longinus concluded the message with an avowal that the report was factual and uncolored.

From the “Actium” Longinus returned to the headquarters of the cohort and that evening was a guest, along with Sergius Paulus, of the Procurator and his wife at a small, informal dinner honoring the Tetrarch, his wife, and her daughter. When they had finished the meal, Herodias and her hostess retired to Claudia’s apartment, and Salome went to her chamber. The four men remained reclining at the table, where after a while, as they drank wine and nibbled grapes and figs, the inhibitions of Pilate and Antipas, each vain and domineering and jealous of the other’s authority, began slowly to disappear. Gently at first Antipas chided the Procurator for his profanation of Jerusalem by flaunting the ensigns of Imperial Rome from the Tower of Antonia.

“Profanation! Profanation! All I hear in this contentious province is profanation. I am sick of the word.” Pilate wiggled a forefinger at the Tetrarch. “Do you consider Rome’s display of her honored emblems profanation of Jerusalem and this province, I ask you, Tetrarch?”

Antipas studied the fig he held between finger and thumb. “I don’t consider it profanation, nor do the Emperor and the Prefect, but I do agree with the Emperor and the Prefect that it is a wise course not to offend unnecessarily the people of Israel who do so hold.” It was a clever answer, and Antipas, knowing it, pressed the point. “It would be politic if the new Procurator learned to uphold the traditions of this land,” he continued, “so long, of course, as they do not seriously conflict with the interests of the Empire and certainly”—he smiled—“so long as the Emperor and the Prefect uphold them.”

Pilate was quick to strike back. “I was sent out to this province to rule it,” he declared, his eyes flashing indignation. “I was not sent here to cower and truckle, to lower Rome’s ensigns at the demands of your obstinate, cantankerous Jews,” he hissed. “I came to rule....”

“But you did lower Rome’s ensigns when those obstinate—Jews bared their necks to your swordsmen and refused to obey your command to return home,” Antipas interrupted. Then suddenly, as though seeking a truce, he changed his tone. “But I don’t blame you, Procurator. In fact, I admire you; you’re a very intelligent man. Living in this province must be trying to one who has never lived here before, and of course it’s unrewarding unless there are ... ah ... extra benefits, shall we say ... not provided by Rome. And there is much gold in the Temple’s coffers, I am told. It seems that no matter how much is withdrawn, a great deal still remains for the use of the Temple leaders, hmm?” He smiled appreciatively. “And no doubt the Prefect will approve, too, provided....” Grinning, he left the observation unfinished. “And with no Jewish blood shed by your soldiers, there will be nothing to explain to Tiberius, Excellency.”

Pilate glared, mouth open. But he did not deny the Tetrarch’s thinly veiled charge. “Profanations! Violated traditions!” He hurled across the room the grape he had selected from the silver dish of piled fruit and pointed a quaking finger at the Tetrarch. “And how dare you, Antipas, speak of my violating the traditions and offending the religion of the Jews, when you have just taken to bed your brother’s wife! Is that not a heinous offense for a Jew himself...?”

“Excellency!” Sergius Paulus, palpably fearful of what the exchange might quickly be leading to, jumped to his feet. “The hour is growing late, and the Centurion Longinus and I must be getting back to headquarters. Please excuse us, sir. We’ve enjoyed your hospitality, and we beg you to express our thanks to your wife.” He glanced toward Longinus, who nodded agreement. “And I thought, Excellency, that the Tetrarch perhaps might honor us by going with us—we have a sedan chair at the door—to inspect our cohort headquarters, should you, sir, be willing to excuse him.” He looked questioningly toward the Procurator and then the Tetrarch.

“Should the Tetrarch wish....”

“I shall be happy to accompany you,” Antipas interrupted. Carefully he pulled the stem from the fig. “It will be a change of air.” But he was smiling, and his manner was jovial; the tension of the moment had been dispelled.

“When you have finished with him, Sergius”—Pilate had calmed, too, and no rancor was revealed in his tone—“have him brought back, properly attended. He and the Tetrarchess are always welcome at the Procurator’s Palace.”

But Longinus knew, as the three prepared to leave the great dining hall, that relations between the Tetrarch and the Procurator were still strained; he suspected that they would remain so. The temperaments of the two men, coupled with the situations in which they had been placed, would demand it. In his own dealings with them, in his observation and appraisal of them and their activities, he told himself, he must bear this always in mind.

Meanwhile, lounging comfortably on Claudia’s large couch, pillows at their backs, the two women had been exchanging news of their own activities since they had last seen one another in Rome, and, more interesting to Claudia, Herodias had been revealing tidbits of gossip involving the more lively set in the Empire’s capital city. But soon the discussion narrowed to their own changed circumstances. Claudia was frank. “Yes, it’s just as I told you it would be that day you came to return my call. I said marrying Pilate would make no difference. Remember? Well, it hasn’t.” A cloud passed across her countenance. “Of course, we will have to be patient, though, and wait for things to work out.”

“But until they do, must you never...?” Herodias paused.

“No, it isn’t that bad,” Claudia hastened to reply, smiling. “We can see each other and we can be together ... more and more hereafter, I hope. We have been together already, for hours, in fact, both here at Caesarea and in Jerusalem at the Herod’s Palace, while Pilate conveniently, I do believe, busied himself at the Antonia Tower.” She shook her head. “Really, Herodias, I don’t know whether the man is stupid, quite wise, or just indifferent. But whatever he is, his being the way he is will help Longinus and me to arrange things.”

Herodias’ large dark eyes were bright now with scheming. “My dear, you have never been in Galilee, have you? It’s a beautiful land, especially now that spring is beginning to break, so much more interesting than this barren Judaea. We have so many flowers, and willows and oleanders and bright-blooming shrubs along the watercourses. I remember Galilee in the spring from my childhood days and on occasional visits since. So”—her eyes were dancing now—“you must go with us to Tiberias. We can contrive to have Longinus escort us. And in the Palace there”—her voice dropped to an intimate whisper—“you will have no one to disturb you.”

“But Antipas’ other wife? What would she say if I should go with you?”

“_I_ am the Tetrarchess of Galilee and Peraea,” she said evenly. “As soon as we get there, Antipas is going to divorce her and send her back to old Aretas.”

18

Before they reached the bend in the road roughly paralleling the Jordan, whose banks were beginning to color now with the awakening of willows and oleanders to advancing spring, the Tetrarch recognized the voice.

“By the beard of the venerable High Priest!” Antipas exclaimed. “This isn’t the place where he was making his stand when I came this way before, but it’s the same fellow, that mad prophet of the Wilderness. I’d know his haranguing anywhere.”

Longinus was riding beside the Tetrarch. Herodias and Claudia, with lively Salome a few paces back, were following in the narrow column, and just behind them rode Neaera, Tullia, and several other servants of the two households. Soldiers were in the vanguard and at the rear.

Antipas turned to Longinus. “Centurion, I wonder if we shouldn’t go another way and avoid encountering this fellow. I’d rather not see him or hear more of his ranting.”

“But _I_ want to see him.” Herodias had ridden abreast of the Tetrarch. “He must be the one I’ve just been hearing so much about in Jerusalem. Everybody was talking of his ability to sway the multitudes and his fearlessness in denouncing the Temple priests.”

“Yes, he’s the one. But, my dear Herodias,” the Tetrarch began to protest, “he’s likely to say something that will offend you, too. The fellow has no respect for the Tetrarch’s office or authority and no bridle on his loose tongue.”