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.