what you mean, little one. I cannot believe that any human possesses
supernatural power; in fact, as I have told you many times, I doubt the
existence of supernatural beings, including your Yahweh.” She laughed
again. “But you and Cornelius outnumber me. I should have Longinus here
to support me.”
But when a few weeks later the Centurion Longinus did sail into the
harbor at Caesarea, Claudia had no longer a thought for the Galilean
mystic and his reported wonder-working.
The centurion journeyed on a coastal vessel bound from Seleucia to
Alexandria. He had sailed from Rome as soon as weather conditions
permitted; from Seleucia he had moved on to Antioch to report to the
Legate Vitellius. Returning a few days later, he had boarded another
vessel destined for the Palestinian ports and Alexandria.
On coming ashore at Caesarea the centurion went first to the garrison
headquarters and reported to Sergius Paulus. That duty completed, he
visited the Procurator’s Palace, ostensibly to pay his respects to
Pontius Pilate. The Procurator, polite but coldly formal, talked with
him for only a moment before excusing himself and leaving the palace.
Longinus, remarking about it to Claudia, wondered if the Procurator was
finally becoming jealous.
“No, he isn’t jealous, by all the gods, and that makes me furious with
him!” Claudia had answered. “But he may suspect that you’ve been spying
on him and that Vitellius called you to Antioch to report on his
administration of affairs in Judaea and then sent you to Rome to relay
information and suggestions to Sejanus.”
“He would be entirely right, too, in thinking so. And you can add old
Herod Antipas to my watched list.” He thought, with sudden amusement, of
the third name on the list given him by Sejanus when first the Prefect
sent him out to Palestine, but he did not comment. “And what I told the
Prefect about both of them, for the Legate Vitellius and from my own
observations, didn’t make them any more secure in their positions, by
the gods!”
Quickly he related his experiences in Rome; he had met several times
with Sejanus, once to discuss ways of increasing the output of the
glassworks in Phoenicia. On another occasion the two had gone out to
Capri for an audience with Tiberius. “The Emperor asked about his
beloved stepdaughter,” he said, “but I professed to have little
information about you. Sejanus also quizzed me—I’m sure he still
suspects us—but he, too, learned nothing.”
“But what is going to happen, Longinus—about us, I mean—and when? Is
there any likelihood still of Pilate’s being recalled ... soon?”
“Yes, I’d say there was. I know Sejanus is losing patience with Pilate;
he seems to hear everything that happens out here, and Pilate’s
inability to rule Judaea without continually provoking turmoil and
protesting by the Jews angers the Prefect. The only thing that’s kept
Pilate as Procurator this long, I suspect, is the fact that Sejanus
apparently doesn’t suspect that Pilate is dipping too heavily into the
taxes, if he is ... and I can’t say yet that he is. That was one
question he kept coming back to in talking with me, if there was any
evidence that the Procurator was not sending to Rome all the revenues he
was supposed to.”
“Did the Prefect indicate that he might call Pilate to Rome for
questioning?”
“I couldn’t say that he did. But if the Procurator should be ordered to
the capital to justify his administration of Judaea, he won’t be
returned, you can be sure. The same thing is true of Herod Antipas. I
believe the Procurator and the Tetrarch stand in precarious positions;
the next few months could determine the fate of both.”
Longinus left the palace soon after Pilate had departed; he and Claudia,
they agreed, would meet again when the opportunity was afforded. But
that opportunity did not come quickly; he did not return to the palace
until the Procurator summoned him there to discuss plans for the
forthcoming journey to Jerusalem.
A week later the Procurator and his party, with Longinus commanding one
of the escorting centuries, set out for Israel’s capital and the great
Feast of the Passover.
Jerusalem
[Illustration: decorative glyph]
39
The caravan from Galilee had halted on the plain before Jericho for rest
and the midday meal, and now the Tetrarch’s party and the escorting
soldiers of Cornelius’ century were preparing to resume their journey.
Two days and a half of steady traveling southward had brought them from
Tiberias through the rapidly greening gorge of the Jordan, and soon they
would face the most grueling and dangerous part of the journey, the
steep and boulder-locked climb to Jerusalem.
Centurion Cornelius, who had been making a quick inspection of the
assembled legionaries, approached Herod Antipas and saluted. “Sire, I
need now to determine your wishes”—he bowed to Herodias—“and the wishes
of the Tetrarchess, for the remainder of our journey up to Jerusalem. If
you wish to rest awhile, we could make camp here and leave early in the
morning for Jerusalem. Or we could move on now and camp for the night
where the Jericho road begins its ascent to Jerusalem. But if you
prefer, we can set out now and not stop until we reach the capital,
though it will probably be well past nightfall before we enter the
city.”
“Are you fearful of traveling the Jericho road after the sun has set,
Centurion?” Antipas inquired. “Do you think that perhaps robbers or
zealot bands might sweep down on us from the rocks?”
“I have no fear, Sire; certainly none, if they knew our strength, would
attempt it. And before we enter that region, I’ll rearrange our order of
march to strengthen our guard against a surprise attack.”
“Then I suggest that we continue on to Jerusalem today,” Herodias spoke
up. “We can rest better tomorrow in the palace than we can here in camp,
even though”—she turned malevolent eyes on the Tetrarch, and her tone
was bitterly sarcastic—“we shall be lodging in the old Hasmonean Palace
in order that our Palace of the Herods may be occupied by the Procurator
and his wife.”
“Yes, the Tetrarchess is right, Centurion,” Antipas agreed
complaisantly. “Let’s push on to Jerusalem today.” He ignored his wife’s
caustic remark. “We’ll have tonight and all tomorrow to rest before the
start of the Passover celebration.”
Beyond Jericho, where the Peraean road joined the road up from Galilee
and one that came down along the western side of the Jordan from the
region of Ephraim, the way began to fill with pilgrims going up to
Israel’s capital for the annual great spring festival of the Passover.
As the caravan neared the point where the road began its steep climb,
Cornelius called a halt. While the Tetrarch and Herodias were having a
brief respite from their saddles, he called in his legionaries and
changed the pattern of their advance. Down through the Jordan valley
they had been moving in column along the roadway with guards ahead of
and behind the Tetrarch’s party and only now and then a few soldiers on
the flanks.
But now Cornelius gave orders to Decius to divide the century into three
groups, the largest of which would continue along the Jericho road,
while the other two would move forward with the Tetrarch’s group, one on
its right flank, the other on the left, and each several hundred yards
from the road.
“I’m not expecting any trouble,” he explained, “but if there are any
Zealots lying in wait for us, in all probability they’ll be up there in
that defile where the road cuts through the rocks. You men out on the
flanks will be able to beat them off; if they’re crouched beside the
road, we’ll trap them between your columns and us.”
When the division of the century had been completed, the centurion had a
final warning. “Stay abreast of us, and keep in contact. And now, let’s
get moving. Men, keep your eyes open. These Zealots are bent on killing
every Roman in Palestine. They’re clever, and they know every foot of
ground in this region.”
The steep rise of the narrow Jericho road and the push of pilgrims
trudging ahead slowed the progress of the caravan, and it was nearing
sunset when once more Cornelius halted the column. “It’s been a hard
climb, and the animals are laboring,” he explained to the Tetrarch. “A
short rest will refresh us for the last few miles into Jerusalem. Soon
we’ll be past the boulders and can move faster. And with danger of
assault by robbers ended, we can pull in our flanking files. So we
should be approaching Jerusalem by nightfall.”
But the centurion had spoken too quickly. They went hardly a mile
farther and were moving slowly through the last narrow defile in the
ascending road before it veered sharply around screening boulders to
come on a level plateau extending to the vicinity of Bethany; the
caravan was strung out in a long column and the advance guard had
disappeared around the turn in the gorge-like roadway. In the instant
that Herod and the Tetrarchess, with Cornelius and several of the
escorting legionaries just ahead of or behind them, had advanced into
the narrowest portion of the rock-walled canyon, they heard a sudden
commotion above them. Looking up, they saw on each side of the pass,
glaring down upon them and with spears poised, a group of grizzled,
fierce-eyed insurgents.
“Halt, Roman dogs!” shouted a hulking, reddish-bearded fellow, as he
drew back his spear menacingly. “Get down from your beast before I nail
you to his belly like a thief to his cross! And you”—with his free hand
he gestured toward the Tetrarch—“you traitor to Israel, you fawning
puppet of evil Rome, stay where you are! You, too”—his angry black eyes
were studying Herodias—“you adulterous sharer of your uncle’s bed, don’t
you move!”
“Who are you? What do you want?” Cornelius demanded loudly, in the hope
that his soldiers in the flanking columns would hear.
“You needn’t be screaming, soldier,” the burly fellow said calmly.
“There’s nobody to help you. We have you surrounded. See?” He pointed to
his men in the rocks on the other side of the road. “One wrong move and
we’ll stick your carcasses full of spears. And you needn’t be hoping for
help from those up ahead”—he motioned—“or down there.” He threw back his
bearish great head and roared his laughter. “We have them cornered,
too.” Then suddenly he was scowling again. “You dogs of Rome! Throw down
your weapons! Quickly, before we forget ourselves and let our spears
fly!”
“Do as he says, men,” Cornelius commanded, dropping his sword. “But what
do you want?” he asked the highwaymen’s leader again. He had decided
that the safest course would be to pretend that he knew nothing of the
rebel group, that ruthless party of guerrilla-fighting revolutionaries
known as Zealots who had sworn not to rest until every imperialist Roman
had been vanquished from their nation’s soil. “We have brought little
money,” he said casually. “We aren’t Jews, you know; we aren’t going up
to Jerusalem to purchase animals for the Passover sacrifices.”
The centurion’s thrust at the Israelites seemed to incense the fellow.
“No, you mongrel of a Roman,” he roared, “nor would your sacrifice be
acceptable to Israel’s God were you of a mind to offer it! Now get down,
all you Romans! We’re taking your horses. But you and your woman, Herod,
stay where you are. We’re taking you with us for ransom, and if the
money isn’t quickly forthcoming to redeem you”—he tugged at his flaring
dirt-caked beard and once again laughed uproariously—“we’ll skin you and
one dark night pin your worthless hides to the door of old Herod’s
Palace.” But quickly his demeanor changed again. He turned to glare at
his comrades. “Get down there and pick up their weapons,” he commanded,
“and mount the horses. We’ve got to be getting back into the hills. And
you, Bildad and Achbor, I’ll hold you accountable for the Tetrarch.
Dysmas and Cush, you take charge of the woman.” His sneering countenance
softened into an evil grinning. “And see that no harm comes to her. I
may wish myself to examine her seductive charms.”
Antipas sat staring stonily ahead, his countenance a frozen mask of
fear. But anger added a flush to the cheeks of the frightened
Tetrarchess. She did not venture, however, to challenge the man’s
insulting remark.
The revolutionaries scampered like sure-footed mountain goats down from
the rocks and quickly assembled the swords that Cornelius’ soldiers had
thrown to the ground. The leader, who had stayed in his position atop an
overjutting boulder, watched eagle-eyed along with several of his band
who had continued to stand guard. “Issachar, you and Nadab see to the
weapons those frightened dogs have thrown down,” he called. “See that
not one remains to them when we’re gone. Now, Achbor and you, Bildad,
get started with the Tetrarch, and let the woman follow. Men, mount the
horses”—he paused an instant to watch one of his men who was having
trouble getting into the saddle—“all you who know how to ride a horse
... and Coz, you don’t, I see.”
“But you can’t get away into the rocks with these horses. You have our
swords; why don’t you leave us the horses...?”
“And let you fly into Jerusalem and have old Pilate’s soldiers combing
through the hills for us? Oh, no, Roman dog, we aren’t fools. You’ll
stand in your tracks until we’re gone, or we’ll come charging back and
slit your throats and leave you here for the vultures to clean your
bones.” He suddenly whirled about, for from behind him came the sound of
men running through the rocks back from the road.
“Romans! Romans!” Cornelius heard someone shouting in Aramaic. “Fly!
Roman soldiers!” In the next instant a bearded, coarse fellow burst into
view above the deep-cut trail. “We can’t stand against them, Bar Abbas;
there are too many of them!” he shouted. “We’d better get across the
road and into those rocks!” He looked down and spied his companions and
their captured party. “The Romans!” he yelled. “Fly men! There are too
many for us to fight them!”
“Fly!” yelled the gang’s leader. “Go out through that ravine!” He
pointed. “Get yourselves lost in the rocks, and hurry!” He turned to the
man who had just rushed up to him. “How many did there appear to be,
Hamor?”
“Many. I could not count them. We speared several before they discovered
us....”
“Fools! If you’d held your peace and stayed under cover, they wouldn’t
have known you were there. Now you’ve caused us to be flushed out. By
the beard of the High Priest, Hamor, haven’t I warned you...?”
“But we thought there were only a handful....”
“Through that way!” Bar Abbas turned his back toward the road and was
signaling the revolutionaries racing toward him. Cornelius, who since
his first sight of the burly fellow had suspected he was the notorious
Zealot marauder, couldn’t see the fleeing Israelites, but he could hear
their sandals slapping against the loose stones. And close behind
them—he was able distinctly to distinguish the sound of their heavy
boots crunching the gravel and scattering the pebbles—came the pursuing
legionaries of his flanking file on the west.
Already the assailants in the defile of the road were fleeing. Some
clambered up the steep sides of the little ravine that opened into the
gulch of the roadway and disappeared into the sheltering boulders above;
others ran down the road to the end of the canyon and turned eastward;
several went the other way along the narrow trail and then turned off in
the same direction the others had taken. But before they had all cleared
the road, Bar Abbas and his companions on the boulders above, still
clutching their spears, had dropped into the defile and without a glance
toward their now liberated prisoners had scampered into the converging
ravine.
Hardly had the burly Bar Abbas disappeared before the pursuing Romans
were plunging into the boulders beside the road. In another moment
several of them were peering down into the narrow roadway. In that same
instant Cornelius, looking up, spied Decius. “Here!” the centurion
called out. “Down that way!” He pointed. “Hurry!”
“Cornelius, by all the gods, you aren’t going to let them get away, are
you!” screamed Herodias, having suddenly found her voice.
“But, my dear Herodias”—Antipas turned ponderously in his saddle to face
his spouse—“certainly the centurion knows what....”
“Hah! The Tetrarch has come to life! He speaks, now that Bar Abbas and
his revolutionaries have fled,” she observed sneeringly.
“Bar Abbas,” Cornelius said, ignoring the Tetrarchess and Herod, as
Decius and several of his detachment clambered down into the road. “They
pounced on us from the rocks there”—he pointed—“and had us disarmed. I
was hoping you would hear the commotion.”
“They jumped us the same way, Centurion,” Decius said. “I think they
killed two of our men. I left some men with them. We got several of the
revolutionaries, though.”
“It’s a poor exchange. But get after him, Decius. Here, Galba, Licinius,
Mallius”—Cornelius called out a half dozen of the men who had been in
his detachment—“go with them; you saw Bar Abbas; you’ll know him.”
Already the men were grabbing up their swords from the pile Bar Abbas’
men had left in their rush to get away. “They were headed east, toward
the Wilderness. In a moment they’ll be running into Lucius on the flank
over there. If he can turn them back, we’ll have them in a bag. But they
may break through him. Stay after them, Decius; get that Bar Abbas, and
try to take him alive.” He turned to another of his men. “Livius, take a
detachment and go down the road; you saw where the revolutionaries
turned off left. Marius, take your squad and go that way”—he pointed up
the Jericho road toward Jerusalem—“and run down those that fled in that
direction; you saw where they turned off. Follow them. And all of you be
careful; we want no more ambushes.” He called out several more names.
“You men stay here with me,” he said. “We’ll see that no harm comes to
the Tetrarch and his lady.” He smiled wryly as he looked toward
Herodias. “We almost didn’t do that awhile ago.” Then he turned again to
Decius. “We’re moving out of this trap in here, though,” he said. “We’ll
be up there a thousand paces. And hurry, men; it will soon be dark in
those rocks.” He signaled for them to be off. “I want that Bar Abbas.”
Less than half an hour later Marius and his men returned. They were
leading a manacled Israelite. “We saw only five men,” Marius reported.
“Two of them we killed, and this one we cornered between two big rocks.
The other two slipped away; we searched, but we’re sure they’re gone
now. This fellow is a Galilean, named Gesmas, he says.”
“And you had nobody hurt?” Marius nodded. “Good. Keep a sharp eye on
this fellow.” Cornelius pointed. “Livius is coming in. No prisoners, I
believe.”
Livius reported that his men had killed or wounded several of the
fleeing revolutionaries. He had had only one man cut slightly by an
Israelite’s desperately wielded spear; the weapon had grazed the
soldier’s shoulder. “We saw no signs of Lucius’ flanking file,” Livius
revealed. “They must have been up ahead, and the revolutionaries we were
pursuing must have slipped around their rear. They know this country;
they simply disappeared like conies into those big rocks. But maybe
Lucius intercepted some of those that Decius went after.”
“Look!” One of the Romans pointed. “There’s Decius.” Having moved up
from the narrow defile through the boulders, they could see out on both
sides of the road. “And he has two prisoners.”
“Yes. And one of them, by all the gods”—Cornelius was straining to see
more clearly in the gathering dusk—“is Bar Abbas! Great Jove, he caught
the big prize!”
The other Israelite, too, they discovered in a moment, was a much wanted
revolutionary, one of Bar Abbas’ principal lieutenants, a Galilean named
Dysmas.
Lucius had stayed out on the flank, Decius explained, to prevent any
sudden desperate attempt of the Zealots to rescue their leader. They
were still no doubt in the rocks back from the road, perhaps regrouping
their scattered forces.
“From here into Jerusalem the road is clear, and they won’t be able to
prepare any ambush.” The centurion called out four soldiers standing
near him. “Go tell Lucius to come in nearer. We can move faster that
way, and in the deepening darkness it will be safer for everybody. Tell
him we’re starting at once for Jerusalem.” As they were leaving, he
turned again to Decius. “See that the prisoners are bound securely, and
manacle each one between two of our men. And box them in with guards.
Give them no chance of getting away from us or being rescued.”
Herodias had been watching silently but with evident interest. “It seems
to me, Centurion,” she observed petulantly, “that you could prevent
either eventuality by executing these rebel scum right now.”
“I am a Roman soldier, Tetrarchess. These men have had no trial.”
She pointed to her silent spouse, glumly sitting his horse. “He is the
Tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea. These revolutionaries are Galileans. He
is the proper one to try them.”
“No, my dear Herodias,” Antipas spoke out. “This is neither the time nor
the place to conduct any trial. Centurion, let us proceed with your
plans to go on into Jerusalem.”
Herodias lifted her head haughtily, but she made no reply. As soon as
the caravan re-formed and was ready for the march, Cornelius gave the
command to move forward. Less than two hours later he led the Tetrarch
and Tetrarchess through the gate and let them and their servants into
the gloomy pile of the old Hasmonean Palace. From there he marched his
century to the Fortress of Antonia, where he surrendered his three
prisoners to the dungeon jailer, who locked them, still bound securely,
in the darkness and squalor of one of the lowest-level cells.
When he had seen to the quartering of his men in their Antonia barracks,
he climbed the stone stairway in the southwestern tower and walked along
the corridor to the room he had been assigned in the officers’ quarters.
He had decided he would have a steaming bath and put on fresh clothing
before going down to the mess for a late evening meal.
The chamber, the centurion found, was close and warm. He pushed open the
window; then he unbolted the door and walked out onto the balcony. Down
below lights blazed in the Temple courts, and men scurried to and fro,
already in a frenzy of Passover preparations.
40
Once again the household of Procurator Pontius Pilate was settled in the
magnificent great Palace of the Herods; once again the ancient capital
of Israel was teeming with countless Jews come up for the Feast of the
Passover.
From every region and hamlet, almost from every home, in Judaea,
Samaria, Peraea, and Galilee, from Antioch, Damascus, Tarsus,
Alexandria, Memphis, and Cyrene, from Ephesus, Athens, and Corinth, from
all provinces rimming the Great Sea, even to Rome and beyond, from the
islands of Cyprus and Sardinia and Sicily and Crete and those numerous
smaller ones dotting the Aegean, devout Israelites had swarmed into
Jerusalem’s crowded narrow ways and squares before the gates.
Every Jewish home, whether pretentious stone residence crowning Mount
Zion or squalid malodorous hovel burrowed beneath the city’s walls in
noisome Ophel, was overflowing with pilgrim kinsmen returned for this
greatest annual feast of Israel. For every person living in Jerusalem,
Centurion Longinus casually estimated as he stood on Fortress Antonia’s
balcony outside his chamber, perhaps ten pilgrims had squirmed
themselves inside the walls of the old city. And countless other
thousands had been unable to find living quarters within the walls.
Throngs of Passover celebrants overflowed the slope downward to the
Brook Kidron and up the eastern rise past Gethsemane to the summit of
the Mount of Olives and as far as Bethany. To the south, beyond the ever
smoldering fires of the refuse dumps in the Hinnom valley, and to the
west, tents and brush arbors of Passover pilgrims dotted the untilled
areas through which ran the Bethlehem road. Northward, too, though
Longinus could not survey that section of Jerusalem and its environs
because of the great tower at his back, and to his right over beyond the
massive pile of the Palace of the Herods, for many furlongs past the
Ephraim and Joppa Gates, thin curlings of grayish-white smoke spiraled
upward from small fires over which Passover pilgrims were bending now in
preparation of the evening meal.