GREEK AND JEW
Julian of Ephesus, now the presumptive Philadelphus Maccabaeus, rode
up the broad brown bosom of a hill that had confronted him for miles
to the south, and the sun had sloped until its early spring rays
struck level from the west. At the summit, he drew up his horse
suddenly with a quick intaking of the breath.
Below him lay Jerusalem.
South and east the barren summits of brown hills shaped a depression
in which the city lay. North, clean-white and regular, the wall of
Agrippa was printed against the cold blue of the sky. Below on three
lesser mounts and overflowing the vales between was the goodliest city
in all Asia.
About it and through it climbed such walls, planted on such bold
natural escarpment, that made it the most inaccessible fortification
in the world. On its highest hill stood a vision of marble and gold--a
fortress in gemstone--the Temple. Behind it towered Roman Antonia.
Westward the Tyropean Bridge spanned a deep, populous ravine. The high
broad street upon which the giant causeway terminated was marked by
the solemn cenotaphs of Mariamne and Phaselis and ended against the
Tower of Hippicus--a vast and unflinching citadel of stone. Under the
shadow of this pile was the high place of the Herods; in sight was a
second Herodian palace. South was the open space of the great markets;
near the southernmost segment of the outer wall was the semicircular
Hippodrome. Cut off from its neighbor by ancient walls were Ophlas,
overlooking Tophet and under the shadow of the Temple; Mount Zion
which the Lord had established, Akra of the valley, Moriah, the Holy
Hill, and Coenopolis or Bezetha which Agrippa I had walled. About the
immense outer fortifications crawled the shadowy valleys of Tophet, of
Brook Kedron and of Hinnom. Thickly scattered like fallen patches of
skies the pools of Siloam, Gihon, Shiloh, En-Rogel, the Great Pool,
the Serpent's Pool and the Dragon's Well reflected the color of the
mountain heavens. Between them wandered the blue threads of certain
aqueducts that supplied them. Everywhere rose the shafts of monuments
and memorials, old as the pride of Absalom, new as the folly of the
Herods; everywhere the aggressive paganism of Rome and Greece, which
would have paganized this monotheistic race out of very rancor against
its uprightness, violated with insolent beauty the hieratic severity
of the city's face. Rich, bold, strong, beautiful, Jerusalem was at
that hour, as viewed from the hill to the north, the perfection of
beauty and the joy of the whole earth.
For a moment ambition struggled nobly in the breast of the man that
overlooked it. Except for the obstacles he had placed in his own way
by his misdeeds, Julian of Ephesus at that moment might have become
great. But he had struck down his kinsman on the way, and such deeds
were remembered even in war-ridden Judea; he had come to Jerusalem
wearing his kinsman's name that he might despoil that kinsman's bride
of her dowry; a hundred other crimes of his commission stood in the
way to peace and success.
But about him the Passover pilgrims, catching their first glimpse of
the Holy City, gave way to the storm of emotion that had gradually
gathered as they drew near to the threatened City of Delight.
It had moved him to look upon this most majestic fortification,
embattled and begirt for resistance against the most majestic nation
in the world. But he who came as a stranger could not feel within him
the tenderness of old love, the sanctity of old tradition, and the
desperation of kin in his blood as he gazed upon Jerusalem. Yonder was
a roof-garden; to him, no more than that. But the inspired Jews beside
him knew that in that place the sun of noon had shone upon Bathsheba,
the beautiful; and in that neighboring high place the heart of the
Singing King had melted; to the north was a stretch of monotonous
ground overgrown with a new suburb; but that was the camp of
Sennacherib, the Assyrian whom the Angel of the Lord smote and his
army of one hundred and four score and five thousand, before the
morning. Yonder were squalid streets, older than any others. But the
Kings had walked them; the Prophets had helped wear trenches in their
stones; the heroes and the strong-hearted women of the ancient days
had gone that way. No house but was holy with tradition; no street but
was sanctified by event. Small wonder, then, that these who came to
this Passover, the most momentous one since that calamity which had
occurred forty years ago on Golgotha, wept, cried aloud to Heaven;
became beatified and made prophecies; railed; anathematized
Jerusalem's enemies; assumed vows and were threatening. Julian of
Ephesus was shaken. He looked about him on the tempestuous host, then
touched his horse and rode down to the city.
On the Hill Scopus over which he approached an inferior number of
Romans were camped, and these had maintained a semblance of siege only
sufficiently effective to close all the gates on three sides. The Sun
Gate to the south of the city was therefore the most accessible point
of entry for the pilgrims. Following the people who had preceded him,
Julian approached this portal, left his horse with the stable-keeper
without and prepared to enter Jerusalem.
Collecting at the causeway of the Sun Gate the pilgrims came with such
impetus that the foremost were rushed struggling and protesting
through the tunnel under the wall and forced well into Jerusalem
before they could control their own motion. Once within, the host
spread out so that one looking at the immense space they instantly
covered wondered how so great a mass ever passed through the
circumscribed limits of a fifty-foot gate. At times stopping was
impossible. Again there were momentary lulls, as when the sea recoils
upon itself and is stilled for an instant. They who stood to watch,
wearied of days of such invasion, unconsciously wished that the
interval might endure till they could rest their number-wearied
brains. But, as if the stagnation were the result of congestion
somewhere without the walls, when the wave returned it came with
redoubled height and power and the Sun Gate would roar with the noise
of their entry.
After the Ephesian had been swept in with his own company of pilgrims,
he saw that which even few of the new-comers had expected to see. The
immediate vicinity of the gate was laid waste. Up Mount Zion opposite
Hippicus and along the margin of the Tyropean Valley where the
Herodian and Sadducean palaces had seemed so fair from the north were
great blackened shells of walls and leaning pillars, partly buried in
ruin and rubbish. Far and wide the streets were littered with debris
and charred fragments of burned timbers. At another place on the
breast of Zion was a chaos of rock where a mansion had been literally
pulled down. Somewhere near Akra pale columns of pungent, wind-blown
smoke still rose from a colossal heap of fused matter that the
Ephesian could not identify. About it were neglected houses; not a
sign of festivity was apparent; windows hung open carelessly; the
hangings in colonnades were stripped away entirely or whipped loose
from the fastenings and abandoned to the winds. Numbers of dwellings
appeared to have been sacked; others were so closely barred and
fortified that their exteriors appeared as inhospitable as jails.
Confusion prevailed on the smoked and untidy marble Walk of the
Purified leading down from the Temple. Here those who held fast to the
Law met and contested for their old exclusiveness with wild heathen
Idumean soldiers, starvelings, ruffians and strange women from
out-lying towns. Far and wide were wandering crowds, surly, defiant,
discourteous, exacting. Manifestly it was the visitors who were the
aggressors. They had been overthrown and driven from their own into an
unsubjugated city which was secure. They felt the rage of the defeated
which are not subdued, and the resentment against another's unearned
immunity. The citizens of Jerusalem had not welcomed them and they
were enraged. Half a dozen fights of more or less seriousness were in
sight at once. A column of black wiry men in some semblance of uniform
pushed across the open space toward the Essene Gate. They took no heed
for any in their path. Those who could not escape were overturned and
trampled on. Meeting a rush at the gate they drew swords and coolly
hacked their way through screams of fear and pain and amazement. After
them went a wave of curses and complaint. Citizens against the
visitors; visitors against the citizens; soldiers against them all!
"And this cousin of mine meant to pacify all this!" the Ephesian
exclaimed to himself.
Jerusalem, that had for fifteen hundred years adorned herself at this
time with tabrets and had gone forth in the dance of them that make
merry, was drunken with wormwood and covered with ashes.
All at once the Ephesian saw four soldiers standing together and with
them, manifestly under their protection, was a Greek of striking
beauty. He wore on his fine head a purple turban embroidered with a
golden star.
Without a moment's hesitation, the Ephesian approached. The spears of
the four soldiers fell and formed a barrier around the Greek. The
new-comer smiled confidently.
"Greeting, servant of Amaryllis," he said. "I am your lady's expected
guest."
The Greek came forth from the square formed by his guard.
"I am that servant of Amaryllis," he said courteously. "But show me
yet another sign."
The Ephesian drew from his bosom the Maccabaean signet and flashed its
blue fires at the Greek. The servant stepped hastily between the
soldiers and the new-comer.
"Thy name?" he asked in a whisper.
"I am Philadelphus Maccabaeus."
The servant bent and taking the hem of the woolen tunic pressed it to
his lips.
"Happy hour!" he exclaimed. "I pray you follow me."
The pretender breathed a relieved sigh and joined his protector.
They passed down into Akra and approached the straight column of
pungent smoke towering up from a charred heap that the Ephesian in
spite of his haste inspected curiously.
"What is that?" he asked of the Greek.
"That, master, is the city granaries."
"The granaries!" the Ephesian cried, aghast.
The Greek inclined his head.
"What--what--fired them?" the Ephesian asked.
"John and Simon differed on the point of its control and each fired it
to keep the other from possessing it!"
For a moment the Ephesian was thunderstruck. Then he quickened his
pace.
"By the horns of Capricornus!" he avowed. "The sooner one gets out of
this, the wiser he must be counted!"
The Greek looked at him with lifted brows and led on.
They crossed the Tyropean Valley and approached a small new house of
stone, abutting the vast retaining wall that was built against Moriah.
A line of soldiers was thrown out from the entrance to the house and
his conductor, after whispering a word to the captain, led the way up
to a double-barred door. A long time after he had rapped, there was
the sound of falling chains and the door swung open. A second Greek
servant of no less beauty bowed the new-comer and his companion
within. The noise of the streets was suddenly cut off. Soft dusk and
quiet proved that the doors of Amaryllis had been shut upon unhappy
Jerusalem.
The second servant drew a cord and a roller of matting lifted and
showed a skylight. Philadelphus the pretender was in the andronitis of
a Greek house.
It was typical. None but a Greek with the purest taste had planned it.
Walls and pavement were of unpolished marble, lusterless white. A
marble exedra built in a semicircle sat in the farther end, facing a
chair wholly of ivory set beside a lectern of dull brass. At either
end of the exedra on a pedestal formed by the arms, a brass staff
upheld a flat lamp that cast its luster down on the seat by night.
Against an opposite wall built at full length of the hall, was a
pigeonholed case, which was stacked with brass cylinders. This was the
library of the Greek. At a third side was a compound arch concealed by
a heavy white curtain. There were low couches spread with costly white
material which were used when Amaryllis set her table in her
andronitis, and at the arches leading into the interior of the house
there were draperies. But the chamber, with all its richness, had a
splendid emptiness that made it imposing, not luxurious.
After a single admiring survey of the hall in which he had been left
alone, the pretended Philadelphus fortified himself against his most
critical test.
Without a sound, without even so much as the rustling of a garment to
announce her, a woman emerged from a passage leading into the interior
of the house. He confronted the only person in Jerusalem who might
know him as an impostor.
The woolen chiton of her countrywomen draped a figure almost too
slender, yet perfect in its delicate modeling. Though her eyes were
black, her hair was fair and brilliant with a wash of gold powder. Her
features were Hellenic, cold, pure and classic, and for all her youth
and beauty there was an atmosphere about her of middle-age, immense
experience, and old sagacity.
The pretender braced himself for the scrutiny the eyes made of him.
"You are that Philadelphus, as my servant tells me?" she asked.
"I am he."
She inclined her head.
"Welcome; in the name of all the need of you!"
After a silence he came closer and lifted her hand to his lips. He
added nothing, but presently raised his eyes softened with feeling and
unexpressed appreciation.
"Certainly you have suffered, lady," he said finally in a subdued
tone. "But please God you will not suffer alone hereafter."
Amaryllis' non-committal front changed.
"You are gentler of speech than is common among the Maccabees," she
said.
"Nevertheless the Maccabees are the more touched by devotion," he
maintained.
He led her to the exedra, unslung his wallet and laid it on the
lectern before them.
"When thou hast leisure, perchance thou wilt find interest in these
papers here."
She thanked him and there was a moment's silence. Under his lashes the
impostor saw that he had not filled her fancied picture of the
Maccabee made from long years of correspondence. She was disappointed;
her intuition was perplexed. He would complete his work and get away
in time.
"My wife is here?" he asked.
"She came yesterday," Amaryllis responded, clapping her hands in
summons. A female servant of such prepossessing appearance that
Philadelphus looked at her again, bowed in the archway.
"Send hither the princess," Amaryllis said.
"The princess," Philadelphus repeated to himself. "Then, by Ate, I am
the prince!"
"While we wait," Amaryllis continued, "let us talk of details which
you may not have patience to hear after she comes. Jerusalem, as you
have learned, is in grave danger--"
"Jerusalem should fear the Roman army less than herself. I have seen
its disease."
"The citizens will hail Titus as a deliverer. But this week's
ceremonies are bringing us disaster. Should Titus be forced to lay
siege about us, how shall we feed this multitude of a million on the
supplies gathered for only a third of that number?"
"Gathered and burned."
"Even so. But of your creature comforts. My house is open to your
chief enemy. It must be so. You must be hidden--not concealed, but
disguised. You know my weakness for people of charm and people of
ability. My house is full of them. The master of this place is
indulgent; he permits me to add to my collection whatever pleases me
in the way of society. Therefore, you are come as a student of this
wonderful drama to be enacted in Jerusalem presently. You may live
under part of your name. Substitute, however, your city for your
surname. Be Philadelphus of Ephesus. No one then will question your
presence here.
"I have bound to me by oath and by fear one hundred Idumeans who will
rise or fall with you. They are of John's own army and alienated to
you without his knowledge. Hence they are in armor and ready at any
propitious moment. This house is provisioned and equipped for siege;
everything is prepared."
"At what cost, my Amaryllis?" he asked tenderly.
She drew away from him quickly, as if his tone had touched a place of
deeper disappointment.
"That I do not remember. I am your minister; you need no other. More
than the one would be multiplying chances for betrayal."
"And what wilt thou have out of all this for thyself?" he asked.
Slowly she turned her face back to him.
"I would have it said that I made a king," she said.
There was a step in the corridor leading into the andronitis, and,
smiling, Amaryllis rose. Philadelphus got upon his feet and looked to
catch the first glimpse of the woman who was bringing him two hundred
talents.
A woman entered the hall. Behind her came a servant bearing a
shittim-wood casket.
Had Amaryllis been looking for suspicious signs, she would have
observed in the intense silence that fell, in the arrested attitude of
the pair, more than a natural embarrassment. Any one informed that
these were a pair of impostors would have seen that there was no
confusion here, but amazement, chagrin and no little fear.
Instead, Amaryllis, nothing suspecting, glanced from one set face to
the other and laughed.
"Poor children! Married fourteen years and more than strangers to each
other! I will take myself off until you recover."
She signed to the servant to follow her and passed out of the hall.
Philadelphus then put off his stony quiet and gazed wrathfully at the
woman who had entered.
Hers was a fine frame, broad and square of shoulder, tall and lank of
hip as some great tiger-cat, and splendid in its sinuosity. She had
walked with a long stride and as she dropped into the chair she
crossed her limbs so that her well-turned ankles showed and the hands
she clasped about her knees were long and strong, white and remarkably
tapering. Her features were almost too perfect; her beauty was
sensuous, insolent and dazzling. Withal her presence intimated
tremendous primal charm and the mystery of undiscovered
potentialities. And she was royal! No mere upstart of an impostor
could have assumed that perfect hauteur, that patrician bearing.
But the pretended Philadelphus was not impressed by this beauty.
"How now, Salome?" he demanded. "What play is this?"
The Ephesian actress motioned toward the shittim-wood casket.
"For that," she said calmly.
Her voice became, instantly, her foremost charm. It was a deep voice;
the profoundest contralto with an illimitable strength in suggestion.
"Where is--what is that?"
"Two hundred talents."
Philadelphus took a step toward her.
"What!" he exclaimed evilly. "Whose two hundred talents?"
"Mine."
There was silence in which the man's fingers bent, as if he felt her
throat between them. Then he recovered himself.
"But--this woman--where is she?"
The actress lifted her shapely shoulders.
"Where is the Maccabee?" she asked in return.
He made no answer.
"Did you get that treasure here--since yesterday?" he asked at last
querulously.
"No, by Pluto! I got it in the hills near to Emmaus. You would have
had it in another day." She laughed impudently, in spite of the
murderous blackening in his face.
"Then, since you are such a shrewd thief, why did you come here at
all, since you had the gold?" he demanded, astonished in spite of his
rage.
She waved a pair of jeweled hands.
"They said that the Maccabee was strong and ambitious and forceful,
that he would be king over Judea. Knowing you, I believed he would
still come to Jerusalem in spite of you. How did you do it? In his
sleep? Now, I," she continued with an assumption of concern, "failed
in that detail. She was guarded by a monster. I could not get near
her. But I got the casket."
"She will come here then!" Philadelphus exclaimed.
"What of it! Amaryllis does not know her; no one else does. And I have
her proofs--and her dowry!"
After a silence in which she read the expression on his face, she rose
and came near him with determination in her manner.
"You will have the wisdom not to recognize her," she said, "lest I
suddenly discover that you are not the Philadelphus I expected."
He made rapid survey of her advantage over him, and submitted.
"But there will be no need of waiting for such an issue," he fumed,
after a silence. "I am here and not the Maccabee, whose crown you
coveted. We shall get out of this perilous city."
"So?" she said, lifting her finely penciled brows. "No, we shall not."
"Why?" he stormed.
"Because," she answered, "John of Gischala may yet be king of
Judea--and John hath a queen's diadem for sale at two hundred
talents--or a heart which I can have for nothing."
There was malevolent and impotent silence in the andronitis of
Amaryllis, the Greek.