Hear Me, Pilate!

“So, Longinus, the value of a slave is to be measured in direct proportion to the value of the merchandise—in your case, glassware—he is able to produce? And when tomorrow you l...

“Wealthy Jews,” he replied. “One of them anyway, a merchant from Arimathea. Both of them members of the Sanhedrin. They came to petition me.” He saw that she was still not satis...

Then one day in late summer Cornelius appeared at the Procurator’s Palace. Pilate, it happened, had ridden down the coast to Joppa; Claudia and the centurion could talk freely....

Claudia sat up in bed, instantly and fully awake. She knew that she had been dreaming, a confused, wandering, disconnected, senseless sort of dream, though now with her awakenin...

“Yes. I’m going with Cornelius as far as Tiberias. From there I’ll go across to Ptolemaïs and get a ship for Rome. Cornelius is providing me an escort to the coast. I’ll have to...

With Tullia’s aid, she dressed, and they descended to the ground level and went out through the great vaulted doorway on the south side of the Tower. A moment later the two wome...

“I would say so, Mistress,” Tullia answered. “Every devout Jew tries to go up for the Passover Feast. And certainly the Galilean is a devout Jew. Even though the Temple priests...

He found Longinus seated not far from the crosses on a low stone outcropping. His head was bent forward, cradled in his hands, and his eyes were fastened to the ground.

As the century began to pass north of the crowded Subura, that motley district of massed tenements, shops, taverns, and brothels already being pointed out as the birthplace more...

“Then is there anything else not entirely clear to you concerning your duties, powers, and functions as I’ve outlined them? Do you fully understand that as Procurator you will b...

Claudia pulled the fig open and nibbled at the firm reddish flesh inside. “It’s delicious,” she said, “and such a surprise.” She saw that Tullia’s eyes were ablaze with an excit...

The capricious flame spattered darts of thin yellow light on walls and floor as the doors swung gently closed. Claudia turned from her tall, deeply tanned, uniformed escort to a...

As they approached the southern shore line of the Sea of Galilee, Longinus sent riders ahead to notify Chuza of the impending arrival of the Tetrarch and his party at Tiberias....

“But, my dear daughter, don’t you know that one never turns his back upon the Tetrarch?” Antipas shouted, as he leaned out across the table, his black eyes bulging as though the...

For a moment he stood above her, silent, and then, bending down quickly, he lifted her from the couch and started toward the still open bedroom door. He was past the fountain wh...

“That’s why I came to see you, Herodias. I wanted to thank you for a most enjoyable evening too, but mainly I wanted to tell you that Longinus and I have—how did you express it—...

Longinus laughed. “No,” he answered. “I was just thinking aloud again. I must be growing old.” He reached down and picked up the glassware package. “But let’s be moving on. I’m...

“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...

“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 tradi...

But Pilate paid them little heed. Turning his back upon the High Priest and the clamoring throng on the esplanade below, he withdrew into the Praetorium. “Bring him inside,” he...

Quickly old Herod had transformed Strato’s Towers into a beautiful and busy city more Roman than Jewish. A stranger unfamiliar with the region and just landed from a trireme in...

“No! No!” shouted the Tetrarch. “We have had enough of their dancing! But now, my friends”—Antipas faced right and left to look along the couches, as his guests began to sit up—...

Already the soldiers of the two centuries, impatient to get ashore ever since they had first spotted Mount Carmel towering above the promontory jutting out from the Phoenician c...

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 i...

Pilate returned quickly to the Praetorium. “Captain of the Guards,” he commanded, “conduct this prisoner to the Tetrarch Herod Antipas. Bear to the Tetrarch the Procurator’s com...

“Yes, so do I. And I’m sure Herodias does, too.” He turned to speak to Cornelius on his right. “You heard the servant?” Cornelius nodded. “Sounds like more trouble for the Tetra...

The great throne room of the Imperial Palace in Rome was strangely darkened. She could hear the voice of the Emperor, but she could hardly distinguish his features. Was he her s...

“Go find the commander of Antonia and tell him I want every cross upright out there on the Hill of the Skull pulled down, and by great Jupiter, I want it done now!” Breathing he...