Part 7

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 the harbor at Caesarea, in fact, would hardly realize that he was in a Palestinian city. Not only were its great public buildings and lavish homes Roman—its Procurator’s Palace, its immense hippodrome for athletic sports and gladiatorial combats, its theater, its gleaming marble temples to pagan gods—but Roman, too, were many of its people. Its population actually was of varied nationalities—Roman, Greek, Syrian, Idumaean, Ethiopian, and many others; there were countless slaves from conquered provinces—Germania, Gaul, Dalmatia, even here and there one from Britannia—a motley multitude from every region on the rim of the Great Sea and even from lands farther away. Caesarea was a metropolitan city set down upon the coast of this ancient homeland of the Samaritans and their more peculiarly Hebrew cousins the Judaeans.

Today the newly arrived Procurator Pontius Pilate and his wife sat in the warming sunshine on the terrace and looked down upon the busy harbor and the Great Sea stretching westward into the blue haze. Obliquely facing them, so that he could see both the harbor and a portion of the maze of buildings pushing one upon the other from it, sat their guest, the Centurion Longinus.

Claudia pointed to a large merchant ship being tied up at one of the docks below. “This is a tremendous harbor, rivaling Ostia’s, isn’t it? Look at all those vessels, and that one that has just sailed in. Judging by its size, I’d say it was an Alexandrian grain ship.”

“It is a great harbor, and wonderfully protected. In fact, I was amazed to find Caesarea such a modern city.” Pilate smiled broadly. “I had feared that it would be another typical provincial outpost.”

“On the contrary, Excellency, it’s quite a metropolis,” Longinus observed. “You’ll discover people here from every part of the world, and far fewer Jews, I suspect, than you had anticipated finding. Of course, you’ve hardly had time yet to learn much about the city.”

Pilate laughed, but with little humor. “The fewer Jews the better. I’m glad the capital of the province is here rather than at Jerusalem; it would be galling, I suspect, to be forced to spend most of one’s time in that nest of Jews. Speaking of Jerusalem, Centurion, I plan to visit the city shortly and have a straight talk with that High Priest. I wish it known at the very beginning of my Procuratorship that I intend to demonstrate clearly and forcefully, if that be necessary, that Rome cannot be trifled with by these obstinate and pestiferous Jews. You, of course, have been to Jerusalem?”

“Not since I came out this time. But on many occasions previously, including visits during the festivals. If you go there during Passover week, you’ll see Jews from every part of the world.”

“I have already seen enough of them for a lifetime,” Pilate said, scowling. But quickly he smiled again. “Centurion, I am going to the cohort’s headquarters; I wish to talk with Sergius Paulus.” He clapped his hands, and a slave came running. “Summon my sedan bearers,” he commanded. “May I take you to your quarters,” he asked Longinus, “or will you stay longer and entertain Claudia?” He turned to his wife and smiled warmly. “A familiar face, and a Roman one, is particularly welcome in this strange outpost of the Empire, isn’t it, my dear Claudia?”

“Yes, indeed, Pilate.” She reached over and put her hand lightly on the centurion’s arm. “Longinus, do stay and talk. You can give me instructions on how to act out here in this strange region, strange to Pilate and me, at any rate.”

In a few minutes the servant announced that the sedan bearers were awaiting him, and Pilate excused himself. When he was gone, Longinus moved his chair nearer Claudia. “I wonder why he invited me to stay,” he said. “Does he suspect us, do you suppose? Or,” he added with a wry smile, “is there no longer any occasion for his doing that?”

“I don’t think he suspects us, although I haven’t yet learned how to weigh his words or actions. But what if he does?” She shrugged. “With me everything is just as it was before you left Rome. But maybe”—coyly she looked up at him from beneath her long lashes—“you have discovered some woman out here....”

“No. And I haven’t looked. But I wonder how much he knows or suspects.” He told her of his last conversation with the Prefect, of the determination of Sejanus to keep her happily away from Rome, of that wily rascal’s invitation—in fact, almost command—to do whatever might be necessary, including the invasion of the Procurator’s bed, to detain her in contented exile. “But I don’t think he suspected then that we were planning to get married almost immediately. And I’m sure Pilate didn’t.” His forehead wrinkled in deep study. “By any chance, Claudia, have you let slip...?”

“About us, to him? Of course not.”

“To anyone... Herodias maybe, the gods forbid. I wouldn’t trust that woman as far as I could throw that grain ship over there. Could you, without realizing it, have let slip...?”

“Yes, I did tell Herodias. She does know that you and I were planning to marry and come out to Palestine. But I’m sure neither she nor Antipas has said anything to Pilate about it ... if they’ve even seen him since. And certainly they haven’t talked with Sejanus.”

“Anyway, Claudia, we must be doubly careful. So long as Sejanus thinks I’m simply keeping you ... satisfied, he called it, it’s all right. But should he get the notion that I might be planning to take you away from Pilate and back to Rome ...” he broke off, scowling. “And here there’ll be other eyes and ears watching and listening, too. But when Pilate goes to Jerusalem, can’t we arrange...?”

“I’ll be going, too,” she interrupted. “And so must you. We can contrive some excuse for your accompanying us.” Her eyes were bright with smoldering fires, he saw, and her lips warm, he knew, and red and eager, and he remembered the taste of the Falernian upon them. But adamantly he turned his eyes away to look toward the great harbor. “And in Jerusalem, Longinus, beloved”—her hand had caught his arm and was squeezing hard—“we’ll find some way.”

13

Sergius Paulus, who commanded the legionaries escorting Procurator Pontius Pilate and his party to Jerusalem, halted his column several hundred paces west of the great market square outside the Joppa Gate.

“Sheathe the cohort’s emblems!” he commanded, and quickly down the line of march the soldiers began covering the banners of the Second Italian—the likenesses of the Emperor Tiberius, the screaming eagles, the fasces with their bundled arrows and axes, everything that flaunted the proud victories of this cohort of Rome’s conquering armies.

“But Commander Sergius,” Pilate began to protest, “by whose orders must Rome thus bow to these haughty Jews? Is this, by any chance, _your_ scheme for forestalling possible disorder?”

“No, Excellency, the sheathing of the emblems in Jerusalem is not of my devising; it follows a long established custom, started, I believe, by the Emperor Augustus as a result of a pact with the Jewish leaders and continued by the Emperor Tiberius through orders transmitted to us by the Prefect Sejanus.” His smile was coldly professional. “I assure you, sir, covering our emblems before the gates of Jerusalem is as distasteful to me as it must be to the Procurator, but this is an order I dare not violate.”

The round face of the helmeted Procurator reddened with fury. He shook his head angrily and banged his heavy fist against the apron of the chariot in which he stood beside his wife. “I am not accustomed to seeing Rome display humility—abject humility—which is what this action seems to me to be. But I shall not countermand the order you have given, though to me it is both humiliating and exasperating that our legionaries are forced thus to yield to these outrageous Jews.” He raised his hand to signal. “When you are ready, Commander, let us proceed into the city.” Then he turned to address Longinus, who had halted near the Procurator. “Centurion, will you exchange places with my driver? Claudia and I are entering Jerusalem for the first time; would you be our guide and point out the principal places of interest?”

Quickly the exchange was accomplished, and the detachment, its emblems shielded now from view, resumed its march. Crossing the market place at the gate, a suddenly stilled large square that a moment before the Romans’ arrival had been a hubbub of shouts and shrill cries of bargaining, the procession moved through the gateway to enter a narrow cobblestoned street also strangely deserted.

“But where are the people to welcome us?” Pilate inquired, his balding high forehead creased in anger and consternation. “Why this unnatural calm?”

“They have retreated inside their shops and houses and closed the shutters; right now they are peering at us through lattices and from the roof tops, Excellency. This is the way they show their scorn for their conquerors. It will be our good fortune if we are not pelted with rotten vegetables and fruit thrown from the house tops, or even tiles from the roofs.” He smiled, not too happily. “The Jews, Excellency, don’t have much affection for us Romans.”

The veins in the Procurator’s neck swelled as though they might burst, and his countenance was livid. “In every province in which I have formerly entered with our troops,” he declared, “the populace has welcomed us thunderously, often with flowers and branches of trees thrown in our way, and many times they have even prostrated themselves before us.” He knotted his fist again. “By all the gods, I shall teach these Jews better manners. Nor shall I delay long in setting them to their lessons!”

Claudia laid a soothing hand on her husband’s arm; with the other she pointed to the right. “Those huge buildings! Longinus, they appear to be towers. And what tremendous stones. I didn’t know these Jews were capable of raising such structures.”

“Yes, on the contrary, the Jews are good artisans, and old Herod, who built many great edifices here as well as at Caesarea and other cities, also employed many foreign workers of great skill. He evidently wished to emulate Augustus in raising magnificent public buildings.” They were coming now to a great square tower, one of those to which Claudia had pointed. “This first one is the Hippicus Tower, named, I have heard, for a friend of Herod. The next one, in the middle, is Phasael, called that in honor of Herod’s brother. But that one”—he pointed in the direction of a third—“is the most famous, perhaps because he built it to the memory of the only wife he really loved. It’s called the Mariamne Tower, after the one he had killed. They say that the old reprobate almost went insane with grief after he’d executed her. Claudia, this Mariamne was the grandmother of Herodias and her spendthrift brother Agrippa. Mariamne was a member of the ancient Hasmonean line of Israelite rulers. Very soon now we’ll be passing the old Hasmonean Palace; it’s over near the viaduct that connects Zion Hill with the Temple.”

“But, Longinus, where is the Procurator’s Palace?”

“Yes, Centurion, I’d be interested in seeing it.”

“It’s behind that wall joining the three towers, sir. And it’s a tremendous place, too, with fountains and flowers and grass and trees—you will love it, Claudia—it serves as headquarters of the Procurator when he visits Jerusalem, though it’s called Herod’s Palace. When the Tetrarch is in Jerusalem, especially if the Procurator is here at the same time—for instance, during Passover feasts—the Tetrarch usually stays at the Hasmonean Palace. Excellency”—he faced the Procurator again, for he had been busy with the reins in an attempt to dodge a heavily loaded cart being pulled by a trudging donkey—“do you plan to stop here at Herod’s Palace, or will you stay in the Procurator’s quarters at the Tower of Antonia?”

“What was the custom of Valerius Gratus? Where did he stay?”

“He usually lodged here, I believe. It’s more comfortable, of course, and perhaps will be quieter than the quarters at Antonia.”

“Perhaps”—Pilate faced Claudia, his expression questioning—“then we should stay at Herod’s Palace. But, pray the gods, why should it be called Herod’s Palace now? The Herods no longer have authority in Judaea.”

“It was built by old Herod, sir, and the name persists. Things change slowly out here; tradition and custom rule in Judaea. I’m sure you’ll realize that more the longer you remain in Palestine.” They were nearing a gate in the high wall that gave admittance to the palace. Several guards at the gate, seeing the procession of Roman troops, straightened and raised their arms in salute. Longinus lifted the reins to halt the chariot.

“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!”