Part 8

“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 by a rich foreign Jew. It must have cost many a sesterce, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure it did.” Her eyes were wide with disbelief. “The whole place is magnificent; why I’ve never seen anything like....” Suddenly she clamped a hand to her nose. “By all the gods, Longinus, what an odor!” She leaned her head out. “Bona Dea, all that cattle. No wonder that awful stench. What on earth are cattle and sheep doing in this beautiful place, Longinus? Can it be for sacrificing, by all the great and little gods!”

“Yes, it’s for sacrificing.” Longinus grimaced. “The Jews think that slitting an animal’s throat and throwing the blood on that great altar somehow cleanses them of their sins. I don’t understand how it could....”

The young woman’s laugh was derisive. “Bringing all those poor animals in here to befoul this beautiful place, these gorgeous mosaics, to pollute the very air, and they call that cleansing themselves. Bona Dea, their Yahweh, if he demands this sort of worship, must be a bloodthirsty god. It just goes to prove, Centurion, that this one-god religion has less sense to it than even our silly superstitions.”

“That’s what I told Cornelius. I see no efficacy in slitting the throats of poor beasts and slaughtering countless doves and pigeons in order to serve some god. Of course, so far as the priests are concerned, it’s a highly profitable business. But, of course, why should we criticize the Jews when we do it in Rome, too, though not on such a grand scale?”

A few paces farther on, the procession turned squarely to the left again and proceeded along a third side of the Temple enclosure, past the stalls of the lowing, frightened cattle and the cages of birds and the money-changers seated behind their tables. From the long portico the marchers pivoted to the right, then ascended steps that led to a wide, paved esplanade.

“This is the platform before the Tower of Antonia. We’re coming to it now.” He motioned behind him. “It’s the Roman military headquarters in Jerusalem. But Pilate must have told you all about it.”

She leaned out and looked westward along the platform. “Pilate tells me very little,” she answered. “By the gods, it’s a tall structure and a grim-looking one. Doubtless overrun with soldiers, too, even in the Procurator’s private apartments.” She winked and smiled. “I’m glad Pilate decided to stop at the Herod Palace during our visit to Jerusalem. He’ll probably be here at Antonia much of the time. It should be easier then to arrange things over there.”

“Things?”

“Well”—her tone was playful, her eyelids fluttered teasingly—“yes, things for people to do ... two people.”

14

It was past midnight when Longinus returned at last to the now quiet Tower of Antonia. Before leaving Caesarea he had arranged with Sergius Paulus to have little more than token duty during the stay in Jerusalem. In the weeks since his arrival in Palestine, he and the cohort commander had come to an understanding; although Sergius knew little of the centurion’s reasons for being in this far eastern province, he did know that Longinus had been sent out by the Prefect Sejanus, and Sergius was not disposed to challenge, or even question actions of the Prefect.

Pontius Pilate had not returned to the palace; presumably he had eaten his evening meal at the tower with the officers there. At any rate, Longinus and Claudia had not been disturbed.

But when Longinus was admitted by the guards at the tower’s outer gate, 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?”