|
|
|
|
|
Contents Commentarii Appendix Glossary How to Use this Site Contact the Editors |
|
IV Kalends of Martius. Second hour of the night. [Thursday, March 1, c. 7:00 p.m.] When Florentina brought my drink in this morning I could see that she did not want to stay for a moment longer than necessary. Suspecting the reason for this, I said, "Do you know who has come on the galley?" "A Senator from Capri." "Senator L. V--," I told her. I can rarely distinguish any subtlety of Florrie's face. Yet after observing her silence, I am certain she remembers him. But I did not question her. It is not merely her silence that allows us our peace. It is also that I do not ask.
Shortly before lunch my secretary came to my study with urgency, to tell me that a runner had come from Sebaste. The runner was the man Pilate relies on when trust and accuracy are his concern. He had wiped the sweat and grime from his face, but was otherwise as filthy as a field-worker. At once I sent for water and offered him a stool. Declining the stool, he said, "Excellent lady, the Prefect has asked me to provide him answers to these questions." "He wants a message returned? He will be here by this evening." "He's asked me to return with your answers." "He doesn't want these answers written?" "No, lady." I nodded at him to go on. "The Prefect would like to know if this Senator has brought any men into this house." "He has brought five freedmen. One of them is a secretary." "Are there any soldiers on the galley?" "I would assume there are some. But we have seen none disembark." "Has this Senator had conversations with any of the centurions, or the tribunes' people." "He has had conversation with no-one in this house, except the serving boys and bath attendants. He has not left his rooms." He bowed. "I regret disturbing you, excellent lady." I asked "When do you expect the Prefect will arrive here?" "I shouldn't say, excellent lady." "Where did you leave him?" "I regret I shouldn't say that as well, excellent lady." I let him go. I assumed only that Pilate was being cautious, and that he had no substantial reason to expect that L. V-- would arrest him when he arrived. Not two hours later, as I was preparing for the bath, Florentina told me that Pilate's party was approaching the Sebaste gate (evidently having started from Sebaste well before dawn). After hastily bathing, I returned to my rooms just as I heard Pilate's people in the house. Right away his secretary came here. He asked me to bring the letter at once to Pilate's study. Mater was waiting when I arrived. Pilate's painter has finished on the wall facing the sea view -- Jupiter and Europa in flagrantis. The new table is a marble grandiosity that resembles an altar. Upon it were the stone dies for his new coins. Mater greeted me with almost the identical wave of her hand that had sent me away yesterday. "Let me see it," she said, nodding at the letter. She shook her head when she saw the seal. But she made no comment, and returned the letter to me. We stared silently at the harbor, bone-white and empty save for the tow-boats and the black bireme. The city lay beneath a dusty haze, a reminder that in this rainy season we have been without rain for almost a month. Pilate was announced by the steps of his people in the hall. He had removed his scarf, but he wore the road like a mask over his eyes and nose. His shirt was damp where he had worn padding and a breastplate. Without a word to us, at once he held out his hand for the letter. Yet when I presented it to him, he hesitated before taking it. He examined the seal carefully, tapping it with his fingernail. With some violence he parted the cord. He quickly unfolded the sheet and read it silently. His eyes were so weary from the road that I could see nothing in them. After, he said, "This was dispatched from Capri. Dated six weeks ago." He read it aloud: "My dear Pilate. Greetings. I am commending to your offices my dear and close friend Senator L. V--. I have sent L. V-- to Judea to act as my agent in the conduct of my personal business. You will earn my gratitude by assisting with such introductions as L. V-- may require. I also ask you to look out for his safety and comfort. May your guardian spirit insure your good health, and that of your family. Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus." Mater said vehemently, "What does he mean by 'personal business?'" When Pilate offered nothing, I said, "Caesar has considerable property here. And he has recently inherited considerably more from his mother. Perhaps he wants his estates reliably audited." Mater scoffed: "So he's sent a Senator out in winter to count olive trees and wine jars?" After a moment Pilate looked to me. "What do you know about him?" I told him what I had told Mater. He did not hold my eyes throughout, as I had expected he would. He studied his new painting. After a moment he said, "As I have heard it, he performed some staff work for Varus in Germany, then somehow escaped the catastrophe he may have assisted in planning. Or perhaps he was one of those who warned against it. It's never been certain what his role was. The witnesses are dead. But when Caesar led the campaign to punish the Germans, this Senator L. V-- was in on the planning there, too. It seems he made himself indispensable. Caesar has looked after him ever since. And of course it is understood that on occasion this Senator L. V-- has also looked after Caesar's interests. But no-one seems to know precisely what he does." Again a pause: "He's one of those men about whom everyone has questions, yet about whom no-one wishes to ask." Certainly this explains Pilate's caution today. "The old man has sent him to meddle," Mater said. "He never favored you to begin with, and Mother Earth and all the Manes know that Sejanus doesn't do what he should to convince him otherwise. Now we have the old man's troublemaker here." Pilate said, "Possibly so, mother." He looked at the painting as though he had discovered some unexpected detail. "I will watch him. He will watch me. We will see." He said to me: "Have you arranged dinner for him?" "Yes. Your mother has hired the amusements. I had assumed he would want to dine alone, unless you arrived in time to join him -- which I did not expect." Pilate: "Then I'll send to him that I'll be his host. You will attend. Mother, are you well enough?" "Of course." This ended our conversation. Only when I had returned to my study did it strike me that within an hour I would see this man L. V-- after some seventeen years. In his company I would find shades I do not wish to see. Yet of all those ghosts, I feared most the shade of a sixteen year old girl. A girl no longer innocent, yet believing, incredibly, that the stars might write her a gentle fate.
I did not think it advisable to make a display at dinner. So I wore a plain wool dress and left my pearl necklace in the box. Latona also did less with my hair and cosmetics than she would have wished. She had gotten out the silver mirror she compelled me to purchase for her at the Upper Market. But she had the good sense not to offer it to me. While I dressed, Sperata brought Latona my combs. No doubt this was an arrangement between them (Sperata having previously wheedled favors from Latona). Directly Sperata said, "Mistress, who will attend you at the table?" "We haven't educated you so that you can stand by tables. Are you asking if you can go downstairs?" No sooner had I said this, thinking I had outguessed her, than I saw that my response was exactly what she had intended. She was also clever enough to cast down her eyes and remain silent. I told her she could stand by the pool with my shawl, which would allow her to see the dancers. But if I saw her looking in on the dining hall I would send her back upstairs. She issued her "Yes, mistress," in the merest whisper. She then departed with the timidity she usually displays after effecting a brazen success.
I went down at the eleventh hour. One of L. V--'s legbreakers loitered by the pool and a strange servant waited outside the dining hall. These were the only signs of L. V--'s presence in the house. Pilate and L. V-- were on their couches when I entered, absorbed in the music of a lovely black woman who played the Phoenician harp with elaborate arm movements. My first thought was not simply, This man is not L. V--. Instead I imagined that L. V-- had never existed at all. That in trying to see through the dark glass that separates the halves of my life, I had invented him entirely. The man who reclined next to Pilate was so pale compared to my memory of L. V-- that he might have been a German. No dark curls, only a thin gray cap of hair, well back from his forehead. His features, in my recall arrogant and lean, can now be described as gaunt and weary. There are creases beside his mouth and upon his brow. He did not observe me as I crossed the room. Only when I stood next to him did he look up. His eyes placed the seal of authenticity on his altered face: Gray shaded to gold-flecked green, with the sudden violence of their attention. In seventeen years they have not changed. He offered his pale hand. This too was proof he had previously inhabited my life: Immediately I knew the gold ring with the red stone. It was as though I had seen it yesterday. Yet in the brief moment that I held his hand I felt nothing except the cold dryness of his skin. I might have obtained the same clasp from a corpse. He said to Pilate, "I knew your wife's father." He did not elaborate, and the patrician calm of his voice suggested nothing else. I took my couch, leaving the place of honor for Mater. Immediately the honey-wine and stuffed eggs were served, without any interruption in the music. Reluctant even to watch the musician, I looked into my cup as a diviner might. The memory that came to me was as clear as the ring on L. V--'s finger or the pale anger of his eyes. For that moment of inexplicable terror I expected the entire dark horizon of the past to become illuminated by a sun so brilliant that it would consume me. Yet this memory was lit only by a single lamp which was quickly extinguished. I watched the black girl play until Mater arrived, just before the fish course was served. Mater was wrapped in a heavy shawl, and no doubt wore several shirts beneath her tunic. L. V-- greeted her with unexpected vigor. He called her "the widow of a hero," snapping his fingers at his own attendant to help her recline beside me. When the fish course was brought to our tables, the black girl paused in her playing. One could hear only the jets of the fountain behind us. Our guest did not accept this invitation to converse. Pilate wisely did not take the initiative. After a moment he signaled the girl to play again. Such conversation as there was, began after the fish course. "The pool," L. V-- said. He flicked his fingers toward it. "How is it filled?" "Our couches are atop the channels," Pilate said. "They run from the aqueduct." "It seems Herod delighted in mocking nature, does it not? It isn't enough that he built this house on a spit of land surrounded by the sea. He must place a freshwater pool -- and no mere fishpond, but one to float a ship in -- virtually within the sea. Did his god whisper to him, 'Challenge my creations?'" Mater said acidly, "If so, his god also said, 'Kill your children.'" "Here is my theory," Pilate said. "Herod was born in the desert. Idumea. Throughout his life he had the soul of a desert-dweller. Wherever he went, he brought water. Not simply water to drink, but to squander. To swim in and revel in. Jericho isn't maintained now -- you will see that if you go -- but you can turn a galley in the pool there. At Masada his palace is in the middle of the desert, on top of a mountain that can be reached only by a single donkey path. But the bathing pools are there, too. They brought the water up the donkey path, in jars. I suppose that here it was no greater obstacle to put the water, as you say, virtually within the sea itself." L. V-- looked upon Herod's prodigy for a time. The lights around the pool seemed to flicker in his eyes. "There is a kindred desolation to both the sea and the desert. The soul both fears it and feeds on it." He paused. "My study at Capri overlooks the water. Each day for the hour before dinner I observe the sea. Despite the constancy of my view, no day is ever the same. No moment is ever the same." His slight smile seemed to dismiss his own remark. "Such reflection is the luxury of a man of my occupation." So these two great philosophers enlightened us with their theories regarding water. L. V-- next offered the contrary of this subject, saying: "Your people tell me that your rainy season has been delayed." "Not delayed," Pilate said. "Interrupted. It began as usual, then stopped about a month ago. It will resume shortly, I can assure you. The climate here is consistently inconsistent." "If this drought continues, will it cause distress?" "To whom?" "Regarding our revenues here." "If it continued for two years, perhaps our tax concessions would lose some value. It will not. Our tax concessions have increased in value as long as we have been here. I'm sure you've seen the accounts." "Yes. The Jews are uniquely productive. Without their income, we would see the sales tax in Italy double. You can imagine what we would hear about that." Perhaps this was an oblique admonition from Capri. Yet neither Pilate nor L. V-- pursued it. This was the extent of the business discussed. At dessert Mater's dancers performed the story of Hercules and Omphale -- the first time I have seen it done. It was well-suited to the principal mime; he is able to play both sexes with astonishing conviction. The role of Omphale also displayed the abilities of the actress, who rendered with enchanting realism the scene in which Hercules and Omphale exchange clothes. Her body is entirely depilated. The event occurred as Pilate and L. V-- went to their drinks in the next room. When Mater and I were standing, L. V-- came to us to take his leave. He offered me the same lifeless clasp as his greeting. Yet his eye caught mine for an instant. With a stab of fear I believed he would speak of our brief history. He pronounced only a curt, "Good health," and left with Pilate. Seeing that we were leaving, the attendants waiting by the pool stepped toward the dining hall and made themselves visible. Sperata was among them. I gestured to her to bring my shawl. At this time L. V-- had almost passed between the columns. I observed his limp, a slight hesitation of one leg. I remembered that he had it as young man. His shoulders and head were somewhat bowed, this striking me as a pose of defeat as much as of weariness. The servants came into the dining hall, going on the other side of the column to L. V--'s right. Abruptly he turned about. He did this with such urgency that I was certain he intended to approach me and make whatever declaration he had thought better of only a moment earlier. Instead, he remained where he was. "You," he said. That word echoed like a shout, throughout the dining hall and across the pool. The cold hand touched my neck. After a moment he said, "Girl," to the same echoing effect. "You!" Sperata stopped and stood entirely still. Only then did I see that L. V-- had been speaking to her. She did not look to me with fear or desperation, but stared down at the floor. Then, with a command of herself I would not have had, she turned to face L. V--. "Excellency?" Her voice was untroubled. He said nothing to her. Because of his paleness and the immobility of his features, he appeared almost white, like an ancient bust stripped of its paint. Yet to describe the look in his eyes would require a poet's skill. Perhaps Aeneas looked at Dido thus when he first saw her in the underworld: Doubting who he sees, through Hades' grim dusk. Then, just as remarkably, L. V-- turned away from Sperata as if nothing had occurred. Pilate, who witnessed all of this, gestured to L. V-- to accompany him into the atrium, and did not comment. Sperata brought me my shawl. I had little trouble seeing that she regarded this peculiar attention as her triumph. For her own protection I sent her upstairs at once. Pilate paused at the portal of the small dining room. He whispered something to his table servant. I went to the stairs. Mater had gone just ahead of me. "Lady." Pilate's table servant had come after me. "The Prefect asks you to wait in his study. He asks his excellent mother to do so as well."
So we waited, not half a water clock. Pilate came in, still holding his cup. He sat beside us. Mater: "What did he say?" "Little more than at dinner. We had our toasts. To Caesar and Sejanus. He asked my opinion of Herod Antipas." I: "What did you tell him?" "That Herod Antipas cannot decide whom he is more inclined to insult, his own people or his neighbors. And that I have advised Antipas to absent himself and his unpleasant wife from this year's Pesah, fearing that their presence will stir the sort of disturbances about which Caesar is so concerned. Following which we discussed the situation with Aretas. He's well-informed about our affairs. At the end of it, L. V-- offered that as long as Lamia is absent, Caesar must rely on me." "Lamia," Mater said, as though the name were a curse. "Then that's why he's come. To make us swallow Lamia." "I don't think so, mother. If Caesar intends to send Lamia to his post in Antioch, he will send Lamia to Antioch. He won't send a Senator to Caesarea out-of-season in order to prepare us." Pilate looked out the window. The moon had not yet risen. The mole was entirely dark except for the torches of the watchmen. A single lantern winked upon the deck of L. V--'s galley. "What he did not ask was most interesting," Pilate said. "He asked nothing about the riot at the Pesah festival last year, do we anticipate trouble this year, Caesar has said this about it, the Senate has asked that. Yet certainly he knew that the absence of such questions would be more apparent than the asking." He traced the rim of his cup with his finger, making it chime. "He's playing a game with me." Still circling his cup with his finger, he observed me at such length that I looked away. "That business with your girl. What is her name?" "Sperata." "What was that about?" "I have no idea." "Perhaps we should send her to him," Mater said. "Tell her to keep her ears open." "That girl is my property," I said. "And I do not intend to endanger her as either a prostitute or a spy. In any event, I don't believe that is the nature of his interest in her. If he's so clever at his games, why would he so crudely reveal a lust he could far more easily satisfy with absolute discretion?" Pilate sniffed. "You say he is not interested in fucking her. But otherwise you have no idea what his interest is." If he had some suspicion of me, I saw no reason to answer it. Pilate stood to dismiss us. "Well. I don't believe that a slave girl is going to preserve my office, if Caesar has dispatched this Senator to take it away." This suggestion, which I regarded as mere rhetoric, appalled Mater. Her hands trembled. I had to help her to her feet. Pilate went into the hall for her servants. Mater's German took her off to bed. Pilate seemed pregnant with some remark for me, much as L. V-- had been earlier. Yet he, too, offered me only a curt goodnight.
I returned to my rooms. Florentina was asleep. I saw that Latona had left the silver mirror on the table. I should have left it as she had, for her to put away. Yet I saw the glimmer of the lamp in it, as though it were a great eye staring out -- or a portal into which one might be drawn. I knew I could not sleep if it remained out. As I went to it, indeed I did imagine myself approaching the living eye of a Titan. Yet once I had hold of it, I lost my fear. I took it to the cupboard. Just before I shut it away, I was impelled -- perhaps by the same demon that tempts one to leap from a high place -- to look in it. And so I saw again why such a brilliant mirror is such a cursed thing. One's image in polished bronze is the gentle illusion of a dream. To see that same face in silver is to awaken and encounter a dreadful stranger.
This is the memory which appeared to me tonight at dinner, as I looked into my cup: Metilia had sent for me, an occasion as rare as it was unsettling. She lay on her massage couch by the pool. She was naked except for the towel across her hips. I can see her as vividly as my own face in that cursed silver: Arms outstretched, the white expanse of her skin (the pallor of which she was so vain) flawed only by the depilatory paste under her arms. Her therapaina -- she is an Egyptian girl, with shaved eyebrows -- whispers to her that I have come. Metilia does not open her eyes. She tells me: "Your father and I have decided not to postpone your marriage any longer. There is interest from a Senator L. V--." I could only imagine some grotesque and scandalous old man who could find no-one of his own class. "You'll meet him in the garden. I presume you're comfortable with that. The light will be good for you. It's possible he will take you night boating." She opens her eyes and directs them to me. Her eyes have the same light in them I saw in my dream the day L. V--'s galley arrived. "He's a young man. You will find him attractive. Make certain that he finds you attractive. Do you understand? I don't want him going elsewhere because he found you shy." Her eyes close. There is more. I am not frightened to see it. But it would be merely a lamp set outside the door, while the entire house remains in darkness. |
|
What do we know about Pontius Pilate? Of all the actors in the gospels' passion drama, Pilate has left by far the most detailed record in secular history. Not only do we have a summary of his career in Judea by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, we also have the only secular account of any New Testament figure written by a contemporary: Philo Judaeus' Embassy to Gaius (Legatio ad Gaium) written around 40 A.D., offers a telling character study. Both Philo and Josephus paint strikingly similar psychological portraits of Pilate, in Philo's words, "A man of a very inflexible disposition, and very merciless as well as very obstinate" -- entirely the opposite of the weak, eager-to-please- the-crowd caricature presented in the New Testament. Philo's and Josephus' accounts are examined in detail in the appendix (A Man of Very Inflexible Disposition). To briefly summarize, Pilate conducted what amounted to a calculated, often brutal culture war in Judea, designed to flaunt Roman power and challenge Jewish traditions and national pride. Soon after assuming his office in 26 A.D., Pilate posted military standards offensive to the Jewish faith in the holy city of Jerusalem; standing up to a whirlwind of protest, Pilate didn't back down until, according to Philo, he was admonished in a letter from the Emperor, Tiberius. Pilate also minted coins with pagan symbols (in his wife's account, opposite, we glimpse the dies for these coins, on his table): The coins struck by Pilate's predecessor, Valerius Gratus, all featured vegetable designs acceptable to Jewish law regarding images -- palm branches, wheat ears, and vine leaves. Pilate substituted the ladle and augur's wand used in Roman religious rites, a pointed and deliberate affront to Jewish religious sensibilities. Around 30 A.D., Pilate confiscated funds from the treasury of the Jerusalem Temple to build an aqueduct. When huge crowds turned out to protest, Pilate infiltrated them with soldiers dressed as Jews; at his signal the crowd was dispersed with swords and clubs, resulting in many deaths. Thus, as Josephus succinctly put it, "An end was put to this sedition." Pilate was finally sacked in 37 A.D. for preemptively attacking, again with numerous deaths, a religious gathering of Samaritans he suspected of similar "sedition." Pilate's well-documented career was that of a fanatical "Romanizer" whose every instinct was to project Roman culture and power, and to crush -- preferably preemptively -- any challenge to Rome's authority. The commentarii suggest that at the time of his marriage, Pilate was a relatively obscure infantry officer; most likely he commanded a cohort (500 men) of "auxiliaries," second rank provincial troops. Equipped with his wife's considerable dowry and a powerful patron, Pilate began a steeper ascent. Pilate's patron was Lucius Aelius Sejanus, commander of the elite Praetorian Guard under Tiberius Caesar (who succeeded Augustus Caesar in 14 A.D.). Sejanus soon became much more than Caesar's favorite bully. Tiberius publicly spoke of him as "the partner of my labors" and permitted the erection of Sejanus' statues in public places and military camps. When the reclusive and moody Tiberius left Rome in 26 A.D. for permanent residence on the island of Capri, Sejanus became the more active partner. The Roman historian Tacitus gives us a remarkable picture of crowds of Senators and equestrians camped on the shore opposite Capri, waiting for a word or even glance from Sejanus. Regarding Roman policy toward Judea, Sejanus was clearly the senior partner; his hard-line, repressive approach prevailed over Tiberius' inclination to respect Jewish beliefs and popular sentiment. Possibly Pilate took command of a Praetorian Guard cohort in 19 A.D., when, we are told, he and his wife moved from southern Italy to Rome. When Pilate assumed the Prefecture of Judea in 26 A.D., he was almost certainly dispatched to conduct the aggressive policy favored by his newly preeminent patron, Sejanus. Read more about the internal policy dispute over Judea in the
appendix (To Rule the World).
What were Pilate's duties as Prefect of the Roman imperial province of Judea? The governors of imperial provinces were usually overworked. Pilate administered a vast and lucrative tax-collecting apparatus; assisted by a small staff of legates, he was also the magistrate personally responsible for Roman justice throughout Judea. His caseload was most likely weighted toward civil disputes involving wealthy parties. Routine criminal cases were the responsibility of the local Jewish authorities. Pilate's overriding concern was maintaining the pax Romana
in Rome's most rebellious province. This he accomplished with
a remarkably small force: Five auxiliary cohorts and one cavalry
ala, a total of 3000 men. Each cohort was commanded
by a tribune, an aspiring equestrian officer usually in his early
thirties; the centurions and decurions were also Romans. The
manpower was provided by local Gentiles. The most feared units
were composed of Samaritans, known as Sebastenes.
How important were Judea's tax revenues to imperial Rome? A relentless scrutinizer of the bottom line, the emperor Tiberius
had every reason to be pleased with the status quo in Judea. His
costs there were minimal: A contingent of 3000 auxiliaries,
whose wages were only a third of their legionary counterparts; a
Prefect who could add to his staff only with Tiberius' approval
(the governor of an imperial province did not have the independent
power to delegate authority). As long as Tiberius could maintain
peace and collect the taxes with this bare-bones operation, the
return on his investment was staggering. For an annual outlay
that was probably well below 2 million sesterces, the public treasury
received annual revenues of about 30 million sesterces -- about
one fourth of Rome's entire military budget.
Who is Lamia? Lucius Aelius Lamia, the senatorial-rank governor of Syria. Lamia had held this lucrative and powerful office since 20 A.D., and as of 31 A.D. he had yet to set foot in his province. Historians are divided over whether this was Sejanus' doing, or Tiberius' preference. Certainly the practice of keeping provincial governors on tight leashes in Rome was one way to ensure that they weren't tempted to use their legions to advance their own political ambitions; it was hardly lost on the successors to Julius Caesar that the first Caesar had been an ambitious provincial governor who had used his legions to grab supreme power. The four legions in Syria, arrayed in their camps parallel to the Euphrates River, represented one of the most powerful armies in the world. These troops were the essential deterrent not only to rebellion in Judea, but to the omnipresent menace of Parthia, the powerful Persian empire that had administered the Roman army a stunning defeat at Carrhae in 53 B.C. and persistently threatened the entire eastern empire, from the great cities of Syria and Asia Minor like Antioch and Ephesus to the lucrative provinces of Judea and Egypt; in particular, Rome feared the interruption of the all-important Egyptian grain supply. Only the combined armies of the Upper and Lower Rhine, at three legions each, exceeded the Roman presence on the Syrian frontier. However, the governors of Upper and Lower Germany, both of them Sejanus' men, had little trouble going to their posts, despite their command of huge armies. Lamia does not appear to have been one of Sejanus men; we know from the historian and imperial biographer Suetonius (Tiberius 48) that the Syrian legions had refused to erect Sejanus' statues next to Caesar's. The unsettled
situation in Syria greatly increased Pilate's power; in ordinary
circumstance the governor of Syria, who was always a Senator, looked
carefully over the shoulder of Judea's equestrian Prefect.
The situation also placed more squarely on Pilate's shoulders
the security of the entire eastern empire.
|
|
Contents Commentarii Appendix Glossary How to Use this Site Contact the Editors Copyright
(C) 2004 Michael Ennis |
See the note, below, for the significance of these new
coins. 