The Redemption of Pontius Pilate (35 page)

“People of Jerusalem,” he said. “Rome is not your enemy—unless you make it such. I was not sent here to oppress, but to govern you. In my two years here, have I not done much to restore peace? Have I not pacified the Zealots and
sicarii
? Have I not shown myself amenable to persuasion? When the standards of my legion offended your religious sensibilities, did I not order them removed? There is no need for this insurrection I see brewing before me! In the words of your own prophet, ‘Come, let us reason together.' Listen to me now.”

The square fell silent as the people reflected on his words. He could tell that the quotation from their Scriptures had caught them by surprise and thrown them off guard. He spoke again quickly.

“Last fall when I came to Jerusalem to keep the peace during your holidays, I saw a city gripped by the bloody flux. I saw despair in the eyes of mothers and children. I heard the weeping as the bodies of the dead were carried outside the city walls, many to be buried in pauper's graves miles from their homes.” He looked at the crowd as he spoke. Some of them were actually beginning to nod. “This is a disease that Rome has dealt with for centuries, and we know that it is caused by drinking water that has been contaminated with sewage. The city's water supply was clearly inadequate, especially for the great numbers who flock here to worship during your holy days. After conferring with your own High Priest, and receiving his pledge of cooperation, we agreed that the Temple would work with the Senate and People of Rome, as embodied in my office of Proconsul, to build an aqueduct that would supply the people of Jerusalem with clean, abundant water year round and keep the disease from devastating you again. Is it not written in your own law that the Temple's
corban
offerings may be used to benefit the poor and orphaned among you? What greater gift of charity could there be than to assure the poor and helpless that they will not fall victim to a disease that is preventable? Can you not see that I have acted, not for the enrichment of Rome, but for the health and welfare of the people of Jerusalem?”

He paused and looked over the crowd again, this time seeking out the face of Simon bin-Yosef. The Galilean was staring at him with unremitting hostility, and raised his voice to reply. “It is good that you wish to prevent disease among our people, Prefect,” he said in a voice that dripped sarcasm. “After all, corpses cannot be leached of their life's earnings to pay tribute to Rome! But the Law remains the Law. That which is
corban
cannot be passed into the hands of Gentiles for any reason. You have defiled our offerings!”

The looks of understanding in the faces of the crowd faded, replaced again by outrage. Pilate spoke once more. “People of Jerusalem,” he said. “I did not take holy relics from your Temple! I did not lay hands upon any of the items that are dedicated and used for the worship of your God! In fact, the High Priest even made sure that the Temple coins he donated from the treasury were traded in for Roman
sesterces
before they were passed into our hands. In every step of this project I have shown respect and restraint with regards to your religious beliefs. This protest is unlawful and unnecessary. I have listened to you with patience, and I have explained fully how our actions are both legal and respectful of your traditions. Now”—he raised his voice to his loudest barracks bellow—“GO HOME! This assembly is unlawful. Disperse, or I will disperse you! Go!”

Simon's face hardened with resolve. “Never!” he shouted back. “The money is
corban
and therefore sacred.
Corban
has been defiled. Down with Rome! Great is the God of Israel!!”

The mob began chanting “
CORBAN! CORBAN
HAS BEEN DEFILED!” at the top of their lungs. Pilate's temper, held in check for many months, boiled over at last. It was time to show these stubborn, irrational people who truly governed Judea. He dropped his emotional guard completely and let the beast that lived within him slip its cage and snarl with his voice.

“Let them have it!” he shouted. From every side of the square, Roman legionaries waded into the crowd with cudgels swinging. The shouts quickly gave way to screams as the terrified mob tried to flee.

The legionaries knew their business. Those who dropped all weapons and simply ran were spared, while those who continued to shout received sharp blows to the head and shoulders until they fell unconscious or joined the fleeing masses. Some of the most stubborn, though, armed themselves—a few had swords or daggers under their robes, while others grabbed anything they could lay their hands on and launched themselves at the hated Romans. But they were amateurs, for the most part—the legionaries quickly disarmed them, and those who had actually struck a soldier wound up getting their skulls bashed in. Terrified sacrificial animals ran this way and that, trying to flee, and some of Pilate's men killed them too. Their blood ran among the cobblestones with that of their owners.

Simon bin-Yosef stayed at the center of the fray, trying to organize the resistance, a curved sword drawn from under his cloak. Pilate pointed down from the balcony at the burly Galilean. “I want him alive!” he shouted. Six legionaries, led by Centurion Marcus Pullo, charged him. He screamed his resistance and swung his blade mightily, killing Pullo and two legionaries, but the rest disarmed him and then knocked him over the head, rendering him unconscious. When he fell, the last resistance crumbled and the survivors fled.

About thirty Jews lay dead, and a hundred more or so were wounded. Four legionaries and Marcus Pullo had been killed, and about a dozen or more were wounded badly enough to require medical attention. Pilate summoned the physicians to treat them, and told his men to allow the Jews to collect their dead and wounded, as long as they did so peacefully. He then walked over to the men who were guarding Simon of Galilee. The big Jew still slumped unconscious in their arms.

“Is he wounded badly?” asked Pilate.

“Shouldn't be,” said the oldest legionary. “I just gave him a little love tap on the head—although I wanted to cave his skull in, seeing as he killed our Pullo. We lost a good officer today.”

Pilate nodded. He looked at the veteran soldier, trying to remember his name. “You are Brutus Valentius, are you not?” he asked.

The man straightened up and saluted. “Aye, sir!” he said. “I've marched before the standards for twelve years now.”

“I appreciate your restraint, Legionary,” said Pilate. “I want to make an example of this one—the mob was ready to disperse if it were not for him. That blade tells me he was not a simple pilgrim. Tell me, Brutus, can you give orders as well as take them?”

“I've never been in a position to have to do so,” he said, “but I suppose that I could learn. I've been in the legions long enough to know what needs doing in most situations.”

Pilate nodded. “We shall find out, then,” he said. “I am promoting you to centurion to take Pullo's place. Now take this scum to the dungeons at the fortress. I want to find out as much as I can from him before we nail him up.”

The next day Pilate sent this letter to Tiberius Caesar:

Lucius Pontius Pilate, Proconsul of Rome and Prefect of Judea, to the most excellent Gaius Julius Tiberius Caesar, Greetings! Since I am sure that the High Priest is frantically scribbling his own account of yesterday's events to you as I write this, I thought I would inform you of what happened so that you would have a clear impression of the events.

As I reported earlier, with the cooperation of the Temple and High Priest, I have begun constructing an aqueduct to relieve the notoriously unhealthy shortage of drinking water in Jerusalem. As you can see by the attached letter, the Temple donated money from their offerings to help fund this project, without protest or reservations. However, during the feast of Passover, a Zealot activist (for such he confessed to be after interrogation) worked the Jews up to a frenzy, claiming that sacred funds had been stolen from the Temple to fund the building of the aqueduct. I went out to reason with the crowd, and they were prepared to accept my words, had not this Simon the Zealot kept them stirred up. I ordered my men to disperse the mob, using cudgels only to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Most of the Jews simply fled, but the Zealot agitators drew steel and had to be put down by force. Thirty were killed, and Simon hangs from a cross outside the city as a warning to his kindred and followers. The rest of the feast has passed thus far without incident. From the information gained by my interrogators, we should be able to burn out another Zealot nest or two in the next few weeks. Work on the aqueduct continues, and it should be finished within a year or so. Otherwise, the province is more peaceful and prosperous than it was when I arrived, and I doubt Rome's supremacy will be challenged again anytime soon. May the gods bless your noble person, and may Jupiter Best and Greatest continue to shine his favor upon Rome.

 

A few months later he received this reply:

Gaius Julius Tiberius Caesar, Princeps and Imperator, to Prefect Lucius Pontius Pilate, Proconsul of Judea; greetings!

You did very well to send me the letter and your own version of the events that transpired in Jerusalem this spring, because a letter from Caiaphas followed it by only a day, in which he and the Jewish Senate tried to lay the entire blame for the affair upon you. I am afraid, dear Pilate, that they do not care much for you in the Temple! However, in this instance, I believe you acted with complete correctness. The Zealots are a danger that must be eradicated whenever encountered, even if it means occasionally ruffling a few feathers. But, if possible, strive to avoid confrontations that are unnecessary—a word of advice you probably do not need.

Moving on to other things, it might interest you to know that my mother Livia, having attained an age of eighty-six years, finally joined her husband in the afterlife this spring. While I never cared for her as much as she did for me, her absence will make it harder for me to keep up with the machinations of Sejanus, who continues to run Rome in my absence. Upon my orders, he has agreed to exile Agrippina and her two eldest sons from Rome once and for all. Their constant attempts to undermine my authority will be much more difficult from a thousand miles away! His own day will come sooner than he thinks. The spider may be motionless at the center of the web, but he always knows who is pulling the threads!

Gaius Caligula continues to grow and mature. I begin to see a more reasonable and temperate side of his personality, although how much of it is authentic and how much of it is dissembling I do not know. I heard a Greek philosopher once say that most people are governed as they deserve to be. It may be that Gaius will be the scourge that Rome has called down on itself for generations—or that he will be a peaceful and clement ruler that will bring out the best in her. See? You thought I was incapable of making a joke!

Jests aside, I continue to drum into him that what he did to your daughter was wrong, and that your response was perfectly justified under the mos maorum of Rome. I hope that this groundwork I am laying will make it possible for you to return to Rome sooner, rather than later. May Fortuna bless you with her favors!

Pilate filed the letter away with the rest of his Imperial correspondence, and walked down to the parade ground where his legionaries were training. Someday, perhaps, he would be allowed to go home.

“So what do you think of this John the Baptizer?” asked Pilate as he and Longinus watched the troops march out of the barracks to begin a patrol of the district.

It was January again, and the New Year had begun in a quiet and peaceful fashion. Pilate had indeed led his men to attack and destroy two Zealot strongholds after the aqueduct riots in Jerusalem, and since then the native resistance movement had subsided. The autumn festivals had come and gone without incident, although Herod Antipas had treated Pilate with nothing but thinly veiled hostility since their exchange on the evening of the riot.

All the talk in Judea was of the Baptizer, the closest thing the Jews had seen to a real prophet of their God in hundreds of years. He wore a rough tunic of camel's hair, and carried a shepherd's rod in his hands. Years of roaming the wilderness had made his feet as hard as leather, and rumor had it that he fed on whatever wild things he could eat, most notably locusts and wild honey. Thousands of Jews flocked to the wilderness beyond the Jordan to see him, even though his message was not heartwarming or complimentary. He berated the people for their sinful hearts and wicked ways. When the priests sent a delegation from the Temple to find out what his message was, he called them a brood of vipers. But to one and all, he thundered a message that the time was short.

“Repent, for the kingdom of the Lord is at hand!” was the message that Pilate had heard repeated by everyone who had been to hear the fiery prophet. That was not the entirety of his message, but everything else seemed to stem from his belief that the God of Israel was about to do something astonishing. So far, however, he had not breathed a word against Rome, so Pilate was more curious than he was concerned—hence his casual question to Longinus.

“I am not sure what to make of him, since I have not heard him myself yet,” was the centurion's reply.

“Why don't you take a few of your lads and go hear him out?” asked Pilate.

“I would enjoy that,” said Longinus. “Should I go incognito, or as an officer of Rome?”

“Go in uniform, and your men, too,” replied Pilate. “I want to see how he reacts to the representatives of the Empire.”

The next morning Longinus and a dozen of his men set out for the Jordan wilderness, south of Jerusalem, where the prophet was preaching his message daily. Pilate, in the meantime, was enjoying his job more than he had since arriving in Judea. Although the military action he once craved was notable by its absence, he now found his off-duty hours absorbed in the raising of his son. Little Decimus was now nearly two, and he was the terror of Caesarea. His father had given him a small wooden practice sword for his first birthday, and after cutting several teeth on it, Decimus had discovered that, once he mastered the trick of walking upright, he could swing the practice blade and hit things with it. Nothing was safe from him—not his father's military equipment, not the shins of visitors to the governor's office, and certainly not the backside of any dog, cat, or other child that crossed his path. Procula Porcia had her hands full keeping up with him, and despite her firm discipline—occasionally shored up by a firm smack across the buttocks from his father—Decimus remained incorrigible.