Across the Waters of Time- Pliny Remembered

by Ken Parejko

  The man with the lame hand came forward.

  “Kneel down,” Vespasian told him, “and put your hand there, on the floor.” The man obeyed, placed the lame hand on the cool marble floor. Vespasian rested his hands on the man’s head and stepped gently on the man’s right hand. Nothing happened. Vespasian shifted all his weight onto the hand. The man cried out in pain. Vespasian’s eyes met his doctor’s. He lifted his boot from the hand.

  The man squeezed and rubbed his wrist with his other hand. He worked his thumb into his palm, then squeezed and worked his fingers. He glanced dubiously in Vespasian’s direction. Then, as he worked the palm, the fingers of the lame hand began slowly to curl. He watched them as though they belonged to someone else. They wrapped around and grasped the thumb of his left hand, and held it. With his right hand he lifted the other by the thumb, moving it up and down and around in circles, laughing and crying at the same time.

  He opened his grip and placed his hand on Vespasian’s forearm and squeezed, until Vespasian smiled and said “Ouch!”

  The man bowed, tears in his eyes. The two were taken away. Word of the healing spread across the city. Now we had to make our way through big crowds of cripples, lepers, and the blind who gathered outside the royal palace. But Vespasian knew enough to not test his luck again and when in a few days we left Alexandria we left behind only his two successes.

  We’d planned to follow Alexander’s route up river to Heliopolis to visit the ruins of the City of the Sun, where Menes, Egypt’s first king, had built the great temple of Ptah, now one of Egypt’s most popular tourist attractions. And we would visit the Pyramids, and perhaps travel as far south as Thebes. But at the last minute Vespasian canceled the trip. Our destiny, he said, was to make history, not tour its dusty halls. He told us to pack. We’re returning to Caesarea, he said. I was disappointed. I’d looked forward to seeing ancient Egypt’s greatest monuments. But of course Vespasian was right. We had a war to win.

  I packed the books I’d bought in Alexandria and those Vespasian had copied for me. Though my brief visit to the greatest city of the East was ending I’d take these treasures back with me, my link between the distant past and my own future, in ways as yet unknown to me.

  We were promised good weather for our return. With a strong westerly the trip would take a day, or less. But the winds of fate did not blow so straight for Vespasian. This day of leaving Alexandria, the day he would learn that in Rome he had been declared emperor he would for the rest of his life consider the worst day of his life.

  The sun was just coming up over the harbor, waking up for the day's business, when we arrived to board the ship. Vespasian and Titus stood discussing the strategy for victory at Jerusalem with several of us when we were hailed by a courier just arrived from Rome, who came breathlessly running up the pier. News from the capitol was priceless. Vespasian could do his best to control his destiny here in the East, but it was in Rome, not here, that his destiny was to be decided. While busy here he relied on the good faith and hard work of his allies in the capitol where, under the hand of his brother Sabinus, stone by stone, the foundation of his political base was being built.

  Still breathless from his sprint up the pier, and after only a few words of pleasantries, the courier began his story. “On the twentieth of December,” he said, which would have been ten, no, eleven days ago, I calculated, “after defeating the Vitellian forces at Cremona, your army slowly made their way toward Rome, their progress slowed by mopping-up operations with the remnants of Vitellius’ men. At last the vanguard of the army entered Rome. Vitellius’ rule was over. That afternoon he killed himself, and on the next day, the Senate voted you all the rights and privileges of emperor.”

  It was simple, and it was shocking. The empire was his. Vespasian was emperor.

  The men gathered around to salute him. Hail, Caesar! they cheered, and their cheers were echoed from up and down the pier, as the stevedores and sailors, milling crowds of merchants and passengers turned to look, caught up in the momentous event they were suddenly part of. Vespasian turned, nodded, accepted his men's good will. This was a dream he’d never had, yet somehow here it was. Though he’d earned the title of Caesar, it seemed not to fit.

  We crowded around him, one by one offering our congratulations. I said only that Rome was fortunate and its future at last in good hands. He clapped me on the back and thanked me.

  The courier told us that his forces were in complete control of the city, and the Senate and the people awaited his arrival.

  So, he was emperor now.

  He thanked the courier and turned to continue on his way.

  “There’s no need to change our plans,” he said. “We’ll sail on up to Caesarea, as we planned, and on to Rome from there.”

  The courier touched his shoulder. “Sir,” he said, deferentially, “there is more.”

  “Yes?” Vespasian responded. “Well, out with it. The ship’s waiting!”

  “It’s about your brother,” the aide said.

  Vespasian stopped, faced him. “Well?”

  The aide said nothing.

  Vespasian had grown up and lived in the shadow of his older brother. They’d fought together in Britain, before their paths separated. Up to this moment Sabinus had been the more successful of the two. First senator, then under Nero elected consul, he’d been granted a governorship before being appointed praefectus urbi and commanded the urban cohorts, while Vespasian was eking out a living selling mules in Reate, the price he paid for falling asleep in Nero’s performance. Without Sabinus’ intercession Vespasian would not have been appointed commander of the Judean troops, and without that, he’d likely still be in Reate. There had been times, when his own star had dimmed almost to extinction, that he envied his brother’s success; yet his brother had never forgotten him. He owed Sabinus so much.

  When Nero had left Italy for his last, extended tour of Greece, he left the capitol in Sabinus’ hands. When the emperor returned his death hovered just over the horizon. His fall was followed by a brutal blood-letting. Sabinus of course was in danger. But over the years he’d kept the respect of the men who served around and under him. So though he lost command of the urban cohorts he kept his life and remained in Rome through the chaos of the following year. His letters from that period were Vespasian’s most reliable source of information about the capitol’s complex web of intrigues, and at the same time the source of his strongest encouragement. Recently Vespasian had asked Sabinus to command the pro-Flavian forces in the city against Vitellius’ supporters.

  Vespasian stepped back, leaned on a cotton bale. “Tell me,” he said, his heart deflated, the great joy it had felt for a few moments now only a thing of the past, so close yet irretrievable.

  The aide spoke slowly, unsure where to start. He could not bring himself to say what he knew he must say.

  “After Cremona,” he began, “your forces grew stronger each day. One by one they came to your side, the powerful and influential, the consuls, officers, senators and magistrates, in Rome and all across the provinces. Spain, Moesia, in Britain the II Augustus did not forget you. As you know, Lucilius Bassus gave you the fleets at Ravenna and Misenum. In Campania the cohorts revolted against Vitellius and vowed allegiance to you. Vitellius had to split his forces, and send a legion to Puteoli, where I was stationed. It left him weak in Rome. Some of this you probably know,” the aide said, trying to put off the inevitable. Vespasian and our little group which a moment before had been so full of joy instead stood silently, unmoving, as the aide spun out his story. Now all the business on the quay and in the harbor seemed somehow blasphemous. I wanted to yell out for everyone to be quiet.

  “Vitellius’ days were numbered,” the courier continued. “He’d been promised his life, if he would abdicate. He was ready to surrender, but then had a change of heart, and swore he’d never give up. Then he vacillated again, contacted your brother, and attempted to abdicate. Negotiations got under way. Sabinus was in the thick of it
. Someone, some lawyer or judge pointed out there was no precedent for an emperor to abdicate.”

  “Sabinus was sure a compromise could be reached which allowed Vitellius to abdicate, and keep his life. Your forces were strong enough to go head on against Vitellius, but Sabinus had hopes of stemming the flow of blood. He rallied your supporters outside your home on the Quirinal. Die-hard Vitellians, hearing of the rally, wandered over to make trouble. A fight started, some men were killed. Sabinus and a few friends retreated to the sanctity of the Capitol. The main body of your forces were just north of the city. Sabinus sent them an urgent note, that he was surrounded, and they should hurry to the Capitol.”

  There was not a sound from the little group surrounding the emperor. The business of Alexandria’s harbor continued unnoticed around us.

  “The next day the Vitellians attacked the Capitol. It was like driving a knife into the heart of our mother. No place in the city is considered more sacred, yet the Vitellians beat down its doors and set it afire. Your army of thirty thousand strong was ever closer. From the hills they could see the smoke rising from the Capitol, where even the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus wasn’t spared. It’s said Vitellius watched the great Temple burn while stuffing himself in Tiberius’ palace. Seeing the smoke, your officers sent the cavalry ahead at full speed.”

  “The men with your brother fought bravely but every one was killed. They loved your brother because they respected not only him, but you, and believed in your cause. To them, death was nothing so long as it came in your name.”

  The courier paused. Vespasian stared blankly out across the harbor into the sea, his eyes following a grain ship heading westward toward Rome and the events which, ten days before, had transpired there; as though by staring into the face of destiny he could change it.

  “Sabinus was captured,” the aide went on, “and brought to Vitellius. He was told he must come over to Vitellius’ side, though everyone knew he wouldn't. He was your brother to the end.”

  “How did he die?” Vespasian asked quietly, a child again for a moment, playing with his brother, who’d taught him to shoot the toy bow and how to parry with his sword and swing himself up onto a horse and tell a ripe apple from a green one which gave you a belly-ache.

  “Vitellius ordered his men to keep Sabinus alive, as ransom for his own safety. But the men had fought hard. They didn’t know you, but they hated you, and had a way to reach across the miles to hurt you. After promising Vitellius they took Sabinus aside. One of the soldiers drew a sword and ran it through him, and the others...the same.”

  Vespasian said nothing, only rose, wearily.

  “Within hours your army broke into Vitellius’ headquarters. But it was too late.”

  “And Domitian?” Vespasian’s youngest son was still in Rome.

  “Domitian hid in the Capitol’s Temple of Isis, disguised as a worshiper. He’s safe.”

  Vespasian placed his hand on the courier’s shoulder, tried to thank him, but couldn’t find the words. He turned and walked up the plank onto the ship.

  He’d been handed what he’d not asked for. The empire was his. But at what price?

  This question, I knew, lay at the back of his mind for the rest of his life. It would be there still, a decade later, as his own dying body snuffed out the lights of his mind. He stepped up the gangway onto the deck of the Liburnian. We followed. The ship was towed from the dock, and as the tow-boat fell away and the long oars of the ship rose and fell to turn it toward the open sea, Vespasian watched the harbor and the great city of Alexandria fall away. Angrily he pulled his sword from its sheath, and threw it as high and far as he could, swearing against the gods and his fate. With his mind he cried out: Take today away, oh Jupiter, that I might be but a mule-dealer again. Only, bring my brother back! But the sword fell impotently into the sea, and in his heart he knew there was no going back. How he’d looked forward to reuniting with Sabinus and repaying him for all he’d done. How they might have shared their triumph, the triumph of a family, not a man. But it was not to be.

  Instead, he made a resolve which he kept the rest of his life: if I cannot share my power with Sabinus, then I will with Titus. He stood alone, tears of anger and impotence welling, his heart and mind turning like the ship under him. Once out of the harbor the ship's sails were unfurled and flapped noisily in the wind which now carried Rome’s new emperor into his and the empire’s future.

  Vespasian insisted on being left to himself on the way to Caesarea. We watched him all morning, up at the bow, as he stared at the waves coming in from his left, adjusting his body to the rise and fall of the ship as it creaked slowly northward. The day grew overcast and cold, a light bitter rain began to fall. Someone brought him a woolen cloak. Now to stay warm he walked back and forth the length of the ship, back and forth for hours and hours, stopping sometimes at the bow to stare with forlorn eyes ahead, or sometimes again at the stern where he watched the sea receding, receding, like the past days of our lives. The sea was the same whether from bow or stern, gray, roiling, unforgiving. Was this his life, then, caught in the winds of fate, the future giving way to the past, but the one no different from the other? No, now he was emperor, and the bearer of the Flavian gens. If we turned the ship around, and sailed back to Alexandria, those two things would not change. We could sail the North Sea to Thule, or cross to Britain, but that would not change a thing. Emperor, and Sabinus dead. How could it be?

  The flackering of the sails and the whispering of the sea against the sides of the ship must have seemed at one moment to be conspiring against him, the next praising him. There were times when all we could feel was the ship’s gentle rise and fall, all else lost in a gray confusion, when up became down, and at these times it seemed he might go mad. We watched, afraid he might throw himself into the sea. Though his reign would carry him and the empire into a decade of unprecedented peace and prosperity, and through the strength of his own will re-establish his citizen’s trust in themselves, through all those years of trial and triumph, he would in a certain sense never step off this ship. Always he would feel himself balanced on the fine edge of fate’s blade, between the grandest of glories and the madness of grief.

  Titus had never seen his father like this. Vespasian was a man of action, who thought through his options then acted on deep principles. Never had he brooded so, not even when he’d been forced by Nero to his retreat in Reate. Titus knew only too well how close his uncle and his father had been, but there was nothing he could do. He knew, too, that being on the ship was a kind of imprisonment for his father who while on board could do nothing about either the future or the past. Only to stand and wait for landfall. Late in the afternoon he brought his father a bowl of warm soup. Taking it, his father’s hand rested on his, and for a moment the two stood close.

  “I’ll need your help,” Vespasian said. These were the first words he’d spoken in hours.

  “Yes,” Titus said, then lifted the cloak and wrapped it more tightly around his father. The light was failing, the night coming. His father slurped soup from his spoon, scraped it across the bottom of the bowl. On the far horizon, ahead and to the right, Titus pointed out the faintest glimmer of a light. His father stared that way, then nodded. It would be the lighthouse at Caesarea. They stood quietly beside one another while the ship wheeled gently in that direction.

  Vespasian lost himself in his work. Except for Jerusalem all Judea was now ours. After inspecting the siege works, it was clear it was but a matter of weeks before Titus took the city. Meanwhile he was needed in Rome. He made arrangements to leave. Josephus and I would remain with Titus.

  After the siege we learned what had gone on inside the Holy City, where conditions were becoming intolerable. Factional conflict flared up again and played into our hands. The Herodians drove the Zealots back into the inner temple. Surrounded, the Zealots appealed for help. The Idumeans, milling about outside the Temple, came to their rescue and captured and executed the high priests Ananus and Je
sus, son of Gamala. While the Herodians staggered from the loss of their leaders the Zealots under John of Gischala took control of the outer courtyard of the Temple.

  A large faction of peasants remained in the surrounding countryside under the leadership of Simon bar Giora. The Zealots appealed to him for help. Under the cover of night Simon and thousands of armed peasants made their way into the city. But instead of joining the Zealots, they turned against them, and held them captive in the Temple’s most inner sanctum. Now the holy city was held by three separate factions: the Zealots in the inner temple, John of Gischala and his followers in the temple courtyard, and Simon bar Giora in the outer courtyard and in control of the city itself. On learning that we’d returned from Alexandria and realizing they didn't stand a chance unless united, they elected Simon bar Giora commander in chief.

  While all this was going on Titus brought four legions up from Caesarea and stationed them in the surrounding hills. Legio X he put to the north, camped on the Mount of Olives. He planned to apply the tactics of siege warfare he’d learned from his father and make good use of the deadly ballistae, Legio X’s specialty. The other legions set up camp on Mount Scopus.

  Now Jerusalem was for all practical purposes completely cut off from the rest of the world. With Simon bar Giora and his men inside the walls, no significant forces remained in the countryside to come to the city’s rescue.

  Reports of strange portents passed through Jerusalem. As the Jewish people had streamed toward the city in front of our advancing armies they’d brought their cattle with them, which they kept in the Temple courtyard. First someone said a cow had given birth to a lamb. In the inner Temple, at the altar considered the Holy of Holies, just as the priests were going in for an evening service a brilliant light streamed down onto the altar, and the massive bronze door on the eastern gate of the inner court was said to open on its own. The priests swore they heard the Voice of God crying out telling them to leave the Temple. Meanwhile people pointed frantically to the sky where clouds mustered themselves into armies, which clashed in great bloody battles.