Pilate's Wife

by Antoinette May

  “Shall I call out the soldiers?” he asked me at last.

  “You can’t kill people for sitting! But I am sick to death of their wailing. Why not just take down the standards? Tiberius told you to ‘keep them happy and peaceful.’ Surely giving in to this one peculiarity won’t jeopardize Rome. The Jews will be happy, we will be peaceful. Do it—for me.”

  I was pleased when Pilate complied and I stood beside him on the palace balustrade breathing a sigh of relief when he gave the signal. After six days of passive protest, the supplicants went home, their mission accomplished.

  “I don’t understand these people,” Pilate said as we watched the dust settle after the departing caravan. “The Jews asked Rome to come here and settle their problems.”

  “I know, but that was long ago. Tata told me about it when I was a girl. His grandfather served here under Pompey. He died trying to settle their disputes. But,” I hesitated, “that was a long time ago. The people who invited Rome are dead.”

  “Their descendants should be grateful. We guarantee their peace. No more fighting among themselves, one faction constantly at the throats of another. They have their own courts, their own religion, collect their own taxes—”

  “We tax them, too,” I reminded him.

  “Of course. That’s the price of a stable government. Should we be expected to give up this splendid buffer against Parthia? The Jews will just have to live with Rome. Everyone else does.”

  IN THE SPRING, PILATE ASKED ME TO ACCOMPANY HIM TO JERUSALEM on his first inspection tour. Curious about the fabled Holy City, I agreed. The road to the ancient capital sixty miles to the southeast was a fine one built by legionnaires, who had marked the way with Roman milestones. In Caesarea we had been popular, with cheering crowds everywhere. Now, the farther we got from the coast, the more I sensed antagonism. Nothing overt, but sullen glances; and once, as we neared the outskirts of the city, I heard angry muttering. I had traveled far with Germanicus and never experienced anything like it. What was the matter? Aware of Jerusalem’s antiquity, I had anticipated a cosmopolitan center with a sophisticated worldview. What I found was a dreary desert garrison filled with narrow-minded, argumentative people who barely bothered to conceal their hostility.

  Nevertheless, the city had one attraction that was world famous. Everybody who had ever been to Jerusalem spoke with awe of the Temple. As our caravan approached the citadel, the mammoth structure, framed by massive walls and porticoes, took my breath away. The whiteness of its stone was so brilliant that the Temple looked like a mountain covered with snow. I wanted to see the inside, but Pilate was adamant. He perceived Jerusalem as a breeding ground of unrest. “Stay inside the palace,” he ordered. When I looked up at him in surprise—I had not heard that tone in a while—his voice softened. “You’ll have plenty to do there. Let the city come to you.”

  Settling into the residence that Herod had redecorated for us did keep me busy. It was a white-marble wonder with agate and lapis lazuli floors and splashing fountains. The vaulted ceilings were painted gold and scarlet, the silver inlaid furniture encrusted with jewels. A little overdone, Pilate and I agreed, but what could you expect from barbarians? These people were so—so—flamboyant. Fortunately, we would not have to spend much time in Jerusalem, and I did enjoy the view. The hillside palace commanded a splendid outlook of the city on one side and tree-shaded gardens on the other.

  Early one morning I watched with Rachel as the city’s gray stone buildings slowly emerged from the blue-black shadows of night. The entire east side of the city appeared to be engulfed in flames as the first rays of dawn struck the burnished gold plate atop the sanctuary columns. “You must admit it is splendid,” she said as the rising sun gilded the Temple’s dome. “When I lived here as a child, Herod was still rebuilding it. Pompey’s armies…”

  “Splendid, indeed,” I hurriedly interrupted her, feeling a tinge of Roman guilt for the earlier destruction. “Pilate said it took a thousand priests overseeing ten thousand workers to complete the job.”

  Rachel merely shrugged. “The Temple is everything in Jerusalem.”

  Everything, indeed. That settled it, I was determined to see this marvel for myself. Without saying anything to anyone, I slipped out one afternoon and hired a litter. It was a long ride down one hill and up the next, the bearers grunting all the way. As we neared the Temple Mount, I noticed an unpleasant odor and thought of Agrippina’s makeshift hospital in Germania. So terrible, but this was worse. I had never smelled anything like it. At last the litter was lowered to the ground. I pulled the curtain and looked out. The front of the Temple was certainly impressive—huge white slabs of polished marble and lavish gold plating that glittered in the sun. But, oh, the smell! Large troughs at the side of the building overflowed with blood and entrails that drained out into the street and down the hill.

  “Are you getting out or not?” a bearer asked impatiently. We were at the entrance, people were staring. I stepped out, handed him a coin, and hurried inside the massive doors.

  The Courtyard of the Gentiles is famous of course. Everyone talks about it, but nothing could have prepared me for the reality. Porticoes and marble columns were everywhere, the effect not only elegant but immense. But the noise! The din was unbelievable, unlike anything I had ever heard. Thousands of feet shuffling across the vast stone courtyard. Animals, lowing, cooing, bleating, bellowing—hundreds of creatures, large and small, lambs, bullocks, goats, chickens, doves. Voices in a dozen different dialects counting coins or begging alms, shrill cries of money changers. “Goats! Goats! Buy your goats here!” “Unblemished animals! Mine are perfect!” “Lambs! Lambs are best! Pure and docile!” “Is your currency clean?” a man asked, grabbing at my arm. “You cannot bring unclean money into the Temple. Exchange it here.” “He is a thief!” another cried, shoving his way toward me.

  Glad that I had dressed conservatively in a black stola of Rachel’s, I pulled it tightly around me and pushed forward. In the distance I saw a broad flight of steps. If I could get above the confusion—the pushing, shoving pilgrims, the raised arms of the beggars—I might gain some perspective. I was jostled this way and that by money changers who importuned me every step of the way, but at last I reached the base of the marble stairs.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, I began to climb. When I stopped at midpoint to rest, a surprising sight met my eyes. On the landing above me was a door, but on either side of it were signs in Greek, Latin, and Aramaic warning that entry beyond this point was restricted to Jews. Gentiles who attempted to enter would be put to death. Well! I was annoyed and disappointed, but the message was clear. I had risked enough already. Reluctantly I turned and was about to descend the stairs when all of a sudden the entire Temple reverberated with the sound of trumpets. Looking down I saw the crowd part as a procession of priests crossed the courtyard. They were an impressive lot in their brocade robes covered with jewels and hemmed in gold. With great solemnity they approached a large altar where a calf was tied. The terrified creature bleated piteously. Impervious, the high priest raised his knife. I saw the blood rush forth, heard the sigh of onlookers who gathered to witness the ceremony. More trumpets blared. Everywhere people were prostrating themselves on the stone floor while metal cymbals clashed above them. I could not get out fast enough.

  NO ONE HAD MISSED ME—OR SO I THOUGHT. I LOOKED IN ON MARCELLA, busily constructing her own citadel with clay blocks while a watchful slave beamed encouragement. Pilate, too, was occupied, closeted with petitioners in his grand tablinum. The afternoon passed quietly. As the sun began to set I put aside the banquet menus I had been studying and went to the highest parapet in the palace as had become my habit. Leaning against the railing, I watched purple shadows steal over the city. As always, I thought of Holtan. Where was he? What was he doing? Did he think sometimes of me?

  CHAPTER 31

  Caiaphus

  Dark eyes, filled with anguish, beseeching me. What have I done? What must I do? A crown of thorns
cuts into his brow. I run from the bloody visage, plunging headlong into a garden. Broad, leafy trees offer sanctuary. No! No! The trees are turning to crosses. They surround me, weeping blood. The forest floor runs with it. I try to flee. Crosses are everywhere, so many of them. Something holds me, traps me.

  I struggle to remember what has frightened me. The face. Half remembered from another time. I lay on a great couch with lion’s feet and silken coverings. My couch. Tossing this way and that, I struggle, pulling free, only to realize that it is Rachel who holds me. Pale sunlight fills the room, the face is gone, the crosses. “I’m all right,” I tell her. “It is only another nightmare.” Only. I sigh, the world once again as I know it.

  “You could be facing far worse than dreams.” Rachel pulled back the tangled covers. “You did a foolish thing yesterday.”

  “I went to the Temple alone because I did not want a lecture on what I should and should not do,” I said, sitting up.

  “Domina needs a lecture. The city is filled with dangerous factions. The Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Essences, the Zealots—the only thing they hate more than each other is Rome. Suppose they had recognized you, suppose—”

  “Yes, let’s talk about suppose.” Pilate had entered the room as we were speaking and stood above me now, livid with anger. “I forbade you to go to the Temple.”

  “I am not a child to be forbidden anything.” I stared back, angry as he. How I hated this place!

  Rachel slipped in close, standing protectively at my side. “Domina has only just awakened. She has had a terrible dream. She is not herself.”

  “Not herself indeed. Did you imagine that I wouldn’t find out that you left the palace without guards, that you went alone to the Temple of all places?”

  “Was that such a sin? Everyone talks about the Temple. I simply wanted to see it for myself.”

  “But what if you had been seen! They might have held you hostage. I am the governor, for Jupiter’s sake. It is I who would have had to decide, would have had to choose between jeopardizing Rome by meeting their demands or standing by while they wreaked their vengeance on you.”

  The anger disappeared from Pilate’s eyes as he looked down at me in my twisted shift. “You must promise, Claudia.” He placed his hands on my shoulders so that I faced him directly. “Nothing of this sort can happen again.”

  “The last thing I want is to cause you more trouble,” I said softly, pulling my tangled hair together. “But we know you would always choose Rome.”

  “Don’t force me to choose,” he said, voice thick. Turning swiftly, he was gone.

  Before I could answer, trumpets blared a loud, clear blast that floated across the city from an upper terrace of the Temple. A priest’s ritual knife must be slashing the throat of the first sacrificial creature of the day. I trembled, remembering the cries of doomed animals, the acrid smell of warm blood. “Do not worry, Rachel, I will not go to the Temple again. It is a house of slaughter. The shouting, too, is dreadful.”

  Rachel looked puzzled, then laughed. “Oh, the money changers! All Jews must pay homage at the Temple at least once in their lives. Those who can, go often. The money changers are there to serve them.”

  “So I have noticed. A whole army stands ready to take their money. All that wrangling cannot be conducive to prayer.”

  “The bargaining gets noisy,” Rachel admitted as she slipped a robe over my shoulders. “Everyone who wants to pray in the Temple must sacrifice an animal, which can only be bought with Temple shekels. Someone has to change the money.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “You cannot escape the smell. The whole city is permeated.”

  “Well…sometimes when the wind blows a certain way,” Rachel conceded, adding, “Romans also sacrifice animals.”

  “One animal, for a special occasion,” I granted, “nothing like this. All that waste, the blood—”

  For a time we stood silently on the terrace, watching the sun rise over the Temple. Finally, I asked a question that had plagued me. “What about the upper floors? The signs forbid Gentiles…”

  “Women are forbidden as well.”

  “Really! No wonder you worship Isis.”

  “Isis reveres animals. But here, the Sanhedrin—the high priests—believe that ritual is the glue that binds the Jews as a people.”

  “Surely there is more to faith than killing animal after animal, hour after hour.”

  Rachel’s brows furrowed. “I am not the only Jew who questions the practice,” she admitted. “One prophet cried out against it. We learn his words as children: ‘He hath shown thee, Oh man, what is good and what Yahweh doth require of thee, but to do justly, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God.’”

  I sighed, thinking of how far the Temple and its hundreds of dependents had strayed from that ideal. After a time Rachel ventured, “Domina must agree that the Temple is beautiful?”

  “It is very grand but…” I stopped, not wanting to wound her civic pride. The lack of statuary seemed an odd eccentricity, but I was far more concerned with the city’s sanitation. Located high in the hill country, far from any lake or river, the whole city depended on rainwater held in crumbling cisterns.

  That night I brought the matter up to Pilate.

  “Roman engineering could easily solve the city’s water problems,” he agreed almost eagerly. There had been no more discussion of my foray to the Temple. I was sorry for the distress I had caused him. I must do better.

  “An aqueduct would benefit everyone,” I suggested.

  “Representatives from the Sanhedrin are coming here tomorrow. Their Temple treasury holds a fortune. Besides tithes and offerings, every man in the country pays a half shekel a year. They can easily afford an aqueduct.”

  The next evening, reclining beside me on our dining couch, Pilate described the day’s events. To his amazement, the council refused. “Not one shekel,” their high priest had announced.

  Pilate had been adamant. His soldiers marched straight to the Temple compound and confiscated the necessary funds. Turning to me with a satisfied smile, my husband concluded, “If I am known for nothing else, it will be for bringing a proper water supply to this sorry town.”

  PILATE DID HIS BEST IN ALL THINGS. WHEN I ALLOWED HIM TO SHARE my couch, he was eager and passionate, but I felt nothing. Might these joyless moments result in another child? I sometimes wondered. No answer was revealed. After a time I speculated that Marcella’s birth had injured me in some way. Perhaps there would be no other children. So be it. Marcella was my solace. Merry and mischievous, the child, nearly three, reminded me more of my sister with each passing day. I must guard my baby carefully, I thought often, all the while warming myself in the glow of her childish enthusiasm.

  At times day-to-day life seemed almost bearable and then something would invariably draw me back to Holtan. A rare letter from Apicata tore at my heart. She had glimpsed him at the theater surrounded by admiring women. At least Holtan is alive, I reminded myself, but nothing could stop my longing. I remembered with painful clarity all the things I loved about him: the warm timbre of his low-pitched voice, the odd amber color of his eyes, the texture of his sun-bronzed skin. I ached with longing for even a few brief minutes with Holtan.

  As for Pilate, he was changing before my eyes. The husband who sought my company with increasing frequency seemed bewildered and frustrated, sometimes even frightened. He had only a small military presence in Judaea—merely five cohorts and one cavalry regiment. Should a serious uprising occur, he would have to appeal to the legate in Syria for help. Often he solicited my advice. Invariably it came down to one question: How could he placate the Jews and still maintain Roman sovereignty?

  As I had no knowledge of Judaea, my impulses were intuitive, always returning me to the Sanhedrin. “They are the key,” I told him one night as he lay beside me. “They control the Temple and the Temple rules the city.”

  “Can’t you say more than that?” he asked impatiently.

  �
�The sight does not come on command!” I answered, my voice edgy as his.

  Receptions and banquets filled my life. Tonight, with a scroll by a new Egyptian writer, I had looked forward to a quiet evening. Then Pilate surprised me with a visit. Usually he went to sleep afterward; tonight he wanted to talk.

  “But you do…sometimes know things,” he prodded. “Try now. Try because I want you to.”

  Stifling a sigh, I pulled myself up, focused my eyes on the flickering lamp beside me. I breathed deeply, stared into the flame. What right had I to ask Isis anything when I had been so lax in my devotions? Yet this was not for me…it was Pilate who sought guidance. In this uneasy city he needed all the help the goddess could give him. The lamp flickered but I saw nothing. Please, please, Isis, tell me something that will help, something that may bring peace to a troubled man and the angry country that he must govern. Probing inwardly, I waited until at last images slowly began to appear. What did they mean? Help me, Isis, show me truth. “There is a man…” I said at last. “His name is Joseph…”

  “Jupiter!” Pilate exclaimed. “They’re all named Joseph!” Watching me intently, he pressed, “What does he look like?”

  “A large man, but with a narrow face…thin lips. Not much older than you, but he is proud…arrogant.”

  Pilate stared at me, almost in wonder. “You’re describing Joseph Caiaphas. A most ruthless man, I’ve discovered. He became high priest by marrying the former high priest’s daughter. Now his power is second only to mine. What can you tell me about him?”

  I stared into the flame. There were so many shadows, shifting forms. What did they mean? This Caiaphas, the mighty priest…“Power is everything to him, more than his people, more even than the god he serves.” As though from some great distance, I heard myself warning Pilate. “Beware of him. He will try to use you.”