by Alan Gold
Yet, there was a certain attraction to being here. In Rome he was a nobleman, a knight, and respected, but he was fairly low down in the imperial hierarchy and was rarely invited to the residence of Caesar. But things had changed for the better after he fought alongside Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius in Gaul. After the civil war in Rome, Marc Antony assumed control of the eastern empire and he had asked Marcellus Gratus to join him and assist in the administration of Judea.
In the two years since he’d been here in the hillside village of Jerusalem, he’d barely seen Marc Antony. The noble Roman spent all of his time in Egypt in the company of their queen, Cleopatra VII, who gave him ready access to her body, as she had done to Julius Caesar some years earlier. And knowing the Egyptians, she probably gave her body to her mother, brother, and father as well.
It was all very strange, and had it not been for Marcellus Gratus’s sense of duty and responsibility, without a firm ruler the place would have become lawless. But as de facto proconsul, Marcellus Gratus kept a firm hand on the different competing factions, the priesthood, the Israelite hotheads who wanted Rome to quit the province, those who wanted closer ties to Syria or to Egypt, and worst of all, the innumerable people who called themselves Messiahs, who seemed to be springing up all the while. Only last week he’d crucified three of them who had tried to foment a revolt among the Jews outside the temple, yelling and screaming that this god of theirs had spoken to them and told them to rise up against the Sadducees in the temple and to all go and live in the desert or something.
He’d been warned by other knights in Rome that Judea was a land full of madmen, religious zealots, hermits, and a strange people who revered only this single god called Adon or something, a god who was invisible yet was perpetually sitting down in the little temple they’d built to him on the top of one of the hills.
These madmen—and there were dozens of them—called themselves Messiahs, which apparently meant those who had been sent by their god, and all came with visions of some beauteous heaven and salvation and forgiveness of sins. They were of little account, often wandering in the desert, wearing just a loincloth, speaking to bushes and the stars, and rarely bothering anybody; he usually crucified those who gathered a following, which scared the rest of them into staying in the desert.
It was, indeed, a mysterious land, but fortunately they were ruled by a king who had grown up in Roman ways and was fluent in Latin as well as understood the imperial way of ruling. And he’d been told in a letter from Marc Antony that their king, Herod, was going to be conferred by the Roman Senate with the title King of the Jews.
When his black slave had finished toweling his front and back, he held her around her neck while she slipped one of his legs and then the other into his white linen subligaculum. On the formal occasions when he wore his toga, he didn’t bother with undergarments; but his meeting with King Herod wasn’t going to be formal, and so he would wear a simple tunic, which meant that his subligaculum was obligatory when he sat down.
His slave pulled the short tunic over his head, placed the gold seal of authority on his finger, combed his hair, and finished dressing him. Then she bowed deferentially and withdrew. He told his wife that he would be in the offices and walked out of the bathhouse, followed by his guards. He climbed the flight of steps, where two soldiers, standing guard, banged their hastae on the ground and stood rigidly at attention. The noise of the wooden spears hitting the marble floor told his amanuensis to open the doors and bow as he walked through.
“Excellency,” said Septimius Severus, his longtime secretary, “King Herod is expected. His advance guard has informed me that he will be here shortly.”
* * *
HEROD, KING OF THE north and south of Israel, lover, politician, and omnipotent ruler, son of Herod Antipater the Idumaean and Cyprus the Nabatean, beloved of the Roman conquerors but hated by the Jews of Israel, was overwhelmed with excitement. He had spent much of the morning standing on his golden chariot at the precipitous edge of the mountainside, looking at the city of Jerusalem. His troop of bodyguards, arrayed in lines behind him, was forced to stand in the blistering sun while the black silk parasol gave him shade. Now he was riding quickly toward the city for his interview with the proconsul, Marcellus Gratus, and could barely wait to show him his plans.
It had been so hot on the hill that he was sure the sun had burned the top of his balding head, despite the shade of the parasol. He’d wiped the sweat from his eyes, and although he didn’t know it, he and his guards were positioned at precisely the same spot on the Mount of Olives where, nearly a thousand years before him, King David had stood and surveyed the city, which was inhabited by the Jebusites, planning how to conquer it.
But today Herod’s eyes saw a very different city, white and gleaming, rich and renowned, proud and holy. His eyes narrowed in wonder as he surveyed the towering walls and the myriad buildings within: the homes of the populace, offices where the business of the nation of Israel was conducted on behalf of the Roman conquerors, shops that sold goods from all over the Roman world, and stalls that sold meat and drink, fruits and delicacies, herbs and spices.
Yet, the beauty of the city was marred when he looked farther up the hill. He shuddered when his eyes were lifted to the top of the mountain called Moriah and saw the temple dedicated to Adonai Elohim built five hundred years earlier by the Jews who had returned from exile in Babylon.
He’d been inside the temple many times and compared its sparseness and insignificance with the towering grandeur of the buildings of Rome, where he’d spent much time. His wife, Mariamne, had said that the Jews would love and revere him as their one and only true king if he were to knock down the meager structure the Jews called their temple and replace it with the mightiest temple imaginable, dedicated to their god Adonai Elohim, an edifice grander than the pyramids of Egypt or the ziggurats of Roman Mesopotamia.
Herod had spoken to the rabbis about his plans, and while many considered it blasphemy to pull down the sacred temple, others were excited by the idea of a great and grand temple. While he could have compelled them to do precisely as he told them, perhaps executing a few to convince those who opposed him, Mariamne persuaded him to compromise. He would allow them to continue to use their altar and sacrifice whatever animals they wanted, and he would pull down the old temple that had been built by Zerubbabel and Joshua, dismantling it stone by stone. Then he would flatten the top of the mountain and build a massive platform where the huge foundation stones could be laid.
He had the architect’s plans and couldn’t wait to show them to Marcellus Gratus. His horseman rode his chariot through the great archway that led to the upper reaches of Jerusalem, and people scattered out of the way as the noise of the wheels on the paving stones warned them of his approach. When he reached the gates of the huge home from where Marcellus Gratus administered the nation on behalf of Rome, he jumped down from the chariot, grabbed his plans, and walked quickly toward the atrium.
Marcellus Gratus’s secretary, Septimius Severus, saw him approach and ran to inform his master. “Shall I have him wait in the antechamber?” the servant asked.
The proconsul shook his head. “No, admit him. He’s a good friend of Rome, so we shouldn’t delay.”
Septimius Severus bowed politely and nodded to a guard who stood by a door at the far end of the office. In moments Herod walked in and smiled when he saw his friend. He raised his right arm stiffly, his fingers outstretched. It was a salute that also showed that he wore no weapons concealed in the arm sleeve of his tunic. Marcellus Gratus did the same, and they approached each other with a smile. They embraced and clasped each other’s wrists.
“So, my friend, what brings you to my quarters?” asked Marcellus Gratus.
“I’m here, friend, to inform you of a significant number of building projects I wish to undertake. I will be taxing my people heavily, so we can expect some trouble. I’ll also be importing architects from Greece, Rome, and Egypt, so they’ll need guarding
and protection from a jealous population.”
“Three architects from three countries? That’s a big building.”
“Architects from three countries, not three architects. I’ll have thirty architects working on the different projects throughout the country.”
“By the gods, how many projects will you be undertaking?”
Herod smiled. He turned to his secretary and nodded. The man withdrew a dozen scrolls from his bag and began to unroll them on the table. As one, then another, then another were laid on top of one another, Marcellus Gratus shook his head in amazement.
“I intend to make my kingdom into a replica of Rome, but on the other side of the world. I will make my name live forever throughout the ages for the most beautiful and perfect of constructions. From this day until the end of time, people will look at our Roman Empire and see two great pillars on each side supporting the world. One pillar will be Rome with its Senate, its forums, its temples, its hippodromes, its baths, and its theaters. The other pillar, on the opposite side of the world, will be Israel, with the greatest buildings in the East, greater than Egypt’s pyramids or the Acropolis of Athens with its Parthenon and its caryatids.”
Marcellus Gratus smiled. “You still call this nation Israel; when will you Jews know that its name is Judea?”
“Don’t bother yourself with that. Instead, look at my plans, Marcellus Gratus, and tell me that they’re not the most exciting and splendid building programs you’ve ever seen.”
They walked to the table and Herod, like an excited schoolboy, said, “This is my plan for a new temple, right here in Jerusalem. I’ll have the priests build it of stone and they’ll do the woodwork as well, and it will be full of marble and gold.”
He pulled the plan for the temple away and revealed a plan for an entire city on the shores of the Mediterranean. “This port city will be called Caesarea Maritima in honor of our emperor and will house a huge theater, an amphitheater, a hippodrome, a vast temple dedicated to whichever god the emperor decides, and a palace for myself by the sea. We’ll dredge the harbor so that a hundred ships can dock there in safety.”
He pulled that plan aside and cast it on the floor, revealing a plan for a desert palace, which Marcellus Gratus read was called Masada. This looked like an outrageously complicated structure, hewn out of solid rock and built on many different levels; but before he was able to examine it properly, Herod revealed more plans.
“In Jericho, a horrible place on the edge of the desert and overlooking the Salt Sea, I’ll build a palace on both sides of the wadi, the dry riverbed, but they’ll be connected by a bridge, and there’ll be gardens and baths and halls for dining and entertainment.”
Another plan revealed the city of Jerusalem. “And here I’ll build a sewage system, which will carry the waste away and dump it into the valley beyond, as well as a water system that will supply the people with all the fresh water they need. And there’s the baths and a hippodrome here, and—”
“Stop!” said Marcellus Gratus. “Stop! Enough! By Jove, by all the gods in the heavens, this is madness. Insane. How will you ever be able to afford it? Where will the labor come from? Who will do the building, the construction, the stonecutting? Where will the rock and the wood come from? I’ve never seen so many plans in all my life. This will ruin Judea, Herod. Ruin the country. You’ll be king of a kingdom that is nothing but dirt and rubble.”
“No!” said Herod, laughing. “It’s time this nation had a strong ruler whose will is absolute. The people, the Jews, are stiff-backed and resentful. But when my buildings are complete and the people look on them in awe—when they see that travelers come from all over the empire just to gaze on these wonders—then they will truly say that Herod is a great king.”
Marcellus Gratus looked at the king of the Jews and wondered whether he was truly mad or a man of extraordinary vision. “There will be many who resent what you’re doing, who’ll fight you. There will be an uprising when your tax collectors whip the backs of people whose backs are already bent under the burden you’ve imposed on them.”
Again Herod burst out laughing. “Then my prisons will be full, my executioners busy, and my torturers exhausted.”
“Your people will hate you. Truly hate you. Is that what you want?”
Herod thought deeply, knowing that what Marcellus Gratus said was correct. Wherever he went in Israel, he could sense the hatred toward him of the people of the city and in the country, looking at him and sneering. He was as much a Jew as they were, yet because his family was from Idumaea and even though he was their rightful king, they still considered him a foreigner. He’d threatened, demanded, executed, and tortured enough of them to engender respect for him with the majority, but still he knew that they held him in contempt.
So his beloved Mariamne had persuaded him to build this new temple on the site of the worthless building that the prophets Haggai and Zachariah had overseen in ancient times. He’d been told by the rabbis that the temple, little more than a square building of stone with inconsequential ornaments inside, was erected and completed twenty years after the Jews were released from captivity by Cyrus the Great.
And he knew precisely how he’d do it. He would quarry the white Jerusalem blocks from a shaft he would build and burrow into the higher northern reaches of the mountain, close to the city and the site of the platform on which the new temple would be built. And as it was downhill from the quarry to that part of the city, the oxen wouldn’t have to struggle too much. His architects would ensure that the Sadducees did all the heavy building work, for the priests would have little to do once their temple was pulled down and before the new one was erected.
It would cost a fortune, of course, but he would raise taxes to pay for the artisans, the equipment, the architects, the masons, and all the others who would build it quickly and efficiently. He’d been told, according to the records kept in the Second Temple, that the money to build it was raised from the returning Jews of Babylon by a merchant named Reuven, but Herod would use no merchants or others to force the money out of the Jews’ pockets. He’d set his tax gatherers and collectors the task of raising the money, and if he had to break a few backs and put holes into a few skulls to ensure the cooperation of the populace, well, so be it.
November 4, 2007
YAEL WAS SWEATING despite the car’s air-conditioning. She got out of the driver’s seat and the dry, enveloping heat and sulfurous stench of the Dead Sea hit her like a slap in the face. She recalled the numbers of school visits she’d made to the area, especially the trip to King Herod’s winter palace at Masada. Living in Jerusalem, she was used to extremes of temperature, but the Dead Sea had an atmosphere all its own. The heat was so intense that it hurt her nostrils to breathe.
Yael hurried into the prison’s reception area where it was both shady and cooled by air-conditioning, and told them that she’d made an appointment as his doctor to see the prisoner on remand, Bilal haMitzri. She even carried a folder of papers for him to sign.
“Consent forms and such, so I can use his name in my paper about his medical condition.”
The prison officer raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“Just covering my ass so he doesn’t sue me later,” said Yael as nonchalantly as she could muster. The officer waved her into the security room.
After she walked through an X-ray body scanner, had her bag thoroughly searched, and was examined in intimate places by a female security guard, she was allowed into the prison, leaving her bag and mobile phone in a locker.
Within a few minutes Bilal was led into the reception room by a massive Russian guard. The young man was surprised to see her.
“Dr. Yael. You’re here again,” Bilal said in Arabic.
Yael looked at the guard to see whether he understood, but it didn’t appear as though he did. But she had to test him out, and so she said in Arabic to Bilal, “My friend, I have something very serious to discuss with you and I don’t want anybody to understand what I’m going to
say. Does the guard speak Arabic? For this is a very private message . . .”
“No, Doctor, I speak to him in bad Hebrew. His Hebrew is as bad as mine.”
She winked at Bilal and looked around the room to see whether there were any television cameras or recording equipment. Satisfied that there were none, in a conversational voice, looking at Bilal, she said in Arabic, “Hey, Russian guard. If you can hear me, your mother is a worthless slut and your sister is a cheap whore who sells her body to anyone with a credit card.”
Bilal looked at her in astonishment, but Yael saw that the guard didn’t even blink, let alone react to the gross insult.
“Bilal, listen to me very, very carefully and say nothing. Don’t react in any way. I have to get you out of here.”
Bilal’s eyes widened but he remained silent.
“You are in very great danger. The authorities will do little and too late. You must do exactly as I tell you. Do you understand?”
Bilal nodded slowly.
“I am going to give you three tablets. Take them, and they will make you sick, very sick, but only for a short while.”
Bilal sat back from the table and a flash of fear showed across his face. But Yael reached out across the table and touched his arm. In that moment she feared the guard’s attention would be drawn by such an action; she had very little time to make Bilal understand, but the guard was busy reading a paper.