The Redemption of Pontius Pilate

by Lewis Ben Smith

  “Now then, Quirites,” he said, addressing the two citizens by their formal titles, “each of you has five clients whose total acreage is roughly equal. You should each be able to count on an equal harvest of grapes and equal wine production every year. It will be up to you to make your product more competitive than your competition’s. “

  “Prefect, this is unheard of!” snapped Licinius. “I had contracts with seven of these men, not five!”

  “And I had contracts with six!” said Cato.

  “AND I SAY YOU HAVE FIVE EACH!!” roared Pilate. “Now get out of my office, and do NOT let me hear you complain about each other again, or I will void all your contracts and set you on the first ship back to Rome!” He glared at each of the men intensely, and they scurried out of his office quickly, each followed by their new clients.

  Whether it was his voice carrying through the walls, or the frightened expressions of Licinius and Cato, the next few clients finished their business quickly and without bickering. Several of them were the local publicani, come to deposit the taxes and tributes they had collected for the Senate with Rome’s official representative. Pilate called in his accountant, Silvanus, whom he had barely had time to meet before setting out on his tour of the province, to make sure that their accounts were in order. It appeared that they were, so he ordered Silvanus to deposit the money in the local treasury to be transported to Rome at the end of the month. Next came two of his soldiers, looking hangdog and apologetic, explaining that they had borrowed money from one of the local lenders, who turned out to be charging a much higher interest rate than advertised. The moneylender had trailed them in, shouting that they had entered the contract in good faith and must pay to the last mite. Pilate ordered each soldier to receive ten lashes, and docked their pay by ten denarii a month until the debt was cleared. Then he ordered the moneylender given twenty lashes for extorting from the Emperor’s men, and forbade him from loaning money to legionaries again.

  So it went for the rest of the day, as the official representative of the Senate and People of Rome heard the complaints and requests of an unending stream of citizens and subjects. Pilate listened, nodded, sympathized, or chastised as the occasion called for. This was the dreariest part of the governor’s job, but also one of the most profitable, both financially and politically. At least, it would have been profitable in a decent province, where there was money to spare. After hearing the financial state of both the Roman citizens and the native subjects of the province, he began to understand better why Valerius Gratus had let himself be bribed by the priests in Jerusalem. In a poor, agrarian province with no mineral wealth and few marketable resources other than produce and wool, there was simply not much wealth left for the taking, except for two sources.

  The Temple was the greatest depository of wealth in the region. Even the poorest among the Jews paid a tithe of their incomes to the support of the Temple every year, and while the priests and acolytes—who were called Levites for some reason Pilate did not yet know—lived pretty well, they did not live extravagantly. No doubt that there was an enormous trove of gold buried there somewhere, from which the priests had brought forth the generous bribes they paid to various members of the Senate annually for the privilege of being allowed to run the province as they saw fit. Even the most venal Roman governor, however, had refused to touch the Temple treasury, knowing of the Jews’ fanatical devotion to their religion.

  Then there was Herod and his household. The old Herod, known as The Great by his family and retainers, and The Monster by his Jewish subjects, had been richer than Midas and crueler than Lucius Sulla on a bad day. He had put his favorite wife and several of his sons to death before dying of gangrene when Pilate was still a youth, but he had bought the title “King of the Jews” from the Roman Senate, and paid dearly to keep it when his patron Marc Antony was defeated by young Octavian. Herod was survived by four sons, but the Senate had split his empire up between them. The oldest, Herod Antipas, had been denied the authority of “King” although he insisted on using the title. He was entrusted with the tetrarchy of Galilee, which put him in the position of being Pilate’s subordinate in the elaborate Roman colonial hierarchy, but as a client of Tiberius, he could still go over Pilate’s head to the Senate if the two of them should clash. Rumor had it that Antipas had carefully invested his share of the fortune the old Herod had left him, and had made himself one of the richest men in the region. Pilate had not yet met him, and did not look forward to it particularly, but thought it would be wise to stay in the man’s good graces if he could. The last thing Pontius Pilate needed was another enemy!

  At the end of the day, Pilate was exhausted. Dealing with petitioners and clients all day was much more tiring than riding on a long patrol or fighting bandits. He left his office behind and headed toward the residence, where Porcia was weaving a tapestry on the loom she had bought a few days before. Unlike many Roman matrons, she enjoyed working with her hands and was quite crafty. She saw the look on his face and came to his side.

  “It’s a shame we don’t have a proper bath here,” she said. “But let me show you something!” She led him past their bedchamber to a small corridor that he had always assumed led down to the kitchen. However, when they followed it downstairs, there were two hallways branching from the landing—one indeed went toward the kitchen, but the other ended in a small doorway to the outside. The door opened onto a lovely beach, hidden from the busy seaport to the north by a long rock jetty and some jagged cliffs. Other than the back wall of the governor’s palace, no buildings overlooked it, and the sand and boulders stretched south for miles with not a single sign of human habitation. The sand was dazzling in its whiteness and still quite warm, even though the sun was nearing the horizon in the west. It was hard to believe that the busiest seaport in Judea was just on the other side of the jetty and cliffs!

  “Care to swim?” she said.

  Pilate shrugged out of his tunic and hit the water running. He had always loved the sea, and the warm waters seemed to soak the fatigue right out of his body. He paddled and dove, amazed at how clear the water was. Porcia joined him, and they swam and played in the surf for nearly an hour. The sun was about to set when they both finally turned to the shore. One of the maids was waiting by the doorway with towels and several buckets of fresh water to rinse the salt from their bodies. They both donned clean tunics, and Porcia wrapped a light mantle over hers—the Prefect’s wife could not be immodest! Supper was waiting for them in their chambers, and by the time they had finished dining Pilate was so tired he found himself nodding over his food. He kissed his wife an affectionate good night and fell into a deep and dreamless slumber almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  The next few weeks passed in a similar routine, with the daily demands of the job absorbing much of Pilate’s energy. Despite Porcia’s best efforts to keep him happy and contented with his home life, he longed to get out of Caesarea and find some sort of task that would get him away from the endless demands of the army of petitioners that crowded his days and haunted his dreams. As the year dragged on toward fall, he began to look forward to traveling to Jerusalem for the festival season.

  About eight weeks after he returned from his inspection tour, the military equipment he had ordered from Rome for his legion finally came in. So much of the men’s gear was old, worn out, and battered that he had decided to order replacement uniforms and new equipment in an attempt to improve the legion’s morale and preparedness. There was also a new set of standards, each equipped with a Roman eagle, a polished bronze shield with a golden profile of Tiberius on it, and the Judean Legion’s banner and number, above the traditional “SPQR.” Pilate turned the uniform items over to the legion’s quartermasters, and took the legion’s old standards and placed them in storage while setting the new ones up in the courtyard.

  The next morning, he called the entire cohort out to the courtyard and addressed them. “Well, boys, you know that it is almost time to march to Jerusalem for
winter quarters, and to keep an eye on the Jews during their various festivals,” he said. “But I want us to march into Jerusalem looking like Rome’s finest, not like the rejects of the other legions! If your gear is worn out or damaged, report to the quartermaster to receive replacement gear today! Each legionary must sign for whatever equipment he receives, and if any new equipment is damaged or comes up missing, its full price will be deducted from your pay.”

  The men looked at one another, nodding happily. Longinus had informed Pilate that Valerius Gratus had charged the men full price for damaged or lost gear, and then charged them again for replacements—which were usually worn-out discards that were no improvement on what they had lost. That was one reason there were so many unreported missing uniform pieces when Pilate arrived.

  Pilate then nodded to his lictors, who unfurled the new standards and brought them forward. “We will march in under these new standards which I also ordered from Rome. The face of our Emperor will smile on us as we continue to clean up and improve this wretched province!”

  The men cheered at the sight of the new standards, and Pilate called on the centurions to disperse the men to their day’s work. He thought no more about the changes he had made until Cassius Longinus reported in for duty a few days later. The Primus Pilus was discussing the upcoming move to Jerusalem when he spotted the standards and froze in mid-sentence.

  “Great gods, you are not taking those with us to Jerusalem, are you?” he asked Pilate.

  “Of course,” answered the Prefect. “Along with the new uniforms and gear, I thought that the new standards would help the men look and feel more like true representatives of Rome.”

  “Prefect, you cannot carry those into Jerusalem! The whole province will rise up in revolt!” gasped Longinus.

  “What on earth do you mean, Cassius?” asked Pilate. “They are no different from the standards every other legion marches under!”

  “In every province but this!” said Longinus. “The Jews have a horror of what they call ‘graven images’—any carving or representation of any person or living creature. Look at their architecture and coins. There are geometric designs aplenty, and inscriptions, but no faces, or animals. Such things are absolutely forbidden to them. And to carry such images into their holy city—they will view it as a direct affront!”

  Pilate scowled. He understood the diplomatic aspects of his job, but this was too much! Roman legions marching without their standards? Ridiculous! He answered Longinus angrily: “They can prepare to be affronted then! I paid for these out of my own salary to try and restore a little pride to a legion that has been neglected and badly managed for years. I have already shown them to the men, and to put them away now and restore the tattered old standards that do not even have Caesar’s image on them would be an insult to the pride of these legionaries and to the Senate and People of Rome!”

  Longinus sighed deeply. “Sir,” he said, “you asked me to be your liaison with the locals, and to give you my candid opinions on your decisions. I mean no disrespect, but this is a mistake that will inflame the people against Rome, and against you.”

  Pilate thought for a moment. Surely the man was exaggerating. Finally, he thought of a compromise.

  “The fortress in Jerusalem where the troops are posted is closed to locals, and enclosed with high walls, is it not?” he asked.

  Longinus nodded. “It’s not formally closed, but no religious Jew will set foot across the threshold of a Gentile’s house, so it might as well be,” he said. “The castle of Antonia is securely walled and hidden from the city’s view.”

  “Then we will carry the standards furled and covered,” said Pilate, “entering the city at night and not erecting them until we are inside the walls of our own compound. The men will have the new standards before them every time they muster in the morning, and the Jews will be none the wiser.”

  Longinus shook his head. “It might work,” he said, “but I doubt it. Many Jews who are not as particular about the Law and customs still enter the fortress, and all they have to do is complain to the priests and your game is up.”

  Pilate shrugged. “We’ll never know unless we try!” he said.

  Two weeks later, the legion set out for its winter quarters in Jerusalem. Two hundred men were left in Caesarea to maintain the Roman presence there and keep law and order in the city and its environs, but fifteen hundred men set out with Pilate toward the holy city of the Jews. The Feast of Booths was coming up soon, followed by the Day of Atonement and then the wintertime Feast of Lights. Come springtime the Jews would celebrate their holiest day, Passover, at which time the population of Jerusalem would be increased almost fourfold above its normal levels, as Jews from all across the Roman world converged on the city to commemorate the Exodus from Egypt some fourteen hundred years before. After Passover, the concentration of troops in the city would be dispersed for the summer, leaving only the standing garrison of 500 men inside the capital. As for Pilate, even during the winter he would divide his time between Caesarea and Jerusalem, riding back and forth with an armed escort to take care of business, first in one place, and then in the next.

  The legion was smartly turned out as Pilate mounted his horse and rode down their ranks. The new standards gleamed in the sun, as did the uniforms of the two decorated legionaries who bore them. Pilate addressed the men in formal terms, as befit a Prefect of Rome.

  “Legionaries!” he shouted. “It is time to make our annual journey into the capital city of the Jews, where we will display the might of Rome and keep the peace during their festival season. I would remind each of you that you are a representative of Rome in their eyes. How you treat them is how Rome treats them, and how they perceive you, they perceive Rome. This province is ours by right of treaty and by right of conquest, but our stay here can be made easier or more difficult by how we conduct ourselves. I would urge every man among you to show restraint and respect where it is warranted—but should it become necessary to remind the Jews who their masters are, to act with strength, honor, and the proper amount of force. We are here to prevent fights, not to start them—but if someone else starts a fight, we are also here to finish it—and make sure they have no appetite for another!”

  The men were regarding him with a respect that made his breast swell with pride. He had been here for just a few months, but these troops were his now. It was a good feeling, one that he had missed since leaving Spain. As long as one led troops bravely and treated them with the right mixture of respect and paternal regard, Roman soldiers were as loyal a clientele as any politician could ask for. But keeping that loyalty meant showing enough respect for the men to explain what you wanted them to do and why—a secret of command that Gaius Marius had passed down to the Caesars, and Pilate had learned from Tiberius.

  “So in the interest of keeping the peace, and not starting trouble with our Jewish subjects, we will furl our standards as we pass through their territory, and as we pass through their holy city. Even though these standards are ours by right to display as we march, nevertheless we shall show respect to these locals by not displaying images they find offensive. We shall unfurl them when we are inside the castle of Antonia, our little plot of Roman soil inside Jerusalem, where no Jew will see them. So shall we demonstrate Rome’s tolerance and forbearance for the religious customs of our subject peoples! Now let us march—and conduct yourselves well!”

  So they set out southward, moving steadily toward Joppa over the course of the day. The road connecting the two cities was smooth and well-maintained, and there was a light breeze rolling in from the sea. Although it was thirty-two miles from Caesarea, the men reached the city walls well before dark. Pilate directed them to a large plain just east of the city, where a small brook flowed toward the sea. There they pitched a light camp and bedded down for the night after the cooks produced a generous supper of lamb stew, salted fish, and local fruits and almonds. Pilate sipped a large goblet of watered wine and reflected on the next day’s march. It was
over forty miles from Joppa to Jerusalem, and the road was steeper than the previous day’s route had been. But his men were in good spirits and excellent physical condition, and he figured with one good rest stop in the middle of the day, they should reach the walls of the city between the ninth hour and midnight—well after dark, in other words. It would be child’s play to bring the furled and shrouded standards into the Fortress of Antonia without anyone noticing. Pleased with himself for coming up with a plan that preserved Rome’s pride while honoring local custom, Pilate retired to his tent and fell asleep instantly.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The first few days in Jerusalem were unremarkable enough. The city was thronged with Jews from all over the Roman world, come together to celebrate their Feast of Booths. They camped in small tents or huts all over the city and outside its walls, sang strange wailing tunes that they called Psalms, and threw festive dinners for one another. Above all, they sacrificed—goats, bulls, and rams were burned by the hundreds in their Temple every day in tribute to their invisible God. For the most part, they were well-behaved—Pilate kept his patrols out on the streets every day, and other than the routine apprehension of cutpurses and the occasional drunken brawl, there were no incidents.

  On the third day there, he received a courtesy visit from Herod Antipas. Antipas was about fifty or so by this time, although it was hard to be sure of his age beneath his rich, black beard and long curly hair. Like most Eastern potentates, he set great store by appearances. And, like most Eastern potentates Pilate had dealt with in the past, he was also a condescending, arrogant blowhard. At least, he told Pilate, he had no objection to the Prefect patrolling his tetrarchy to put down the Zealots. Herod acknowledged that he had no luck in that department.