Varro knew that an unspoken rivalry had long existed between the two secretaries, and it occurred to him that perhaps Artimedes had made this suggestion in the hope of embarrassing Pythagoras. Alternatively, perhaps Artimedes wanted to be seen to giving way to his older colleague. Then again, perhaps Artimedes genuinely believed that Pythagoras could unlock the secret of the questor’s dream. “Very well.” Varro stifled a yawn. “Callidus, bring Pythagoras.”
A little later, General Collegas secretary joined the group in the questor’s quarters, looking unimpressed at being woken and summoned in the middle of the night. Now, Varro regaled Pythagoras with the details of his dream.
“I see,” said Pythagoras once the dream had been revealed. “Obviously, the goats represent the zodiacal sign of Capricorn,” he emphatically declared.
“Ah!” cried Artimedes. “Clearly this is the case.”
“That does make sense,” Varro agreed. “Go on, Pythagoras.”
“Two goats, two years,” Pythagoras pronounced with certainty. “Your dream, questor, was telling you that you must wait until two years have passed. When the second month of January arrives, something of importance will be revealed to you.”
“Yes, that is perfectly plausible, Pythagoras,” Varro responded, “but what am I to read into the blinding of the two goats?”
Pythagoras did not reply. This aspect required more thought.
“Might I suggest, my lord,” Artimedes then said, “following on from what my learned colleague Pythagoras has said, clearly this means that you will not be able to see what is to be revealed to you until the Capricorn constellation returns a second time.”
“Quite so,” Pythagoras was quick to agree.
“That would be logical, I suppose,” Varro conceded, without complete conviction. “And the name Naum? What am I to take that to mean?”
“Naum may have something to do with the sea,” Artimedes conjectured. “Perhaps it relates to the word naus.” In Latin, naus was a nautical term. “Could it be that you will have to cross the sea to learn the answer to your dream?”
“No, I think not,” said Pythagoras definitely. “To my mind, now that I think on it, the word Naum has a Hebrew ring to it.”
“Hebrew?” said Varro. “Yes, it does, does it not. I had not thought of that. Perhaps I should be talking to Antiochus the Jewish magistrate. Thank you, gentlemen, you have both been most helpful. The dream does seem to make some sort of sense now, thanks to your expert powers of elucidation.” Varro was not entirely convinced that the dream’s mysteries had indeed been successfully explained, but courtesy and the sensibilities of the two secretaries required that he let them believe they had served him well. Once his staff had left him, he lay back down. He was soon fast asleep.
Next morning when he awoke, the dream was still as fresh in his mind as it had been the night before. So Varro sent Hostilis to fetch Antiochus the Jewish magistrate. In the meantime, Marcus Martius entered the questor’s tent and bade him good morning. For Marcus’ benefit, Varro again retold his dream, and as he regaled him with the story they were dutifully joined by Artimedes and Callidus.
Martius suggested that the dream had been sponsored by the events of the previous evening. “Crispus and the Vettonian,” he said, taking up an apple from the questor’s table and munching into it, “acting like a pair of silly goats.”
Varro looked questioningly at Artimedes. “Could it be that simple?”
“Anything is possible, my lord,” said the Greek. “But I tend to favor the construction put on your dream by my colleague Pythagoras.”
The Jewish magistrate then arrived, looking worried as he bustled into the questor’s pavilion. “Your man said that you had need of my advice, my lord,” he warily began, with his hand at a small leather pouch which Varro noticed the Jew habitually wore on a leather thong around his neck, fondling it nervously, unconsciously.
“Tell me, Antiochus, the word Naum; does it have any significance among the Jewish people?”
Antiochus seemed to squirm inwardly. “With respect, my lord, as you know, I have sworn off Jewish religious practices.”
Varro’s brow wrinkled in a frown. “Antiochus, am I to take it that in swearing off the religion of the Jews you have emptied your head of Hebrew and Aramaic? That being the case, you will be of absolutely no use to me as an interpreter on this mission, and I will have to send you back to General Collega.”
This brought a mirthful snort from Callidus.
“That will not be necessary, my lord,” Antiochus smarted. “It is just that the word Naum has a religious significance to some Jews.”
Varro nodded. “Please explain.”
“As you instruct, my lord.” Antiochus’ tone made it clear that he was doing this under sufferance. “Naum is said to be the direct descendant of Adam, the first man created by the God of the Hebrews.”
“Arrant nonsense!” Martius sneered.
“Yes, tribune, nonsense, as you say,” Antiochus hastened to agree. “The beliefs of the Jews are indeed all nonsense. I thank the gods that I was able to see that for myself and repent, before it was too late.”
“So, this Naum fellow?” said Varro. “He would not be living? I could not interview him?”
“No, questor,” Antiochus replied. “He lived some generations ago.”
Artimedes spoke up. “Now that the magistrate mentions it, my lord, I recall some reference to this man Naum in the religious hierarchy listed in the Lucius Letter. May I read from the letter?”
“Please do, Artimedes.”
The Lucius Letter was kept in a leather cylinder in the questor’s quarters. While everyone waited, Artimedes removed the letter and affixed it to a reading frame. After bringing several lamps close to improve the light for reading, Artimedes scrolled through the letter until he came to a listing of the antecedents of Jesus of Nazareth. “Here it is, my lord, the reference that I spoke of.” With an air of gravity, Artimedes proceeded to read the section in question aloud, with his chin jutting, and projecting his voice like a rhetorician declaiming on the rostra in the Forum of Rome. “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Josephus, who was the son of Heli, who was the son of Matthat, who was the son of Levi, who was the son of Melchi, who was the son of Janna, who was the son of Josephus, who was the son of Mattathias, who was the son of Amos, who was the son of Naum…” Artimedes stopped, and looked over to the questor. “Naum, my lord.”
Varro nodded. “Yes, there it. So, there was a Naum who was apparently an ancestor of the Nazarene. Food for thought, certainly.”
“There can be no doubt now that your dream had a clear and potent meaning, my lord,” Artimedes declared.
“A potent meaning, Artimedes?” Varro responded. “That I will accept. However, a clear meaning? No, that I cannot concede. Was the dream intended to warn me, or to guide me? Do I avoid Naum, or do I seek Naum? This is far from clear, good secretary.” He became aware of Antiochus standing there, bearing the pained expression of a man anxious to relieve himself. “Thank you, Antiochus, that will be all.”
“Thank you, my lord questor.” Antiochus bowed slightly from the waist, then quickly withdrew.
“Perhaps, my lord,” said Artimedes as he returned the letter to its protective case, “this was only the first in a series of dreams. Such a circumstance is not unknown. The meaning may become more clear with each passing dream.”
“You mean I can expect more such nightmares?” Varro responded with a groan.
“What a lucky fellow,” said Martius with a chuckle.
VII
KING AGRIPPA’S THEORY
Caesarea Pnilippi, Capital of the Tetrarchy of Trachonitis.
March, A.D. 71
The cities of Beirut, Sidon and Tyre all proved unprofitable for Julius Varro. He had held the highest expectations of Beirut, or Colonia Julia Augustus Felix Berytus as it had been entitled on its incorporation as a colony of retired veterans of
the 10th Legion eighty-five years before. Varro knew the city from his annual tax collecting visits. And, eighteen months back, he had worked alongside Pythagoras here to organize a conference between his patron Governor Mucianus and Eastern potentates, a conference which prepared the way for the task force which Mucianus had led to Italy against the emperor Vitellius.
Varro had been hoping to find old soldiers of the 12th Legion here. Marcus Martius, a dedicated militarist with a thorough knowledge of the Roman army’s units and their stations, had told him that the 12th Legion had been stationed in Judea forty years earlier. As a legion colony, Beirut attracted a number of retired soldiers, and Varro had hoped to find a few old veterans of the 12th living there who had served in Jerusalem at the time of the Nazarene’s crucifixion. To his disappointment, despite posting notices throughout Beirut, no 12th Legion veterans had come forward.
As for Sidon and Tyre, the Nazarenes at Antioch had told Callidus that Jesus had visited both, but inquiries there seeking locals with connections with the Nazarene had brought no response. From Tyre, the column had left the coast and marched due east along the main military highway into Trachonitis, a region ruled by King Herod Agrippa II, to his capital, Caesarea Philippi, near the head of the Jordan River. Here, the questor hoped, his investigation would at last begin to produce results.
Outside Caesarea Philippi the expedition turned north and marched along beside the Banias River beyond the city wall, with Mount Hermon looming in the distance ahead. The column was heading for a camp site identified by junior tribune Venerius and the advance guard. Earlier, the advance guard had delivered the questor’s compliments to the king in his capital, and now the main column was overtaken on the road by a mounted military party led by the commander of the king’s army, General Philippus.
The general was a long-nosed, sallow-skinned man with his black, shoulder-length hair and beard in ringlets, a style fashionable among many foreigners in the East. Astride a large black horse, General Philippus welcomed Varro on behalf of the king and extended an invitation for the questor and all members of the Equestrian Order in his party to attend a banquet at the king’s palace in the city that evening. In doing so, the general reminded the questor that King Agrippa had himself been made a member of the Equestrian Order several decades before by the emperor Claudius. The king’s invitation only covered Varro, Martius, Crispus. Varro considered that his two secretaries would have been of more use to him in a meeting with the king than either Crispus or Venerius, but this invitation was more about protocol than pragmatism. Varro graciously accepted the invitation on behalf of his three colleagues and himself.
That night they attended the royal palace, and dined with the king and his senior advisers.
“Do you know, Varro,” said Ptolemy, treasurer to the court of King Agrippa, as he wolfed down a roasted dormouse which had been rolled in honey and poppy seed, “my wife almost died at the hands of the rebels.” Ptolemy considered himself more than the equal of any Roman questor. “In Galilee, near Taricheae.”
“Is that so, Treasurer Ptolemy?” Varro responded, trying to sound genuinely concerned. “How terrible for her, and worrying for you.”
In the king’s winter palace, situated on a rise overlooking the compact city, a colonnaded banquet hall had been furnished with three curved couches around a circular table. In part of the arc the usual opening for serving and taking away had been allowed. Agrippa himself reclined at one end of the circle, while Varro occupied the other, on the opposite side of the opening. Along with Varro and the king, Martius, Crispus and Venerius reclined around the circle together with Treasurer Ptolemy, General Philippus, Sylla, commander of the king’s bodyguard, and the shaven-headed Bostar, a tight-lipped Cyreniacan Jew and eunuch who was chamberlain to the king’s sister, Queen Berenice.
In the background a slave orchestra played gentle tunes on lyre, flute and water organ, as swarms of male slaves in expensive purple tunics wafted around the diners. The meal met with Martius’ approval, consisting as it did of a conservative seven courses.
Crispus and Venerius were enjoying being treated as men of importance, after coming to the king’s palace with dampened spirits for their own differing reasons. The summary execution of Trooper Fulvus had not been mentioned to Crispus by a soul in the Varro camp since that bloody night outside Laodicea, and the prefect had continued to carry out his duties as usual, although he guessed that his men now despised him; not so much for having his penis sucked as being caught in the act and humiliated publicly by Martius. Yet the incident would not be forgotten by Julius Varro or his expeditioners. Like wise, no one mentioned that Venerius had been disciplined on the first night of the expedition and was under threat of court martial if he were to falter in his duties.
To the court of King Agrippa the members of the Varro party presented the facade of a happy family, and all the dinner guests had engaged in small talk as the groaning platters of the first few courses were consumed. At one point, Commander Sylla, a man with massive shoulders and a pockmarked face, had boasted that as a young man at Rome his king had helped Claudius claim the throne left vacant by the assassination of the emperor Gaius, or Caligula as he was more colloquially known, by addressing the Senate and negotiating with the Pretorian Guard and German Guard on Claudius’ behalf. Varro had taken this claim with a grain of salt, politely responding that he had not been aware of that fact. Inevitably, the conversation had turned to the Jewish Revolt, which was so fresh in all their minds, and in the course of the discussion Ptolemy had brought up his wife’s brush with Jewish partisans.
“In Galilee, you say, my lord?” said Crispus, eyeing off a platter of sow bellies.
“Near Taricheae,” the grotesquely fat, wheezing treasurer replied. “She was returning home from Jerusalem. This was just after the Revolt had broken out.”
“In that case,” said young Venerius, “if it was in Galilee, the men who attacked your wife, Treasurer, must have been under the command of Flavius Josephus.” Like many Roman colleagues, the junior tribune had no liking for the former Jewish general who was now the client and trusted adviser of Vespasian and Titus.
“Quite so,” Ptolemy agreed. “Had it not been for the fact that my wife is such an expert rider, those people would have cut her throat. As it was, they escaped with her baggage train, which contained her personal fortune! We never did recover it.”
“That was unfortunate,” said Varro after downing an oyster with the assistance of a small pointed spoon. “Of course, Marcus Martius here fought the rebels at Taricheae.”
“Is that so, tribune?” said General Philippus with interest. “You were with Titus at Taricheae? It was my belief that he only employed cavalry in that battle.”
“I was Prefect of the Dalmatian Horse at the time,” Martius came back, smiling.
“Ah, but of course.” The general also smiled, falsely.
“Marcus was severely wounded at Taricheae,” said Varro.
“It was nothing,” said Martius.
“You still carry a Jewish arrowhead in your hip from that campaign,” said Varro.
Martius shrugged. “It does not trouble me. I had all but forgotten it.”
“His Majesty was wounded on the right elbow during the siege of Gamala,” Philippus remarked competitively. “A rebel slinger’s stone.”
“In fact, had it not been for His Majesty’s army,” said the swaggering Sylla, “you Romans would have struggled in Galilee. We played a key part in the campaign.”
“It was my understanding,” young Venerius countered, “that two thousand of your ‘elite’ cavalry not only capitulated at Jerusalem, they went over to the rebels! A cowardly betrayal which resulted in the massacre of a cohort of Roman legionaries!”
“Yes, but that was earlier,” said Sylla with discomfort.
“Yes, earlier,” General Philippus quickly added, “when matters were completely out of hand. Not even His Majesty himself was able to talk the revolutionaries out of the insanit
y of their uprising.”
Venearius let out a disdainful grunt.
“We know that His Majesty and his sister did everything humanly possible to prevent the Revolt,” Varro remarked, keen to smooth ruffled feathers. As he spoke, he threw a severe cautionary look in Venerius’ direction, causing Venerius to drop his eyes.
“Indeed, indeed,” Ptolemy earnestly concurred.
“Everything possible,” Philippus echoed.
Varro looked over at the king. Agrippa had hardly spoken during the meal. His mind seemed elsewhere. In fact, from the moment that Varro had greeted the king earlier in the evening, he had felt that Agrippa was a dispirited man. “Rome has always valued your loyalty, Your Majesty,” he said directly to the monarch.
“Hmmm? Did you address me?” Agrippa raised his heavy-lidded eyes from the floor, where they had lain for some time. The king, the forty-four-year-old great-grandson of Herod the Great, was a neat, swarthy figure. Raised and educated at Rome, where his best friend had been Britannicus, Claudius’s son and Nero’s stepbrother, he had adopted Roman ways. Even now he was clean shaven and kept his hair short, unlike his officials.
“I was saying, Your Majesty,” said Varro, “that Rome values your loyalty.”
“I suppose she does,” Agrippa sighed.
“It must have been a great disappointment to you, Your Majesty,” said Martius, “for the Jews to ignore you, only to bring about the destruction of Jerusalem.”
“Disappointment?” said Agrippa, sounding affronted. “My dear tribune, one can never be merely disappointed by a catastrophe. One is devastated by a catastrophe.”
With the king in such a morose mood, Varro decided that he had been making small talk long enough. He had come here to ask questions about the Nazarene, and ask questions he must, before Agrippa lost interest altogether. “Your Majesty, my colleagues and I are bound for Galilee and Judea, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of a Jesus of Nazareth, some years ago,” he began.
The Inquest Page 7