The Inquest

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  Without a backward glance, Varro left the village of Nazareth behind. Yet, as the expedition made its way through the hills, Varro lapsed into deep thought, inspired by his brief exchange with Miriam. He considered himself a devout man, and certainly no less devout than the Jews. He observed all the feast days of the gods, he performed all the required sacrifices, he honored his mother, he revered the memory of his ancestors. Every morning, whether at home or traveling, he paid obeisance at his family shrine. The concept of a man becoming a god was not alien to Varro, or to other Romans. Julius Caesar and many of the emperors of Rome who came after the dictator had been deified after their deaths. They had their own temples, their own priesthoods, their own sacred days and festivals. Not that Varro was convinced that any of them truly were gods. As for this Nazarene, he was no Julius Caesar, he was no Roman emperor, and no Roman emperor had come back from the dead. An unconscious smile appeared on the questor’s lips. That would truly be an event to convince him that a mere mortal had godly powers, if a Caesar were’ to rise from the dead.

  The expedition camped in the ruins of the town of Gaba on the road to Caesarea. Once his officers and freedmen had departed his tent after dinner, Varro decided he would take in the night air. Summoning Pedius for company, he wrapped himself in a cloak against the unseasonable chill then wandered the camp streets, lingering in the shadows to listen to conversations around the men’s campfires, hearing opinions about chariot racing and gladiators and the likelihood that this mission they were on was a wild goose chase.

  Varro and Pedius moved on. As they approached the parked baggage train, behind the horse corral, they heard a woman’s voice, raised, and tinged with alarm. There was only one woman in the Varro camp. Varro and his lictor quickened their step. Hurrying around carts and wagons, they came on the tent of Miriam. The girl stood outside it, a bronze water bucket in one hand. She was using the other hand to fend off three unarmed legionaries, mere youths the lot of them, and all of them laughing and jesting.

  “What’s going on here?” Varro demanded.

  The three soldiers spun around, with fear suddenly painted on their faces.

  “We were only having a little bit of fun,” said one of the men. “That was all.”

  “You will address the questor with due deference, soldier!” Pedius snapped.

  “Sorry…my lord questor,” said the man, hanging his head. “We meant no harm.”

  “It was high spirits, nothing more,” Miriam spoke up in the soldiers’ defense.

  “I did not chose to bring a female on this expedition,” said Varro. “But proper decorum will be observed by you men at all times.” He thought he could see the girl’s eyes smiling at him through her veil, as if she found his effort to protect her amusing.

  “I am perfectly capable of looking after myself, questor,” she declared. “Do I have your permission to retire?”

  “Yes,” he answered, smarting at her lack of gratitude. “Go.”

  She turned and slipped into her tent.

  “What do you want to do with these malingerers, my lord?” Pedius asked, wagging his staff at the trio of worried legionaries.

  Varro briefly studied the young soldiers. “Send them on their way,” he sighed.

  “As you please. Consider yourselves lucky, you lot,” Pedius cautioned the legionaries with the gravity and authority of a former centurion. “Step out of line again, my lads, and, I guarantee, you will feel Centurion Gallo’s vine stick across your backs.” He raised his staff. Shaking it in their faces, he growled, “To your tents with you! Smartly now!”

  The three young men gratefully hurried off at a fast walk.

  Pedius turned at Varro, shaking his head. “The young colts deserved a beating.”

  “They committed no crime,” Varro irritably returned, his thoughts still on the young woman. “Come.” He strode off toward his quarters, leaving Pedius to follow.

  As Varro reached the edge of the collection of carts, a figure stepped out into the light of a lantern hanging on a post. It was Marcus Martius. “The charms of the Jewish girl are difficult to ignore, are they not, Julius?” said the tribune.

  “My interest is merely that of a concerned master, Marcus,” Varro returned.

  Martius grinned. “Ah, then you would not mind if I were to bed the girl?”

  “I think we should all be keeping our minds above our waists,” Varro bristled, resuming his progress. “Let us all leave the girl be. Come, Pedius.”

  Pedius gave the tribune a censorious glance as he passed and hurried to catch up with the questor.

  “Not even a lictor can protect a man against himself, Pedius,” Martius called after him. With a chuckle, he cast a glance toward the girl’s tent, then turned, and ambled off.

  XI

  THE HOUSE OF THE EVANGELIST

  Caesarea, Capital of the Roman Province of Judea.

  April, A.D. 71

  Strong, but warm, the wind blew in from the west. Bracing against the gusts and feeling the spray of the Mediterranean on his face, Julius Varro walked the broad white stone breakwater as the sea pounded against the massive manmade barrier with an angry roar.

  On this sandy stretch of Mediterranean coast, where no safe haven had previously existed between Tyre in Syria and Ascalon in Idumea, Herod the Great had built a port to serve the inland city of Sebaste. Until then, there had merely been a lookout tower here, built long ago by the Phoenicians. With the help of Roman military engineers, Herod had created a city for the shore and a shipping basin for the depths. It had taken ten years and a massive feat of engineering to realize Herod’s designs, using glistening white Palestinian stone. At twenty fathoms, a curved sea wall two hundred feet across had been arrayed, using huge stones fifty feet long. A second, inner breakwater was more for the defense against man than nature, containing a crenellated wall and towers which could be manned by troops. Within the circular enclosure of sheltered water created by outer and inner walls two docks had been built, one for Herod’s battle fleet and visiting Roman warships, the other for cargo vessels. An arcade lining the quay which encircled the docks provided homes for seamen. Above the arcade a variety of official buildings rose. The most impressive, a white temple dedicated to Caesar and to Rome, could be seen for miles out to sea and was used as a beacon by seafarers. The opening in the breakwater, facing the gentle north wind, was flanked by a huge turret and giant stones.

  Through this opening a long slim Roman naval trireme now slid, its three banks of oars manned by paid freedmen. The warship’s mainsail and bow sail were furled. The weather out on the Mediterranean was looking threatening, and the craft was heading for the safety of the harbor. As it passed, with its perfectly synchronized oars slowly rising and dipping to the lazy beat of an unseen timekeeper, marines, sailors and officers on the warship’s upper deck gazed with idle curiosity across at the party on the breakwater.

  From the massive barrier of stone Varro and his companions looked back over all the vessels crowding the harbor, warships, and roundships, as Romans called the tubby merchantmen. Beyond the teeming quay, where goods of every kind were manhandled by hundreds of laborers, the city of Caesarea loomed. A massive white fortress hung over the port. The headquarters of the Roman administration, it housed the palace of the procurator and several other palaces besides, as well as administrative offices, Herod’s Judgment Hall, a prison, the city’s library and archives, massive underground storage vaults, and quarters large enough for an army of thousands.

  Before the Jewish Revolt, the province’s resident legion had kept five of its ten cohorts at this fortress. Today, with the resident legion based up at Jerusalem, there was a hodgepodge of different units of varying quality stationed here, mostly auxiliary light infantry and cavalry ranging from barefoot slingers from Spain’s Baleric Isles to Numidian troopers who had learned to ride without either saddle or bridle. The standards of the units of the procurator’s garrison stood displayed on a rampart of the highest tower of the citad
el. There was room enough in the fortress for official Roman visitors and their entourage, and the members of the Varro expedition found themselves with regular quarters beneath a solid roof for the first time in weeks.

  Varro had been to Caesarea before, always on official business. He admired the city’s neat layout and its purpose-built public works. Fountains flowed throughout the city, fed by an aqueduct twenty miles long running from Mount Carmel in the north. To the south stood the city’s amphitheater, capable of seating twenty thousand, and, close by, a chariot-racing hippodrome with a similar capacity. A graceful drama theater for five thousand, in the same shimmering white stone as the other buildings of Caesarea, had been built into the sea cliffs, with the seats tiered up the slope overlooking a stage almost at beach level. It was the most picturesque theater that Varro had seen anywhere.

  “It would have been here at Caesarea that Herod Agrippa’s father executed the Nazarene’s brother Jacob, my lord,” bald little Artimedes the secretary said, standing close to Varro’s shoulder on the breakwater and raising his voice to be heard above the pounding waves. “It was also here, not long after, that Herod Agrippa’s father was himself struck down. His heart failed him, while he was at the amphitheater. They say he lingered for five days before he died.”

  Varro nodded. His thoughts were in the fortress. The Procurator of Judea, Publius Terentius Rufus, had not met him when he arrived in the city, and Varro had gone on his sightseeing tour with just his own senior men and without an escort provided by the procurator. Not that the questor had been entirely ignored; Rufus had sent Varro a formal invitation to bring his officers and freedmen to a welcoming banquet at his palace that evening. Varro thought that it should prove to be an interesting occasion, for the Procurator of Judea was the questor’s cousin.

  Three sets of tables awaited the dinner guests. Varro’s party numbered thirteen. Not only had the questor brought his senior officers and freedmen, he had also included Centurion Gallo and Decurion Pompeius. For his part, Procurator Rufus had summoned all the prefects of the military units stationed at the capital and his most senior freedmen. It meant that all twenty-seven places at the dining couches were occupied. Before long the banquet developed into a noisy, boisterous affair.

  Varro reclined beside his host, in the honored left-hand position on the central couch of the central table. At twenty-nine, Rufus was five years Varro’s junior. In rank too he was subordinate to Varro. Until recently he had been the military tribune and second in command of the 15th Apollinaris Legion, having served with the unit through the last two years of the Jewish Revolt. With his family’s inherited auburn hair, a narrow face, a small mouth, and intense, suspicious eyes, Rufus was short and slight.

  Rufus’ father Gaius was the younger brother of Varro’s late father. Since childhood, Rufus had been jealous of his cousin. Rufus’ father had never advanced past the rank of Roman knight. That Gaius Terentius Rufus had not entered the Senate of his own volition and instead had gone to live the life of a farmer on his estate at Nola, had not altered his ambitious son’s envy of the success of the Varro family. The pair had not seen each other in five years, yet Rufus could only remark on meeting Varro in the dining hall, “You have lost weight, cousin. It does not suit you.” From the moment the banquet began, Rufus had addressed himself to the other members of the questor’s party, Martius in particular, speaking loudly and imbibing to excess, ignoring his guest of honor.

  “Titus told me to level Jerusalem after he left, so, I leveled Jerusalem!” Rufus declared midway through the meal. “‘Leave nothing standing,’ said he, so, I left nothing standing. Now the Jews are calling me Turnus.” He snorted in his wine. “Turnus! You know why of course, my good lords? They name me Turnus after the king of the Rutilians!” To the surprise of all around him, the procurator then suddenly came to his feet and jumped up onto his dining table, kicking plates and bowls aside so that they crashed onto the tiled floor and contents spilled and splashed onto servants and guests. With a slopping wine cup in his hand, Rufus began to recite from the Aeneid, a century-old work by Vergilius familiar to every Roman schoolboy.

  “‘Cries for fire, and grasps, himself on flame,

  A blazing pine torch. Then to work they fall,

  Spurred on by Turnus’ presence, the whole troop

  Arm them with murky brands, the hearths are stripped,

  The reeking torch sends up a pitchy glare,

  And Vulcan wafts the sooty lees to heaven.’”

  All heads in the room had turned to watch, all ears to listen. Now, as Rufus took a bow, members of his audience clapped politely. Young Venerius made himself conspicuous by applauding enthusiastically. With his recitation at an end, the procurator fell back onto his place on the couch, spilling wine over a slave, without apology.

  As the night progressed, Rufus continued to drink heavily, and a little later he made another outburst. “Not content with humbling me with non citizens for soldiers,” he ranted to no one in particular, yet still drawing the attention of everyone at his table, “now, the Palatium informs me, Caesar is sending Liberius Maximus out to replace me. A damned freedman, I will have you know! There is precedent, they say: other freedmen have administered Judea in the past. Precedent be damned! At any other time, in any other place, I would have been more than insulted, but, my lords, let me tell you, there is no one more glad to be free of this damned place and these damned people than Publius Terentius Rufus! Or, should I say, Publius Terentius Rufus Turnus!

  Eventually, Rufus’ chief freedmen came to him and urged their chief to retire for the night, and after initial argument he gave in to persistent whispers and agreed to leave.

  “I am reminded by my people that I have a busy day ahead tomorrow,” he slurred to the guests at his table. “So I bid you all a tolerable night, my good and gracious lords.” His freedmen helped him up, then supported him when he stood on wavering legs. Around the room, the other diners respectfully came to their feet. Now Rufus squinted at Varro through bleary eyes. “I regret, questor, that the business of government will prevent me from devoting time to you while you are in Caesarea. Can I safely assume that before you take any action in my province you will have the courtesy to consult me?”

  “Rest assured, procurator,” Varro replied, “you will be consulted as and where appropriate. I will of course require full access to the city archives for my secretaries.”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Rufus responded with a dismissive wave of the hand.

  “And a local guide, an officer with an intimate knowledge of the province.”

  “An officer? A guide?” Rufus looked mystified, until his chief freedman whispered in his ear. “Ah, yes, a good suggestion, my good man,” he acknowledged. “Publius Alienus shall be your guide, cousin.” He told his servants to have the officer brought to him, then began to make his staggering way toward the door.

  A tall, well-built man in his thirties was summoned from the third dining couch, and as the other diners resumed their places and their reveries he hurried to join the procurator at the door. Rufus put an arm around the man’s shoulders, looking up at him like a child to an adult. “You will serve the questor, as a guide, while he is in Judea, Decurion,” Rufus instructed, finding difficulty manipulating his tongue.

  “Very good, my lord,” Alienus acknowledged.

  “Yes, but…” Rufus lowered his voice and waved a solitary finger in the air, “you see, I do not know the true purpose of the questor’s visit here, good Alienus. Whatever he may say, I suspect that my cousin has come to secretly investigate my service in the province, now that I am recalled to Rome, to find fault in my administration.” Rufus glanced back toward the questor. “Varro never did like me,” he sneered. He pulled the big man closer, so that his mouth touched his ear. “Listen well now, loyal Alienus. Consider yourself of duplicarius status; your pay is doubled, from this day forward.”

  “Thank you, procurator, most generous of you!”

  “Generous, yes,
but in return I expect to you to be my agent in Varro’s camp, decurion. As soon as you learn what he is looking for, or that he has found something which might, shall we say, incriminate me, you must alert me, so that I may take the necessary action in my own defense.”

  Alienus nodded. “Very good, my lord. You may rely on me.”

  Next day, Varro and his inner circle met in Herod’s Judgment Hall to plan their next course of action. Pythagoras and Artimedes would sift through the city archives in search of pertinent documents. Callidus would distribute the usual notices throughout the city. Martius would ignore Procurator Rufus and his subordinates and have Centurion Gallo and his men scour the city for several key figures. Top of his list were the Nazarene Boethus bar Joazar, the man mentioned by old Laban in Tiberias, and the daughter Boethus supposedly had living here in Caesarea. Another figure of interest was Philippus the Evangelist, a Nazarene Callidus had heard about during his interrogations at Antioch. With their tasks assigned, each man hurried to ensure speedy accomplishment.

  In the afternoon, Centurion Gallo reported back to Martius to say that many Jews living in Caesarea had apparently gone into hiding; news of the questor’s approach had been enough to raise fear and dread. And no one would admit to even knowing either Boethus, his daughter, or the Evangelist. A little time later, the optio Quintus Silius brought in an elderly couple who had admitted to being Nazarenes. The couple was taken before Varro in Herod’s Judgement Hall. Identifying themselves as Enoch and Haggith, they told the questor that they had been converted to the Nazarene faith by Simon Petra, and that they had known Cornelius, a Roman centurion originally from Sebaste who had retired from the 1st Legion and settled at Caesarea. Enoch said he had heard that the centurion had died in Asia.