The Inquest

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  “Speculation, Marcus, speculation,” Varro mused, coming to his feet. “What I seek is cold, hard fact.” He looked across at Pythagoras and Artimedes. “These documents are helpful, to a point. Find me more facts, learned secretaries. More facts.”

  A day later, Artimedes made several more useful discoveries in the archives. He had moved to the military section, where there was a record of every single Roman military unit to have been stationed in the province of Judea since its inception seventy-five years before. The records attested to the fact that the most senior of six centurions stationed at Jerusalem at the time of the execution of Jesus of Nazareth was a Centurion Julius Longinus, commander of the 2nd Cohort of the 12th Legion, which provided the garrison unit at Jerusalem. Varro and his military companions knew that a legion’s first three cohorts were its most senior. The 1st Cohort always remained with the legion commander, and in Judea that officer had been stationed at Caesarea, the provincial capital. In recognition of the importance of the Jerusalem posting, the 2nd Cohort was garrisoned at Jerusalem, quartered in the Antonia Fortress, adjacent to the Temple. As Artimedes pointed out to Varro, the Antonia had a number of roles, serving as Roman pretorium, citadel, courthouse and prison in Jerusalem. The Jewish authorities had their own separate court and prison within the Temple complex.

  From the records, Artimedes was able to establish that the 12th Legion had undergone a blanket discharge and reenlistment three years prior to the Nazarene’s death. This meant that the four hundred and eighty men of the 2nd Cohort had spent twenty years as conscript soldiers and at the time of the execution of Jesus of Nazareth they were three years into a second, voluntary enlistment of twenty years with the 12th Legion.

  Martius was to remark that if these men were anything like the men of other senior cohorts in other legions they would have been tough and arrogant soldiers, men who looked down on the inexperienced conscripts of the junior cohorts. When they themselves had been junior cohorts, they would have been based at some or all of the five other fortresses used by the resident legion in Judea. Martius quickly calculated that in the year in question the rank and file members of the 12th Legion cohort stationed at Jerusalem, the men who had physically carried out the execution of Jesus of Nazareth, had been in the vicinity of forty-three years of age.

  “You realize of course, Julius,” said Martius as Varro and he discussed this new evidence on a walk on the terrace after dinner, “the men of the 2nd Cohort of the 12th who were present at the Nazarene’s execution would have retired more than twenty years ago.”

  “If they were still alive, they would be aged in their eighties today.”

  “Most of them would have retired throughout Greater Syria, or even gone home to Cisalpine Gaul. It could take years to track down any survivors, and even then there is no guarantee they will be in any state to remember a solitary thing about those days. My maternal grandfather was as lucid as a pumpkin by the time he reached his eighties.”

  “Years I do not have, my friend,” Varro sighed. “Time is not our ally. As you know, Collega has ordered me to be back at Antioch with my report by the autumn. Yet, without the evidence of eye-witnesses, there is little to report.”

  “Look at it another way,” Martius suggested. “While there may be little evidence to support the contention that our man did not die on a cross, there is precious little to prove that he did. To my mind there is a good case to be put that somehow the Nazarene pulled the wool over peoples’ eyes. For one thing, the business involving Judas is most suspicious. As you suggested, Judas and Jesus seem to have had a secret understanding.”

  “Facts, Marcus,” Varro responded with exasperation. “I must write of facts, not of suspicions. It is an unavoidable fact that the centurion in charge of the execution certified in writing that the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth did take place. That would seem compelling to most people, without any firm evidence to the contrary.”

  “A pity we could not manage to stumble on Centurion Longinus himself. Then you would have some answers.”

  “Longinus is dead, apparently executed. Remember?”

  Martius jovially poked his colleague in the ribs. “Unless we can resurrect him.” He chuckled to himself. “Mind you, Julius, we do only have the word of that crafty old dissembler Philippus that Longinus was executed.”

  “I may be able to contribute to that debate, my lords,” came the voice of Artimedes as he approached along the terrace. In one hand he held a lamp, in the other a document. “I have been burning the late night oil at the archives, looking for any reference to Centurion Longinus.”

  “Well, there’s a choice coincidence,” said Martius.

  “I was particularly interested to locate any record of the death of the centurion.” Artimedes held up the document in his hand. “And here it is, my lords! Dated in the same year as the execution of Jesus of Nazareth.”

  “No!” Varro exclaimed, halfway between surprise and delight.

  Varro and Martius now each took an end of the small document and unraveled it under the light of the secretary’s lamp.

  “This is the warrant for Julius Longinus’ decapitation,” Artimedes informed them. “Issued under Pilatus’ seal, and carried out in the late autumn of the same year that Jesus of Nazareth was executed.”

  “For what crime?” Martius asked.

  “Desertion.” Artimedes pointed to the relevant line in the text.

  Martius scratched his head. “Centurions do occasionally desert the army, I admit, but very rarely in time of peace, as it was then in Judea. What would make a senior man turn his back on his legion like that? He was well paid, he had seniority and was close to promotion to the 1st grade. He may well have ended up chief centurion of his legion, an enormous prize for an enlisted man. It is not as if he would not have known that he and his head would part company if he were arrested for deserting.”

  “Philippus did say that Longinus joined the Nazarenes,” said Varro. “Would that have been motive enough for deserting?”

  Martius looked pained, as if in receipt of a personal insult. “I find that hard to believe, Julius, I really do. A hardened soldier, succumbing to the Nazarene nonsense?.”

  “Certainly, my lords,” said Artimedes, “nothing in this document confirms the assertion made by Philippus that the centurion died a follower of the Nazarene.”

  “It does however confirm Philippus’ testimony about the time and nature of Longinus’ death,” said Varro. “We have yet to make a liar of Philippus.”

  “On factual grounds, at least,” Martius was quick to add.

  Varro nodded. “It is a pity that Philippus was not in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ execution. As I have been saying all along, what this investigation desperately needs is an eyewitness. That must be our unrelenting goal. An eyewitness.”

  XIV

  THE GETHSEMANE WITNESS

  Caesarea, Capital of the Roman Province of Judea,

  April, A.D. 71

  Unlike Rome, or Antioch, there were no daylight traffic restrictions in the Judean capital, so that wheeled vehicles serving the port passed to and fro incessantly while riders and pedestrians jostled for room to move around them. Mounted and on foot, people had poured in from as far away as Sebaste before the public holiday next day on April 21 closed down commerce and the courts in the city. The holiday numbered among the one hundred and sixty holy days on the Roman calendar when no business could be conducted. It would bring a double observation, the Parilia, feast day of the god and goddess Pales, protectors of flocks and herds, and the celebration of the anniversary of the foundation of Rome by Romulus eight hundred and twenty-four years before.

  As Marcus Martius pushed through the throng, few people realized that he was a Roman officer. He went bare-headed and wore a simple cloak over his tunic. The cloak served to disguise his rank and to conceal the sword belt slung over his shoulder. He was accompanied by just a single man, Publius Alienus, the cavalry officer loaned to Questor Varro by Procur
ator Rufus to be his guide in Judea. A swarthy, well built Egyptian of twenty-eight, Alienus was the eldest son of a wealthy Alexandrian family whose Roman ancestor had served with Pompeius the Great. Alienus, who carried a cloth bag shouldered beneath his cloak, led Martius through the thronging streets. Their mission was to visit every tavern in Caesarea. As soon as the owner of the first rowdy drinking house discovered Martius’ identity, he offered the two officers free wine.

  “Why?” Alienus returned with surprise.

  “In honor of the Pales, and Romulus,” said the tavern-keeper with a wink, “and any other god or notable person you care to name. You are Roman officers, after all—senior Roman officers—and we have to look after our brave soldiers.”

  As Varro had required, Martius had been limiting his wine consumption on the march. But this, he decided, was different. “We cannot be accused of being irreligious, my dear Alienus,” he said with a wink. “Accept the landlord’s generous offer.”

  So Alienus handed the tavern keeper a notice to post offering a reward for information about the death of Jesus of Nazareth, and the landlord handed the two officers diluted cups of his best mulled wine. The offer of free wine was repeated at every tavern they frequented, and never declined. Martius found Alienus an excellent drinking companion, swapping jokes and matching him round for round. By the time they had visited thirteen taverns, Martius and Alienus had become increasingly merry. And as they moved on from one establishment to the next, singing bawdy legion songs in two-part harmony, they attracted a growing crowd of dirty-faced children and assorted beggars who limped and crawled in their wake. As the pair tunefully came away from the latest drinking house, they were confronted by a beggar in his forties, a grubby, skinny individual with a forked tree branch for a crutch and dragging his left leg.

  “Spare a coin for a hapless cripple, my good and generous lords,” the beggar wailed in a pitiful tone, as he stood in Martius’ way.

  “You are lame, good fellow?” said Martius, a little unsteady on his feet as he looked the beggar up and down.

  “If only it were not so, my lord. I have a wife and eight children to support, and it is not an easy thing for a man with a handicap such as mine.”

  “Eight children?” Martius returned. “You have been a busy fellow.” He put his arm around the decurion’s shoulders. “Did you hear what Caesar Vespasianus did while he was in Alexandria last year, Alienus, my friend?”

  “I heard that Caesar did many things in my home town last year, tribune,” the decurion replied. “To what thing in particular do you refer?”

  “There was one sublime and superlative act which stands out from all the rest. Allow me to demonstrate.” Martius focused his attention on the left leg of the bemused beggar. “Your left limb is lame, I take it? The leg, and the foot, quite useless are they?”

  “Perfectly useless, my lord,” the mendicant answered with a sigh. “Dead as a piece of wood, leg and foot, ever since I was run down by a builder’s cart.

  “Ah, well then, let me see what I can do to help you.” With that, Martius raised his military sandal, then stomped on the beggars left foot with all his might.

  The man howled with pain, grabbed at his left foot, and went hopping away, accompanied by the uproarious laughter of all the children gathered around.

  “Did you see that, Alien us? I have cured the beggar!” Martius declared with glee. “He feels pain in the dead foot! It is a miracle!”

  The limping beggar paused, wincing, at the street corner. “A curse on the pair of you!” he called back to Martius and Alienus. “May you suffer a cruel and painful death!”

  “On your way, imposter,” Martius growled, pulling back his cloak to reveal the sword on his hip. “Or it will be you who surfers a cruel and painful death.”

  The beggar quickly turned and disappeared.

  As Martius and the decurion went to move on they were surrounded by the children, who all now clamored for money. One enchanting child of no more than nine or ten, with short, rough-shorn black hair and large, round, green eyes took Martius’ hand.

  “My grandfather, Ishmael, has things to tell you about the Nazarene, master,” said the child, looking up into his eyes.

  Martius looked down in surprise. “The Nazarene?”

  “Grandfather says that you must come alone.”

  Alienus’ suspicions were quickly aroused. “Come where?”

  “I will take you there,” said the child to Martius, “but you must come alone.”

  “Be careful, my lord,” Alienus cautioned.

  “All is well, decurion,” said Martius. “I’m not afraid of children, or of grandfathers.” He leaned closer to Alienus, and spoke softly, so that the child could not overhear. “Follow at a distance, Alienus. Hold back, unless I call on you.”

  Then, still holding the child by the hand, Martius allowed himself to be led off down the street. Alienus gave them a brief start, then, with his hand on his sheathed sword, he followed the pair at a distance as instructed, ready to melt into the scenery if the child should look back. As he went, the lightheadedness that had accompanied the decurion from the tavern vanished, lifted like a morning fog melted by the new day’s sun. The child, walking with small, rapid steps and the occasional backward glance, led the tribune from street to cobbled street, then down a narrow back alley toward the city amphitheater. Alienus became increasingly worried. With the beggar’s fatalistic prediction ringing in his ears, and fearing repercussions if he were to permit anything to happen to a tribune, he decided he did not dare hold back any longer. Quickening his pace, he began to overtake the pair.

  “Tribune, I think that it may be a trap,” he called.

  The child stopped.

  Martius turned around. “Alienus, I told you to hold back,” he said unhappily.

  “There is danger here, my lord.” As he spoke, Alienus cast a wary gaze around them. “This is the worst part of the town. Cutthroats lurk at every turn.”

  “Grandfather Ishmael will speak to you, and you alone, master,” said the child.

  Martius looked down at the small face, and saw only innocence. “Go back to the white fortress, Alienus,” Martius instructed. “I will return later.”

  “My lord, I cannot desert you here,” Alienus protested.

  “Go!” Martius growled. “I order you. Do it now!”

  Alienus unhappily obeyed. He turned several times to look back as he retraced his steps down the alley. Each time, he saw that the tribune and the child had remained stock still and were watching his retreat. Then the decurion slipped from view.

  Again the child set off with the tribune in tow. Martius found himself led to the arcades beneath the northern side of the amphitheater. In all Roman cities, amphitheater and hippodrome arcades like these attracted the dregs of society, the homeless and the lawless. To pimps and prostitutes, male and female, higgling hucksters and sleazy shell-game artists, street acrobats and clowns and their pickpocket accomplices, these dark, dank, rat-infested arcades were both home and place of business. The holidays were their best days, when festival games were celebrated in the arena, bringing customers and victims flocking here in their thousands looking for sordid pleasures and cheap thrills.

  Under the shade of the arcades, the child led Martius to a small, bald, much wrinkled figure with an untidy beard and jaundiced skin, who sat on the stone pavement floor with his back to the wall. Around him lay refuse and human waste. The eyes of the elderly man flickered open. There was a hollow, deathly look behind them.

  “He is here, grandfather,” said the child, kneeling at his feet.

  “You are Ishmael?” Martius inquired, looking down at the ancient.

  The old man looked up at him with a searching gaze. “You are the tribune?” His voice was weak and wavering.

  After a precautionary look around him, and satisfied that there was no imminent threat, Martius said, “I am he. How did you know to send the child for me?”

  “It had been said w
ithin my hearing that a tribune of Rome was this morning going around the taverns, seeking information about the Nazarene.”

  “You have information for me?”

  “There are things I can tell you, but whether this is what you seek, I cannot know. I will try to help you as best I can, but I will only tell you, and I will only tell you here. If I were to go to the citadel, word would soon spread. The cutthroats here would only think that I had gone to inform on them, and my life would not be worth a muleteer’s curse.”

  “Why would you want to help me?”

  “Look at me, Roman,” old Ishmael replied. “I try to survive here among the whores and the hawkers, the performers and the parasites. It is quiet here now, because the worst of them have gone to the hippodrome. Tomorrow is race day. Rufus will celebrate the Parilia, and my neighbors will have much custom tonight and tomorrow. Two days’ hence, the corrupt and the corrupters will return. I ask you, is this any place to raise a granddaughter?” He cast one hand around his squalid surroundings.

  “Granddaughter?” said Martius with surprise, looking at the infant. “I took the child to be a boy.”

  “This is Gemara, daughter of my son Jonathan,” said Ishmael, reaching out and taking hold of the green-eyed child’s small hand, “who took his family to Jerusalem for the Passover five years ago, leaving his little one in my care until his return. No longer do I have my son or any living relative apart from this sweet child. They have all been taken from me. I am old, I am frail. If by speaking what little I know of events that interest you, I may be able to prevail upon the tribune’s generosity…” His voice faded away.

  Martius doubted that much would come out of this, but he was here now. “Very well, tell me what you know, and I will see whether it is of interest to me.”

  Ishmael let out a deep sigh, and then began. “In the time when Pilatus was Prefect of Judea, I was a servant of Josephus Caiaphas, High Priest of Jerusalem.”

  Martius was interested. Very interested. Keeping one eye on the neighborhood, he eased down onto a knee beside the soft-voiced geriatric. “Go on.