Logic argued that one man alone could do nothing to rescue the Jewish leaders from the wrath of Plotinus and the mob. There was still time for him to return to the catacombs where Mary and the others were and make his escape with them. He had made the attempt to break through to the theater and had failed. Nothing but his conscience could argue that he should do more.
While Joseph was battling with his own conscience beneath the bridge, a pleasure galley appeared from Lake Mareotis, with a torch flaring at its prow and four slaves at the oars. Reclining on the cushions was a fat Greek in a finely pleated robe, obviously a man of some substance. He probably lived in a villa on the shores of Lake Mareotis, Joseph thought, and therefore might not know of the happenings in the town. And besides, the Greeks and the Jews got along better than the other nationalities of Alexandria, for many Jews were part Greek.
If he hailed the galley, Joseph knew, he could probably gain a ride to the quays of the Brucheion itself, only about a block from the theater. But in doing so he would be crossing his own particular Rubicon, for once he was in the city itself, there could hardly be any going back. The torch at the carved prow of the galley was abreast of him now, and if he were going to hail, it must be soon.
A beguiling picture raced through Joseph’s mind of himself with Mary, Hadja, and Bana Jivaka in just such a galley as this, only larger, speeding up the Nile toward the canal to the Egyptian Sea and freedom. But then another scene crowded the pleasant one aside, a scene that he knew was probably taking place right now within the great theater of Alexandria: the howling of a mob intent upon the murder of Philo and the patriarchs among the Jews, and the cold hard face of the gymnasiarch Plotinus stirring them up.
His decision crystallized, Joseph waited no longer. “Wait, please!” he called to the galley, and stepped out where he could be seen. “I am a physician and a friend is desperately ill across the city,” he explained. “Would you do me the favor of letting me ride with you?”
At a word from their master the slaves leaned upon the oars, stopping the boat. Joseph stepped down to the very edge of the water, into the circle of light cast by the torch on the prow. “I am quite alone,” he said, holding up his hands. “If you help me, it may mean the life of a friend.” He was not telling an untruth, for he did indeed hope to save the life of his friend Philo.
“Bring the galley against the bank,” the Greek ordered the slaves, and when the boat touched the earth, he gave his hand courteously to Joseph to steady him as he stepped aboard. “I am going to a dinner at the house of Alcibiades,” he said jovially. “And if his food is no better than usual, I may need the services of a physician myself before the night is over.”
The galley sped through the Agathadaemon Canal and into the Harbor of the Happy Return, turning northeastward then to pass under the bridge of the Heptastadium nearest the city. At this time of day the great causeway leading to the Pharos normally thronged with people, but tonight it was almost deserted.
“Everybody must still be drunk from the Dionysia,” the Greek observed. “I never saw the mall so deserted.”
Joseph only nodded, although he knew the cause. Baiting the hated Jews would be a far greater attraction to the fickle tastes of the Alexandrians than the ordinary pleasure of strolling along the causeway.
“Were you at the stadium yesterday?” the Greek continued. “I hear Flamen tried to kill the tribune Gaius Flaccus.”
“Yes, I was there,” Joseph admitted.
“That was one god who almost failed to be resurrected,” the other observed with a grin. “A pity she did not succeed.”
“You approve her action?” Joseph asked, startled.
“A woman as beautiful as Flamen can do no harm. Any man should be willing to die in her embrace. They say she really didn’t die, though. Some few worked a magic trick to save her when she appeared to be dead.”
“I heard something of it.” Joseph kept his voice noncommittal.
“Where are you going?” the Greek asked. “I am for the barracks at the foot of Lochias Promontory.”
“Anywhere on the quays will do.”
“How about the Small Harbor beyond the Timonium?”
“That will be perfect.” This was good fortune indeed, for the sheltered quays behind the half-moon-shaped island enclosing the Small Harbor were only a short distance from the Forum and the theater. With no farther to go than that, he should be able to reach the stage.
When the galley nosed in and touched the stone quay, Joseph leaped ashore and thanked his benefactor courteously. The quay here was also largely deserted, but from the nearby theater came a roar of many voices, and he soon came upon the outskirts of a huge crowd. People were pushing and shoving everywhere, shouting in every tongue, fighting with each other, laughing and snarling alternately, a truly savage spectacle. Joseph was quite unable to force his way any farther, and he realized that at any moment he might be recognized as a Jew. What would happen then, he was sure he knew, and the thought set a cold chill upon his heart. It was not too late to turn back to safety even now, caution advised. Philo and the others were almost certainly beyond help with a mob like this howling for their blood.
“What is happening?” he asked a tall man against whose body he was tightly wedged by the press of the crowd.
“Plotinus is baiting the Jews,” the man said. “Blood will flow on the streets of Alexandria before this is over.”
“Has he arrested them yet?”
“Arrested them!” The man snorted. “Why arrest blood-suckers who take our money in usury? The crowd will take care of Philo and the others, you can stake your gold on that.” He looked down, and suspicion gleamed suddenly in his eyes. “Why, you are a—” he began, but Joseph, filled with a surge of terror lest his identity be revealed here in the crowd, shoved the man fiercely so that he stumbled and would have fallen.
“A Jew! A Jew! Kill the Jew!” the man shouted, but Joseph lashed out at those around him and spun around. There was a flurry of excitement, and like a small whirlpool twisting in the midst of the current, he was pushed from hand to hand into another part of the crowd. The noise drowned out the man he had pushed, and he found himself, sweating and trembling, in another group of struggling people. He waited, paralyzed momentarily, for the cry of “Kill the Jew!” to be raised again, but to those around him he was only another person bent upon squeezing into the already overfilled theater.
With an effort of will, Joseph got control of himself. Looking back upon that moment of blind panic, he knew now that he could never have forgiven himself if he had yielded to it. And yet the memory of the savagery in the voices of the men around him as they had shouted for the blood of a Jew, himself or any other, left no doubt of his fate if he were set upon by the crowd. As Albina had warned, they would tear him to pieces more quickly than the lions tore helpless men and women apart in the games.
Faced with failure or death—and most likely both—Joseph did the only thing he knew to do, the only thing a devout Jew could do under the circumstances. He prayed silently to the Most High for direction. And standing there in the midst of a snarling, cursing crowd bent upon destroying any member of a hated race, the young physician suddenly felt as if he were alone, with all danger and all threats removed. It seemed then as if he heard a voice speaking within him where no one else could hear, the voice of the prophet Isaiah, whose teachings he had learned as a child, saying:
Fear not, for I am with you,
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.
Joseph felt a new strength and calmness flooding his soul now. The dangers still existed, but he feared them no more. And now that he was able to think clearly without fear, he saw how he could get into the theater.
“Take me to Plotinus!” he shouted.
“I have news of Flamen!”
The crowd took up the cry at once. Joseph was seized and passed from hand to hand until finally he was thrust before the guards at the gate leading into the theater. These lowered their swords to bar any passage, but when Joseph reiterated his desire to be taken to Plotinus with news of Flamen, they guided him along one of the vomitoria to a passage leading to the orchestra, from which Plotinus was haranguing the crowd in a stream of bitter invective against the Jews. Since the gymnasiarch was in the midst of the oration, the guards did not interrupt, but shoved Joseph up on the platform near where Philo and a dozen or more of the Jewish leaders stood under guard.
Looking around him, Joseph saw that Gaius Flaccus sat just behind the edge of the orchestra. The curtain had been raised, completely hiding the great stage and the machinery of the skene and eccyclema from the howling mob that filled every seat in the theater and spilled over into the aisles and the open space where the musicians ordinarily sat. Philo and the others had not been seriously hurt as yet, although several had bruised faces and torn clothing. The jurist faced his captors calmly, as did several of the older Jews, but some of the others were weeping, obviously overcome with terror.
On and on the tirade continued, accusing the Jews of all manner of fanciful crimes, the old shibboleths and stalking horses which were always exhumed when unscrupulous exhorters sought to inflame a mob for their own purposes. Plotinus, a skilled orator, was playing upon the fickle emotions of the crowd as a skilled musician plays upon the strings or pipes. With each new lie, each new accusation, they roared in an answering burst of fury, and when finally he chose to bring his flood of invective to a close, the howling continued for long minutes. Finally he turned and singled out the venerable doctor of the law from the other prisoners upon the platform. “Philo!” he shouted. “Confess your sins now to your peers if you are not afraid to move.”
Contempt was written in every deliberate movement as the old lawyer shook off the hands of the Roman soldiers who started to jerk him forward and stepped out to face his tormentor. “Is there none of the vaunted Roman justice in Alexandria, Plotinus,” he demanded sharply, “that you dare inflame a rabble against honest people? The emperor is a just man; he will have your head for this.”
The gymnasiarch struck the old Jew across the mouth with his hand, and a sudden hush fell over the crowd, for the name of Philo had always been a respected one in Alexandria. “We know the suicide of the Jewess called Flamen was a magic trick to escape a just punishment of death,” Plotinus snarled. “Where have you cursed Jews hidden her?”
“I know nothing of the woman,” Philo said quietly. “Nor do my people have anything to do with magic.”
“You lie!” Plotinus screamed. “You Jews have hidden a murderess away, mocking the Roman justice you prate of so much.”
“Who is dead by her hand?” Philo demanded contemptuously. “This man?” He leveled a finger at Gaius Flaccus. “He looks alive to me.” The crowd roared with laughter at this shrewd sally. “Tell the people the truth,” Philo went on scathingly. “That you borrowed money from lawful moneylenders to spend on women and wine, and now you cannot pay, so you seek to kill those you owe and escape paying just debts.”
Plotinus raised his fist to strike the defenseless old man again, but before it could descend Joseph stepped forward. “Strike me, Roman,” he said loudly enough for the crowd to hear. “I alone am responsible for the escape of Mary of Magdala, whom you call Flamen.”
The gymnasiarch froze where he stood, and his fist dropped to his side. A sudden hush fell over the crowd at this dramatic change of events. “The woman is safe where you can never find her,” Joseph continued. “Neither Philo nor the others here know where she is.”
“But you know?” Plotinus found his voice at last.
“I know,” Joseph said quietly. “But you will never learn it from me, not even by torture.”
Something in the quietness with which he spoke told the angry Roman that Joseph spoke the truth. And the knowledge that he could not learn the whereabouts of the woman he hated so bitterly for using him as a tool only infuriated Plotinus all the more. “Jewish dog!” he snarled. “Give me a reason why I should not thrust you through here and now.”
Joseph turned to face Gaius Flaccus, and the crowd, sensing some new drama, grew quiet again. “Ask the tribune here.” He leveled an accusing finger. “Ask the tribune Gaius Flaccus why the woman you call Flamen tried to kill him. He knows his life is forfeit to her.”
Fear showed in Gaius Flaccus’s eyes, for he well knew how easily the fury of the crowd—people from districts which had rebelled more than once against the empire—could be turned against Romans. Nationalistic hatreds were easily fanned into flame, just as Plotinus was now using the traditional hatred of many people for the Jews, whose success as merchants and moneylenders throughout the empire brought resentment from the people with whom they traded.
“It’s a lie!” Gaius Flaccus shouted. “I owe the woman nothing!”
Before Plotinus could intervene, Joseph said loudly to the crowd, “Flamen is both Jew and Greek.” Between them the Jews and Greeks made up by far the largest population group of cosmopolitan Alexandria, and if he could drive a wedge between the Romans and the Greeks, a considerable portion of the crowd might swing to his side. “The gymnasiarch Plotinus hates her because he could not buy her favors with money he borrowed from Jews,” he went on. “As a girl she was ravished by the tribune Gaius Flaccus. And by Jewish law his life is forfeit to her and to her family, so she was within the law when she sought to kill him. The Romans talk much of justice when it suits them. Will you Greeks let a Roman murder just men to escape paying his debts?”
The crowd began to shout approval, but before Joseph could speak again Plotinus shoved him aside roughly and shouted, “Who rules in Alexandria? Rome or the Jews? Have you no pride, citizens of Alexandria? Or will you bow to moneylenders and merchants?”
Someone shouted, “No!” and the crowd took up the cry. Then a prompter—no doubt placed in the crowd by Plotinus for this purpose—shouted, “Kill the Jews!” and the shouting and cursing began again.
“Kill the Jews! Crucify the merchants and the moneylenders!” The beasts were growling for blood once more.
With a sinking heart Joseph knew that he had lost. Obviously Plotinus had been working toward just this. Now he could turn the prisoners loose to the fury of the crowd and, by pretending that matters had gotten out of hand and he could control the people no longer, escape blame for what happened when Roman justice, in its cumbersome way, finally got around to investigating the affair. Such things had been done before by Romans in order to destroy Jews to whom they owed money; undoubtedly they would be done again.
Those at the front of the crowd were already climbing upon the orchestra to seize the prisoners, when a sudden hush fell over the crowd. Joseph knew by the look of surprise in the faces of the men who were almost within reach of him, and the way they scrambled back, that something unusual was happening, but he had no inkling of what it was until a loud groaning of metal upon metal sounded behind him. He turned then and saw to his amazement that the great curtain, moved by no visible agency, was descending into its grooved niche. The look of startled surprise on the faces of Plotinus and Gaius Flaccus told him that this, at least, was not part of their plan.
The crowd was hushed while the curtain completed its descent and disappeared into the long slot in the floor, revealing the stage itself. This was entirely bare of scenery, but at the back four torches burned in the racks where they were placed to illuminate the stage after nightfall. And since it was almost dark now, the dancing pattern of the flames and shadows upon the floor of the stage gave the whole vast cavern revealed by the descending curtain an oddly macabre appearance, as if the audience were suddenly granted a glimpse of hell itself, complete except for the momentarily expected appearance of the d
emons who populated it.
Suddenly the crashing chords of a great cithara, an instrument whose notes Joseph would have recognized anywhere in the world, filled the great theater. And as the echoes died away a woman appeared at the very topmost level of the stage, silhouetted in the light of the torches flaming there. With her red hair unloosed to fall about her shoulders, the illusion of a living torch was so great that the crowd shouted in a mighty spontaneous roar, “Flamen! Aphrodite! Flamen! Aphrodite!”
For a long moment, while the waves of sound echoed and re-echoed through the great theater, Mary stood poised there. Then her body began to sing a poem of love as only the Flamen of Alexandria, in all the world, could do. A deep, throbbing silence fell over the crowd; there was no sound save the crashing tones of the great cithara and the audible sigh of breathing from the audience.
Joseph had never seen this dance. In truth, no one had ever watched Mary dance it before, for this was its premier performance. She herself had witnessed it only once, when the slave girl Thetis had danced before Pontius Pilate and his guests, and she had watched from the dressing room beside the triclinium in Pilate’s palace at Tiberias.
The performance of the slave girl Thetis had been an invitation to debauchery, a lewd thing of suggestive poses and writhing torso. But Mary was an artist first of all, and this was her greatest, perhaps her last, performance, as beautiful and as tender as any of the love poems she often sang on the stage. In the excitement of watching her, even the soldiers guarding the prisoners moved closer, forgetting their duties, until there was nothing between the doomed men and freedom but the door at the end of the orchestra and the open passage beyond leading down beneath the wings of the theater to freedom.
Joseph had looked away at the beginning of the dance when he realized that Mary was clothed only in the diaphanous swath of transparent bombyx. He knew what she was doing and why she was doing it, but he could not bear to watch her. Now, noticing that the soldiers had left the prisoners unguarded, he moved to the nearest one and said quietly, “Move out through the door there while the guards are not looking. Rouse the Jews everywhere and arm yourselves, then barricade the stoutest buildings.”
The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene Page 23