by Paul L Maier
On Gratus’s final night in Caesarea, a warm evening fanned by fragrant offshore breezes, a state reception was held in the gardens of the Herodian palace. It served the dual purpose of officially introducing the new prefect of Judea and providing Valerius Gratus an appropriate farewell. A banquet would better have suited the occasion, but, it was explained, the orthodox among attending Jewish leaders would not have been able to eat with gentiles. As it was, the reception could not be held inside the palace, because all gentile homes were ritually unclean to Jews. Nor was it proper for women to attend. Procula and Gratus’s wife had to watch the festivities from a balcony.
Gratus had arranged it cleverly. As he and Pilate stood near the center of the reception line, his master of ceremonies, using Greek, would introduce a local dignitary, who was then escorted on while Gratus gave Pilate a whispered run-down on the man in Latin. The chamberlain detained the next person in line with amiable pleasantries until Gratus had finished his brief commentary in time for the new introduction. Magistrates from Caesarea, Sebaste, and other cities were presented, but the most significant contingent of guests were leading members of the Sanhedrin, the ruling senate of the Jews. They had come from Jerusalem to meet the man with whom—or, if necessary, against whom—they would govern Judea for the next years. The Jewish officials, easily identified by their lengthy beards and magnificently flowing robes, were presented with strict ceremonial regard to rank, the highest first.
“His Excellency, the High Priest of the Jewish nation, Joseph Caiaphas,” the chamberlain intoned. After an almost cordial introduction, and when the high priest was just out of earshot, Gratus quietly commented to Pilate, “Caiaphas you can work with. He cooperates with Rome. It took me a long time to find him. His father-in-law is Ananus, or Annas, the real patriarch and power behind the priesthood in Jerusalem. Annas probably didn’t show up because I removed him from the high priesthood shortly after I became prefect. Ha! After that I appointed and removed three other high priests until I found Caiaphas. But choosing him proved to be a good compromise because it placated Annas. The high priesthood was returned to his family through his son-in-law.”
“Rabbi Eleazar, of the Chamber of Priests!”
After Eleazar was introduced and moved out of range, Gratus whispered, “He’s an ex-high priest, one of those I sacked. Amazed he came.”
“Rabbi Jonathan, of the Chamber of Priests.”
“Now here’s a son of Annas who shows good promise,” Gratus confided. “If Caiaphas ever gives you trouble, you might dismiss him and appoint this Jonathan.”
“Rabbi Ishmael ben-Phabi, of the Chamber of Priests.”
A handsome personage, redolent in scented satins, presented himself for introduction, chatted a bit, and moved on. “Another of my former high priests,” Gratus disclosed, “and a pious and good man, though he has a problem with his sons.”
“Rabbi Alexander, of the Chamber of Priests.”
“Rich, very rich.”
“Rabbi Ananias ben-Nebedeus.”
“Quite a gourmand, this one, and what a table he sets! I’ve enjoyed one of his feasts. We went through twenty casks of wine, as many roasted calves, thirty fowl…but here comes Helcias.”
“Rabbi Helcias, Treasurer of the Temple.”
“An honest priest he is. A good man to have in charge of the treasury. Now, Pilate, we’ve met all members of the highest chamber of the Sanhedrin who made the trip here. The next group—here they come—are the scribes, members of the second chamber, some of the wisest scholars in the East.”
“Rabbi Gamaliel, of the Chamber of Scribes.”
“Gamaliel’s the finest of the lot. His grandfather was the famed savant Hillel, who emigrated here from Babylonia shortly after Caesar’s assassination. In breadth of knowledge, the Jews feel Gamaliel’s another Hillel.”
“Rabbi Jochanan ben-Zakkai, of the Chamber of Scribes.”
“He’s been studying the law of the Hebrews for almost forty years. It’s been said, ‘If the sky were parchment and all the trees of the forests pens, they would not suffice to record what Jochanan ben-Zakkai has learned.’”
“A modest claim!” Pilate smiled.
Ben-Zakkai turned and frowned at Pilate and Gratus, who were so caught up with the story that they had raised their voices somewhat. The rabbi, it seems, knew Latin.
Finally, members of the Chamber of Elders were introduced, the lowest of the groupings in the Sanhedrin. Names like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were announced, but Pilate had by now given up any hope of trying to remember all the Sanhedrists during this inaugural meeting.
It was Joseph Caiaphas who sought out Pilate later in the reception. Rather adroitly extracting him from Gratus’s shadow, the high priest sounded out the prefect on his intended policies for Judea. Pilate let several harmless platitudes camouflage his real plans, which he did not intend to lay before the only man in Judea who might block them. He promised a general continuation of the principles of the Gratus administration; it seemed the safe, the convenient, thing to say at the moment. At least Caiaphas appeared contented. Pilate was merely satisfied that his Greek seemed to be holding up.
“Naturally we’ve been very concerned about the emperor’s attitude toward Jewry ever since his expulsion of the Jews at Rome,” said Caiaphas, “and we feared that the appointment of a new prefect might signify a change in policy also for Judea. We hope this is not the case.” Before Pilate could comment, the high priest continued, “With proper respect for our traditions, which date back to Moses, there is no reason why Roman and Jew cannot dwell in peace in this sacred land.”
Pilate agreed, but wondered if the olive branch waved by Caiaphas was as much a diplomatic screen as his own efforts. Yet the two men had met, the pair who would virtually control Judea over the next years, and this had been the primary purpose of Gratus’s reception.
Early the next morning, the local auxiliary cohorts assembled for review in the drill grounds near the Herodian palace. Valerius Gratus bade his troops farewell, commending them for their loyalty and service, and officially transferred his authority to Pontius Pilate. Then, quavering from a fresh chill due to his malarial condition, he wished Pilate and Procula good fortune, escorted his wife onto the waiting ship, and sailed off to the Rome which he had not seen for eleven years.
Chapter 6
The first weeks in Caesarea passed with surprising ease. Pilate had to deal with some problems of adjustment, to be sure, and the usual new magistrate’s miseries, but nothing more than he had expected. Gratus had left behind a small advisory council, which gently schooled him in the considerable skills required of a praefectus Iudaeae. Composed of his officers’ staff, several local Roman and Hellenist civilians, and his own aides, the council assisted Pilate in some of the routine matters of his administration.
Procula, meanwhile, was kept busy putting her palace in order and meeting the important women of the city. But both soon sensed that something in their new life was not right. They found they were suffering from a galloping nostalgia, not so much for Rome as for Romans. Caesarea was a surprisingly cosmopolitan city, half Jewish and half other nationalities, but very few Romans lived there. And nowhere else in Judea were there even that many.
As a former praetorian, Pilate had hoped for some camaraderie with his military, and he never quite forgot his shock the first time he talked to his troops. At some distance they looked like typical Roman soldiers, well-armed with the usual helmet, cuirass, greaves, and shield. But when he addressed them in Latin, they simply looked confused and replied in Greek, a substandard Greek at that. But for a few senior tribunes, there was not a genuine Roman in any of the forces in Palestine. Pilate’s troops were auxiliaries, non-Romans of mixed Syrian or Samaritan nationality recruited locally for imperial service. Jews were exempted from military service because of dietary and Sabbath restrictions.
He knew these troops would be loyal enough to Rome in case of any Jewish insurrection, since Syrian pagans a
nd Samaritans had little love for Jews, and vice versa. Whether or not the auxiliaries would be consistently dependable was another matter, the problem whenever mercenaries were involved. Fail to meet the pay allotments on time, over- or under-discipline the troops, or let some major grievance undermine morale, and the outnumbered Roman officers’ staff could have a mutiny on its hands.
However, the overriding problem, Pilate feared, was not so much a matter of loyalty as of numbers. The whole of his military consisted of one ala, a cavalry company, and five infantry cohorts of five to six hundred men each, or about three thousand troops in all. If a well-organized general revolt did erupt in Judea, a mere three thousand men could hardly put it down. At best, they could stage a holding action in their fortresses until help arrived from Syria, hence Pilate’s nagging concern about which legions were available on his borders.
As prefect, he had supreme authority in the military, judicial, and financial administration of Judea throughout the eleven toparchies or districts into which it was divided. Many of the juridical and fiscal responsibilities were assumed by ten local Jewish Sanhedrins in the toparchies, which, in turn, were responsible to the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, with Pilate exercising only general surveillance and hearing appeals. In matters military, however, he could not delegate authority to non-Romans, so such tasks as manning the garrisons, rotating the cohorts, and ensuring logistics regularly occupied his day.
It was now November, and time to restation the five auxiliary cohorts for the winter. One regularly occupied the Tower Antonia, the great fortress that controlled Jerusalem. Another cohort or two was regularly based in Caesarea, while the rest manned various citadels across the countryside. By reshuffling the troops in his garrisons and camps, Pilate hoped to defeat restlessness and boredom among his soldiers.
After the first rain, which signaled the onset of winter, he recalled the Jerusalem cohort to Caesarea. To take its place in the Jewish capital, he dispatched the Augustan Cohort of Sebastenians, a unit from Sebaste that had distinguished itself in putting down a Zealot insurrection some years earlier. The emperor had rewarded it with a special honor, which permitted the cohort to name itself “Augustan” and carry in its identifying colors a special medallion with the emperor’s image.
Just before setting out for Jerusalem, the tribune commander of the Augustan Cohort mentioned to Pilate, “We haven’t been stationed in Jerusalem for some time, so I don’t know how the Jews will react to our ensigns.”
“What do you mean?”
“The other cohorts don’t have iconic standards. There are no images of the princeps or anyone else on them, so the Jews don’t mind them. But anything that’s pictorial offends them.”
“Why?”
“A special command from their deity. I believe it’s in their sacred writings.”
Pilate summoned a member of his council who was the authority on Hebrew religion. He read the following from a book the Jews called Exodus: “You shall not make yourselves a graven image or likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or the earth beneath, or the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them…”
“That’s no problem,” Pilate broke in. “The Jews didn’t make those images. We did. And they certainly don’t have to worship them.”
“My men earned those medallions,” the tribune added, “and removing them would hardly be good for their morale.”
“True,” Pilate said, “but there’s no need to offend the Jews needlessly. Have your cohort enter Jerusalem late at night, when the standards wouldn’t attract attention, and then restrict them to the Antonia. Would the Jews still be offended?”
“Hardly!” the tribune smiled.
“Farewell, then.”
The tribune replied with a smart military salute, clenched fist crossing over to strike his chest.
On the march down to Jerusalem, the men of the Augustan Cohort amused themselves by singing bawdy songs, cursing happily, and exchanging ribald jokes. There was also a good deal of wagering, the stakes set on whether or not they would be back to Caesarea before April, when the rains stopped. They did not look forward to a winter in Jerusalem.
Their nocturnal entry into the city was made without incident, and the tribune thought Pilate’s suggestion particularly well-conceived. Until the next morning.
It all began when an elderly Jew left the north portico of the temple after morning sacrifice and pronounced his daily malediction on the Tower Antonia, the Roman fortress growing out of the northwestern wall of the temple precinct like some incongruous tumor. Then he noticed the new set of standards fluttering from its battlements and squinted for sharper vision. Widening his eyes in disbelief, he scurried back into the temple enclave and climbed a wall for a better vantage point from which to confirm his horrifying discovery. There the unhallowed sight was unmistakable: several spears, standing on a dais, had crossbars from which wreaths and golden disks were hanging. And embossed on the disks in bas-relief were the effigies of human heads!
Compounding the horror of the aged Jew was the fact that just in front of the special shrine in which the ensigns were housed, two Roman centurions were burning incense or doing some mode of sacrifice to these standards. The old Israelite quivered with rage. His eyes ran with tears. The sacrilege! The idolatry! And directly overlooking the holy temple! Turning about, he shouted at the top of his frail lungs: “Thoaivoh ne-estho be-yisroel ubi-yerusholaim! An abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem!” “Abomination! Abomination!”
A cluster of early worshipers, priests, and temple guardsmen quickly surrounded the scandalized elder, all eyes toward the Tower Antonia. “Idolatry! Sacrilege!” they joined in the outcry, and hurried throughout the enclave to summon further witnesses. The trickle of news became a spreading torrent. Within an hour it had swept over Jerusalem in a riptide of fury, and the Antonia was besieged by an immense throng which now broke into an angry chant: “ABOMINATION! REMOVE THE IDOLS! PROFANATION! REMOVE THE IDOLS!”
Up on the Tower, one auxiliary, who had been watching the crowd mass with growing contempt, suddenly sneered, “I’ll give the swine something to really squeal about!” Grabbing the large central standard with the images of Augustus and Tiberius, he tauntingly swayed it to and fro before the multitude. An enraged, deep-throated roar erupted from the crowd.
The situation was worsening when the tribune of the Augustan Cohort appeared and arrested the self-appointed antagonizer. The standards were jerked from his grasp and he was led off in custody, a sight that temporarily calmed the crowd. The tribune took advantage of the moment and called down from the parapets, “Send your representatives into the courtyard. I will hear your grievances.” He looked at the thousands of faces tilted up in his direction and for some moments there was merely a picture of mass hesitation. Then slowly the raised fists were lowered, and the low-key din of discussion replaced the shouting. Several minutes later, the Rabbis Helcias and Jonathan, accompanied by several of the Jewish temple guard, met the tribune inside the Antonia.
“Your military standards are idolatrous!” Jonathan led off.
“Only your opinion,” the tribune countered. “And how can you dictate what colors my cohort should fly?”
“The disks carry graven images. They violate the law of Moses.”
“The medallions are engraved with the busts of Caesar Augustus, who sent gifts of golden candlesticks to your temple and favored you in other ways; and of the Emperor Tiberius, for whom you just sacrificed two lambs and an ox in the temple this morning.”
“For whom, but not to whom!” Helcias objected. “Your soldiers were offering sacrifice to the ensigns, and the emperor cult which they represent.”
“Our cohort won the privilege of flying these medallions from the emperor himself,” the tribune snarled. “How dare you question our insignia!”
“We object to your using them to desecrate the temple of our God in his Holy City!”
The Roman had run out of a
rguments; it was time for him to refer to higher authority. “Our standards will continue to fly. Only the Prefect Pontius Pilatus can order them lowered.”
The priest and the treasurer left the Antonia to address the crowd. There would be a meeting of the Great Sanhedrin that afternoon, Jonathan shouted. Meanwhile, everyone was to avert his eyes immediately from the Tower Antonia, lest the hated ensigns reappear.
In controlled fury, the multitude dispersed from the despised precincts of the Roman citadel. An emergency convocation of the Sanhedrin that afternoon decided to send a delegation to Pilate in Caesarea. Any citizens of Jerusalem who wished might accompany the deputation. What finally set out the next morning resembled an ethnic migration, so aroused was the populace at what it thought a deliberate provocation.
A courier had briefed Pilate on the confrontation in Jerusalem and alerted him to the approaching delegation. The news surprised but hardly troubled him, since friction between governor and governed was the anticipated rule for Judea. Better to face the encounter and have done with it.
But Pilate miscalculated the size of the protest. He had expected an embassy of no more than twenty, the usual size for Mediterranean diplomacy, since the point at issue seemed only a laboring of religious minutiae, a Judean analogue to a Roman controversy over whether thunder on the right were a good or bad omen if a person were left-handed. However, the great throng which now surged into Caesarea caught him entirely off guard, and he nervously put his cohorts on alert.
Swelled by Judeans from the countryside, the mass delegation was well regulated by a corps of priests as it made its way to the Herodian palace and presented a formal petition that the offending ensigns be withdrawn from Jerusalem. In essence, the following arguments were cited: (1) the standards specifically contradicted the Mosaic law against graven images and were therefore idolatrous; (2) actual sacrifice to these standards had been perpetrated by soldiers in full view of the people of Jerusalem; (3) the ensigns themselves, as well as the shrine in which they were housed, were regarded as numinous, spirit-filled, and thus contrary to Mosaic law; (4) for these insignia to be present anywhere in the holy city of Jerusalem was sacrilege, but to have them fluttering over the temple from the proximity of the Antonia was absolutely intolerable. The petition was signed by all seventy-one members of the Great Sanhedrin.