Pontius Pilate: A Novel

by Paul L Maier

  “Our law forbids religious images, especially in the Holy City,” Eleazar replied, equally amazed that Pilate could not grasp the concept.

  “Enough!” Pilate shouted down from his tribunal. “Here is my final judgment: the ensigns of the Augustan Cohort will remain in Jerusalem! I shall not insult our emperor by permitting their removal. You must give me your immediate agreement and leave Caesarea at once.”

  For several moments there was a shocked silence. Then head turned to head and a furious rumble of discussion began. Finally the spokesmen filed up to the tribunal and said, with one voice, “We shall remain until the idols are removed.” And the rumbling mass voice came to life once again, “REMOVE THE IDOLS! AWAY WITH THE ABOMINATIONS!”

  Pilate clapped his hands twice, and suddenly the upper passageways of the great stadium disgorged hundreds of trotting, armed troops who surrounded the multitude in a ring of iron, three men deep. A low, quavering moan welled up from the astounded Jews.

  “I convict you all of treason and sedition against Emperor Tiberius Caesar…unless you cease this protest immediately and return to your homes!” Pilate paused, then added, “And the penalty for treason is death.”

  His threat caused a great commotion. There was much anguished groaning, and several of the women began to cry hysterically. Many in the crowd recited psalms and prayers, with arms raised heavenward in supplication. Others dropped to their knees or covered their heads. But there was no sign of capitulation.

  Pilate glared down at the leaders of the protest and snapped, “Surely you don’t want the blood of these thousands to stain your hands. Lead them back to Jerusalem in peace.”

  There was no reply. “Auxiliaries…advance!” Pilate ordered. The armed circle constricted about the host of humanity.

  “For the final time,” Pilate announced, “anyone who shows his loyalty to the emperor by leaving Caesarea peacefully may raise his hand and the troops will allow him to pass through their ranks unmolested. Raise your hands and go in peace—now! Those who remain will be cut down where they stand.”

  A young boy began to cry, raised his hand, and ran out between the ranks of soldiers. Several women and a few more youngsters followed him. Rabbi Eleazar consulted with his colleagues and then announced, in a voice charged with emotion, “All women and all children under sixteen years of age may raise their hands and depart in peace. Go! But men of Israel, stand firm in the Lord!”

  Many of the women and children left, but what appalled Pilate was the number who chose to remain with the men. And not a man left the arena.

  One final nudge, Pilate thought, and called out, “Auxiliaries…unsheath your swords!”

  A shrill and prolonged rasp of metal against metal rent the air. The Jewish leaders cried, “We would sooner die than see our law transgressed!” and threw themselves onto the ground, baring their necks for macabre convenience. The rest of the assembly also fell prone and joined in singing again, “God is our refuge and strength,” the psalm that had impressed Procula.

  Pilate was utterly thwarted. Certainly he had never planned to massacre thousands in cold blood. He was merely playing the time-honored game of bluff. Caesar had used it repeatedly in his campaigns, and it had always worked for him. What should have happened—Pilate had banked on it—was mass hysteria among the Jews and a stampede out of the stadium, then a headlong flight back to Jerusalem. But here they were, like so many docile sheep, bleating for their own slaughter. Pilate was almost angry enough to give the execution order anyway. But he came to his senses with the grimly humorous thought of how his report to Rome would begin: “Pilate to Tiberius: I killed six thousand Jews in my first six weeks here. With that average, I should wipe out the entire nation in a short time…”

  Now the disgusting, distasteful task of backtracking without seeming to, the gentle art of surrendering Rome’s honor while appearing to preserve it.

  “In the name of the clemency of Tiberius Caesar and of the Senate and the Roman People, sheathe your swords!” Pilate ordered his troops. “People of Judea, I was sent not to shed your blood, but to govern you with equity and justice. You will pardon this test of the sword, but I had to determine your sincerity in this matter. I see now that the military standards in question are truly offensive to you and that you are not simply testing Roman policy.”

  The Jews were listening in apparent but unforecast rapture.

  “Do not misunderstand. I shall not dishonor the emperor by ordering his medallions removed from the standards of the Augustan Cohort. But I shall transfer that cohort back to Caesarea and send another in its place without iconic insignia. Now go in peace and be good citizens so that Jew and Roman may live in concord.”

  A mighty roar of approval and thunderous waves of applause greeted Pilate’s statement. Jew fell weeping on the neck of Jew as they left the stadium in triumphant singing and took the road back to Jerusalem. Even Pilate was moved by the sight, though he quickly sobered to the further task of salvaging his prestige in this exasperating affair.

  His council applauded the ingenious solution by which the emperor’s standards were not compromised, while Procula adoringly styled her husband’s conduct as statesmanlike. Even the auxiliaries, though hardly Judeophile, were glad to have been spared the gory task that had seemed unavoidable. When the Augustan Cohort learned of its recall to Caesarea, few tears were shed. In fact, the Tower Antonia fairly rocked with an impromptu celebration at the prospect of wintering in the capital.

  So the affair of the standards, as it would later be called, ended happily. Only Pilate was honest enough with himself to acknowledge the confrontation for the personal defeat it really was. The Jews had won the first round. But there need be no dangerous repercussion from the episode if the Jewish authorities did not misconstrue his concession as a sign of weakness. If they did, or if they tried to press him again, then, Pilate promised himself, blood might flow indeed. Another such episode and his first countermove would be to replace Joseph Caiaphas as high priest, since he seemed unable to control his people.

  And where, Pilate reflected, was Caiaphas during the whole affair? Annas was probably too old to make the trip to Caesarea, but Caiaphas? The high priest was doubtless caught in an embarrassing dilemma. On the one hand, he had to—and probably wanted to—sign the Jewish protest along with the rest of the Sanhedrin. But he would not go to Caesarea and appear in an anti-Roman demonstration antagonizing the new prefect, for he knew Pilate could replace him as Gratus had his predecessors. Well and good: if Judeans could use such pressures to alter Pilate’s decisions, Pilate could perhaps use Caiaphas to alter Jewish intentions.

  Chapter 7

  It had been a blundering beginning for his administration in Judea, and it soured some of the idealism Pilate had originally brought to his office. Romanization of the Jews would be a formidable, perhaps impossible, task. That was now clear.

  Fortunately, the standards affair did not, in fact, set up the pattern of trouble Pilate had feared, and once he adjusted to the routine of Judean administration, the government seemed to move with a momentum of its own. There was considerable correspondence with the various toparchial Sanhedrins, since these bodies were responsible for collecting the taxes and channeling them to Caesarea. There were judicial sentences to confirm, appeals to hear, disputes to adjudicate, especially the regular, small-scale unpleasantries perpetrated between gentiles and Jews, or Samaritans and Jews. But aides handled much of the dull routine and paperwork. Governing Judea was a superable assignment after all.

  Pilate spent his first winter in Palestine more as mayor of Caesarea than as prefect of Judea. The more he came to know the city, the more astonished he was at the engineering skill of Herod’s architects and builders. There were touches of genius here which could have graced even the Capitoline Hill at Rome. The temple of the Divine Augustus, which crowned an eminence fronting on the harbor, was the civic symbol for which the city was known, Caesarea’s Pharos. Two great statues commanded the interior
sanctuary, one of Augustus sculptured to resemble Olympian Zeus; the other of Roma, done after the likeness of Hera, queen of the gods.

  Herod’s building materials were phenomenal: immense, obelisk-like stone pillars up to fifty feet long, cut out of living rock in one gigantic hulk, not wafered into sections and stacked on a core like columns in Greece and Rome. Only Egypt could rival Herod’s monumental architecture.

  Maintaining it all in good repair was one of the subordinate tasks of the Judean governor. Pilate was more concerned about ensuring an adequate water and sewer system, the dual problem afflicting most cities in the Empire. Rome, he recalled, had done better with her water supply than her drainage. Graceful aqueducts, converging on the capital from all directions, cascaded an almost prodigal supply of fresh water, but Rome’s sewers were not always equal to the task of removing the waste.

  Caesarea was better off. Not only was her northern aqueduct sufficient, but Pilate soon found that it was unkind to refer to “sewers” in that city. The capital boasted instead a vast subterranean plumbing system, some of whose arches were works of art that evidently only the waste could enjoy. And Mediterranean tides made the system automatic: major conduits sloped gently to the sea, draining the city’s waste at ebb tide; later, with high tide, the Mediterranean herself returned to rinse out remaining impurities.

  On more visible levels at Caesarea, Pilate conceived a project which would both enhance Herod’s architecture and solve the problem of how to accommodate the roistering ship crews wintering in port. Irked by idleness and boredom, the sailors were creating serious waterfront disturbances. Pilate planned to hire the men out for a construction project which he had envisioned ever since his first promenade with Procula one evening on the great harbor jetty. In all the impressive skyline of Caesarea, one type of building, dear to Romans, was conspicuously missing: a basilica. One of the most handsome yet versatile structures of the Mediterranean world, the basilica was a rectangular building with rows of columns framing a colonnaded interior hall, which could be used as a law court, merchants’ exchange, public auditorium, or even as a shelter for citizens caught in the rain.

  Pilate wanted a basilica for his capital. Not a large one, like those lining the Roman Forum, but a much smaller version, adapted to the needs of Caesarea. The son of Herod’s architect for the city was commissioned to design a plan, and he easily caught Pilate’s ideas. Construction began. At first, the winterbound sailors balked at being hired out of their element, but once they had wined through their savings, they proved much more cooperative. Since Gratus had left Pilate a healthy provincial treasury, he could pay a decent wage.

  The basilica was built at a convenient location facing the marketplace on one side and the sea on another. The sailors and construction crews did the heavy work, while skilled craftsmen fashioned the beauty for months after the crews had put out to sea in the spring.

  Long before the basilica was completed, Pilate decided to name the building in honor of Tiberius and had the following chiseled into its cornerstone in three-inch lettering:

  CAESARIENS. TIBERIÉVM

  PONTIVS PILATVS

  PRAEFECTVS IVDAEAE

  DEDIT

  “Pontius Pilatus, Prefect of Judea, has presented the Tiberiéum to the Caesareans,” a simple but proud sentence.*

  The Tiberiéum project proved popular with the Caesareans. To be sure, the more sensitive Jewish citizens at first disdained the construction, since they thought it would be just another temple to a pagan deity—or worse, a Roman emperor. But when they learned what Pilate intended with his Tiberiéum, they grew curious enough to join the gentile population of the city in watching the basilica take shape.

  Strangely, the prefect of Judea had as yet had little contact with his neighboring rulers in Palestine, the sons of Herod the Great. But Pilate’s council had given him a full briefing on the idiosyncrasies of these unusual brothers. One was Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, lands bordering to the north and east of Judea. His half-brother Philip was tetrarch of an area northeast of the Sea of Galilee called by such near-medical names as Trachonitis, Auranitis, and Batanea. A third brother, Archelaus, had been named by Augustus as ethnarch over the rest of Palestine—Judea, Samaria, and Idumaea—areas which contained the majority of the Jewish population. If Archelaus had ruled wisely, he was to have been named king in accordance with Herod’s will. But he proved a failure and was exiled, and to govern his critical areas of Palestine, Rome had sent her succession of prefects and now Pilate.

  “Herod Antipas is the one to watch,” Pilate’s council warned him. “He’s very ambitious, very clever and sly, very much the son of Herod the Great.” Even back in Rome, Pilate had known that Antipas had diplomatically insinuated himself into the warm friendship of both the emperor and Sejanus. The naming of the handsome Greek-style capital he was building on the Sea of Galilee was no accident—Tiberias—nor was the renaming of the lake itself, the Sea of Tiberias. Sejanus, to be sure, had counseled Pilate to beware of any attempt by Antipas to transform his role from tetrarch into king, but he wondered if Antipas had not been given similar orders to watch the new prefect of Judea. Not that monarchy was an option for Pilate, but Rome always worried about her governors assuming too much personal power in the provinces.

  As expected, neither Herod Antipas nor Philip had attended Gratus’s state reception for Pilate in Caesarea, though both had dispatched diplomatically proper messages of welcome. At the time, Antipas had been harassed by Arab border raids on his Transjordanian territories. But he had deftly solved that problem by marrying the darkly beautiful daughter of the Arab king, Aretas. Hostilities quickly ceased.

  Pilate now wondered if he should take the initiative in any correspondence or diplomatic exchange with the neighboring tetrarchs. “Nothing more than the present, normal channels,” his advisers counseled. “Why stir up Herod’s whelps? They might bite.”

  In the spring of 27 A.D., Pilate spent a week in Jerusalem at the time of the Jewish Passover. Each year, this festival developed a danger potential, since pilgrims from throughout Palestine and even overseas Mediterranean lands swelled Jerusalem to several times its size. The prefect of Judea was regularly on hand with troop reinforcements to quell any rioting which was prone to occur at this time, particularly by anti-Roman Zealots. But, mercifully for the new governor, this Passover was orderly.

  Upon returning to Caesarea, Pilate found this message awaiting him:

  L. Aelius Sejanus, praefectus praetorio, to Pontius Pilatus, praefectus Iudaeae, greeting.

  The report of your first months in Judea was interesting to us. To reply to your questions: First, your erecting a “Tiberiéum” is praiseworthy. The princeps is pleased. But, no, he has no plans for travel to the East, so he cannot be present for the dedication. Second, your suggestion that at least one cohort in Judea be composed of Roman citizen troops has something to commend it, but this will require further review. Third, yes, apply to Pacuvius in Antioch if you need emergency reinforcements. Lamia, the “eminent legate of Syria” (our local lackey) has agreed to this. Fourth, yes, you do have authority to change the high-priesthood in Jerusalem whenever you see fit. If Caiaphas doesn’t cooperate, replace him. But Valerius Gratus, who reported to us recently, thinks Caiaphas will suit your purposes.

  Cornelius, the courier who brings this letter, can give you the latest news from Rome.

  A final matter, Pilate. Writing me simply, “We recently dispersed a demonstration of Jews in Caesarea without bloodshed” is hardly an adequate account of what really happened. I was dismayed to learn that you had yielded to the Jews in recalling the Augustan Cohort from Jerusalem. You were right in not removing the emperor’s medallions—that would have been treasonable—but I thought we had agreed about being firm in the face of Jewish provocations. Farewell.

  “How did Sejanus learn about the ensigns?” Pilate growled.

  “Caiaphas?” Procula suggested.

  “Hardly. Jews disli
ke Sejanus as much as he despises them. They never approach him.—What about Gratus? No. He left before the trouble.”

  “Be sensible, Pilate. News of anything so spectacular as six days of shouting by thousands of people and a threatened mass execution in the hippodrome is bound to get to Rome. Anyone in Caesarea writing friends—”

  “You’re probably right. Yet normal mail to Rome takes some time in the winter months. Sejanus seems to have learned the details sooner than that. You don’t suppose someone’s been spying for him here in Palestine? Yes…What about Herod Antipas? Yes, Antipas! To further ingratiate himself with Sejanus as confidential informer while embarrassing a rival governor. Shrewd of him! But two can play that game.”

  “But you have no proof it was actually Antipas.”

  “Of course not. But he bears watching. Meanwhile, I’ll write Sejanus a convincing defense of the way I handled the affair.”

  Pilate sent for the courier who had delivered the message from Rome. “Your name’s Cornelius, I understand.”

  “Yes.”

  “One of the finest family names in Rome.”

  “But we’re not from the patrician branch, sir.”

  “Now, lad, tell us all the news from Rome—and don’t omit a detail.”

  Cornelius’s briefing impressed Pilate. A week later, he entrusted the courier with a bundle of correspondence for friends in Rome, as well as his letter of justification to Sejanus.

  “You’re a good man, Cornelius,” said Pilate. “When will you make centurion?”

  “Not for three or four years yet, Prefect.”

  “When you do and it comes time for your overseas service, why not put in for Judea? Caesarea’s a pleasant town.”

  “I’ll give it serious thought, sir.” Cornelius smiled. “Farewell.”

  The fellow was probably happy to get out of the province and back to Rome, Pilate surmised. But at least he had manners enough to manage a diplomatic fib.