by Paul L Maier
Shortly after Livia’s death, Pilate was told, the long struggle between Sejanus and Agrippina came to a head. Ever since the praetorian commander saved his life at The Grotto, Tiberius had placed progressively greater confidence in Sejanus, and the after-effects of the Sabinus affair now gave him an enormous advantage.
Titius Sabinus, a leader of Agrippina’s party, had been indicted for plotting to murder Tiberius and raise Agrippina’s son to the throne. The Senate ordered the execution of Sabinus, and his corpse was pitched down the Stairs of Mourning, that steep flight of steps over which bodies of traitors were hurled into the Tiber.
Although there was no proof that Agrippina and her son Nero* were implicated in the plot, Tiberius added to the climate of suspicion by sending the Senate a letter which faulted Agrippina for pride and arrogance, and accused Nero of homosexuality and profligacy. Since the letter contained no direct charge of treason, the Senate found itself in a terrible dilemma. Any motion of censure would be a mortal offense to Nero, the heir apparent, while failure to act would antagonize the reigning emperor.
During the debate, the Senate house was surrounded by a mob which brandished images of Agrippina and her son, pleaded for their safety, and shouted that the princeps’ letter was a forgery. The demonstration turned into a riot, which cowed the Senate into dispersing without acting on Tiberius’s communication. At that report, Pilate derived a bit of comfort from the fact that he was not the only Roman magistrate to face angry crowds.
Sejanus, of course, quickly mastered the situation with his praetorians, but warned Tiberius that sedition was in the air and that a coup in favor of his adoptive daughter-in-law and grandson was possible. The emperor dispatched an angry missive to the Senate, rebuking the Roman rabble for disloyalty and calling the Senate’s temporizing an insult to the imperial majesty.
Senators, in fright, hastened to fall in line. They vied with one another in a scramble to introduce motions declaring Agrippina and Nero public enemies. The decrees passed unanimously, leaving their punishment up to the emperor.
Tiberius soon banished Agrippina to Pandateria and Nero to Pontia. Both were islands, some thirty-five miles off the Italian coast near The Grotto. Sejanus had triumphed.
News of these events relieved Pontius Pilate, since his very career was staked to Sejanus’s success. Had Agrippina been victorious and Sejanus been exiled, all Tiberius’s appointments which had been made with the advice of the fallen prefect would likely have lapsed. Pilate would have been recalled. At best, his political career would have been at an end; at worst, if Agrippina wished to institute a vindictive purge, he might well have shared in Sejanus’s disgrace and exile.
Early the next year, news of Sejanus’s further success reached Caesarea. The Senate had continued its campaign against the house of Agrippina by pronouncing another of her sons a public enemy; and the youth, Drusus, was imprisoned in an underground chamber at the Palatine palace. Romans now ventured to speak openly of Sejanus as virtual successor to the imperial throne, since only one son of Agrippina remained—Gaius (Caligula)—but he was barely eighteen, and if he proved disloyal and went the way of his brothers, it would be Emperor Sejanus, pure and simple.
Throughout 30 A.D., successive reports reaching Pilate added brush strokes to the portrait of Sejanus’s prospects. The Senate voted that his birthday should be a public celebration, and gilded statues of him were appearing throughout Rome. Whenever public officials consulted Tiberius, they now always consulted Sejanus as well. His mansion was besieged with delegations. Public prayers and sacrifices were offered “in behalf of Tiberius and Sejanus.”
Pilate peered into his own future, quaffing the news from Rome like heady wine. He reckoned himself in the inner circle of Sejanus’s closest political adherents, and had not the prefect personally promised greater honors if he proved himself in Judea? Sejanus had climbed the praetorian stairs to success, a route similar to his own, and what would be more natural for Sejanus as emperor than to extend a helping hand to one who was standing where he once stood?
What appointment would Sejanus give him after Judea? Another province, perhaps Egypt? More likely, one of the major administrative posts in Roman government. Sejanus would want to be surrounded by his own men. Nearly any office would be open to Pilate, including the privilege of sitting in the Senate, or even that proven springboard to limitless power, praetorian prefect, vice-emperor of Rome.
Or was he fooling himself? How high did he really rank in Sejanus’s favor? Would Sejanus’s accession actually spell his own advancement? With a twinge of regret, Pilate recalled how Sejanus had criticized his handling of the standards episode. But surely his firmness during the aqueduct riot more than counterbalanced any image of a “weak Pilate” Sejanus might have conjured up for himself.
Indeed, Sejanus had reacted to Pilate’s report of the aqueduct imbroglio with enthusiastic approval of his use of force. His only regret, in fact, was that many more rioters had not been killed as a standing object lesson to any would-be Jewish revolutionaries. Pilate noticed that the anti-Semitic streak in Sejanus was now blossoming into a full-blown hatred of the Jews, magnified also by the burning glass of political hostility, for many Jews had supported Agrippina’s Julian party in tribute to Caesar’s memory. According to reports, the Roman Jews, in turn, were becoming thoroughly alarmed at Sejanus’s continuing triumphs.
Pilate had a different cause for concern: Sejanus had not written him in months. All this information was coming from unofficial sources. But one day, finally, a praetorian courier delivered a communication which was virtually imprisoned under heavy seals. Pilate whittled away at them with his dagger and read:
L. Aelius Sejanus to Pontius Pilatus, greeting. The task of securing Rome against our enemies must excuse my interrupted correspondence. By now you must have heard that victory is ours.
Does this mean we can relax our guard? The gods forbid! The princeps hints that he may pardon the sons of Agrippina. And who is the enemy which silently plots my destruction and secretly assists the cause of Agrippina? The Jews of Rome. Here, I think, is their line of communication: the Jews contact members of Herod’s house living here in Rome, particularly Berenice. (She is the mother of that Herodias whom you wrote about, the one who recently married Herod Antipas.) And Berenice has the ear of the Lady Antonia (Mark Antony’s daughter and sister-in-law of Tiberius), who has access to the princeps. And what message runs from the Jews to Berenice to Antonia to Tiberius? “Sejanus is a danger to the state.”
I have warned the Jewish leaders in the Trans-Tiber that I will no longer tolerate their schemes against the state. In reprisal, you must now move to restrict the Judean authorities in some way. Write me what specific measures you will undertake. My reasoning should be obvious: pressure on Judaism is applied much more effectively at the heart than at the extremities.
How far has your project of Romanizing the Jews proceeded? Not far, I fear, but you had set yourself a virtually impossible task to begin with. Continue firm in Judea, Pilate, and you will have an auspicious future. Farewell.
Pilate was perplexed by the letter, if not alarmed. Small wonder it had been sealed so tightly. Never before had Sejanus betrayed such emotional anti-Semitism. Although he was anything but a pro-Jewish partisan, Pilate wondered if Sejanus was justified in ascribing all of his woes to the Jews of Rome. He found several glaring chinks in Sejanus’s logic. If, indeed, the Jews had used a Berenice-Antonia-Tiberius route for attacking him, it might only have been in defense against Sejanus’s prior attacks on them. Even more likely would be Antonia’s own aversion to Sejanus: Agrippina, after all, was her daughter-in-law. It would hardly take Berenice to suggest to her that the praetorian prefect was ruining her family.
Fulfilling the directives in Sejanus’s letter would be difficult, but there was no alternative to compliance. The idea of some restriction on the local Jewish leadership might be feasible; it might also prove disastrous to the peace of the land. It would have to be s
ome token which looked big to Rome, but was not that fundamentally important to the Sanhedrin, Pilate decided.
He took his clue from a curious custom regarding the robes of the high priest. In order to control the Jewish priesthood, Herod had gained custody of the sacred vestments and Rome succeeded Herod in that prerogative. Worn by the pontiff only four times a year, at major festivals, the robes were locked in the Antonia until the feasts approached, when they were given back to the priests, who had to return them immediately afterward. It was a token of Roman supremacy which had never sparked a riot. Pilate looked for a similar symbolic restriction of the Sanhedrin.
He found it in the jus gladii, the “law of the sword,” the right to execute in cases of capital punishment. Until now, the Great Sanhedrin had full authority to conduct trials and execute sentences for capital crimes perpetrated by Jews in Judea. To implement Sejanus’s directives, Pilate now planned to withdraw from the Sanhedrin the right of execution and add it to the jus gladii already possessed by the Roman prefect. From now on, the Sanhedrin could continue to try Jews in capital cases, even find them worthy of death, but the actual sentencing and execution would have to be carried out by the prefect of Judea.
Pilate was pleased with the idea. In Roman eyes, nothing showed sovereignty so much as the right to control sentences of death. He could easily play this up in his report and so satisfy Sejanus. As to Jewish feelings in the matter, he could assure the Sanhedrin that their right to try capital crimes was not grossly affected, since the prefect would usually confirm the sentence determined by them. It might actually be a convenience to the Jewish authorities, since the nasty business of execution would be taken out of their hands.
During his visit to Jerusalem at the Passover of 30, Pilate discussed his planned revision with Caiaphas. Confiding to him the pressures from Sejanus which had prompted the change—and as diplomatically as he could—he gave the high priest no choice but to accept.
Caiaphas brought the news to the Sanhedrin, and fully a week passed before he reported their reaction. They had grudgingly accepted, but with the stipulation that Pilate and his successors never alter their verdict in a capital case. Pilate said that he would discuss the proviso with his superiors. At any rate, in symbolic response to the new limitation, the Sanhedrin ceased meeting in the Hall of Hewn Stone near the inner temple, their senate chamber as unrestricted leaders of the Jewish nation, and moved to the market of Annas, farther over on the temple mount.
Pilate tried to sweeten the pill by granting a Jewish request that he release one prisoner, chosen by the people, at each Passover, a festival amnesty which was unparalleled in the Roman Empire, but a concession with no great implications.
* Not the future emperor.
Chapter 11
Pilate’s invitation to visit Herod Antipas finally arrived. It had taken the tetrarch of Galilee almost three years to return Pilate’s hospitality in Caesarea. Although the sensitive Procula resented the apparent slight, her realist husband pointed out that social amenities necessarily had to wait until the popular scandal at Antipas’s marriage to Herodias had exhausted itself.
Antipas would be celebrating his birthday shortly after the approaching Feast of the Tabernacles, the invitation read, and in case Pilate and Procula should be in Jerusalem for the festival, he would gladly escort them to his nearby Perean palace, a delightful place overlooking the Asphalt Lake, for a week’s stay. Procula had not intended accompanying her husband to the Jewish harvest festival, but now she changed her mind. They accepted, and made the now-familiar trip to Jerusalem.
Following closely in autumn on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Sukkoth, or the Feast of Tabernacles, was one of the most joyous and certainly the greatest of the Hebrew festivals. It was a time when both Pilate and Antipas, neither of whom would win any popularity contests in Jerusalem, could appear in the city without inspiring hostile demonstrations. People were too happy for that kind of thing.
Sukkoth passed without incident. With the eight-day festivity ended, Antipas, his bride-of-a-year, Herodias, and a sizable group of Galilean leaders and court retainers conducted Pilate and Procula on a carriage caravan which wound its way eastward down the rugged Judean hills. Between curves, the grand expanse of the lush-green Jordan valley came into view, a welcome contrast from the adobe-colored wilderness surrounding them. The Jordan itself meandered back and forth ridiculously, as if unsure in which direction to flow. But finally, near the palms of Jericho, it seemed to orient itself and aim reluctantly for an oblong, finger-shaped basin of slate-blue water called the Asphalt Lake or Dead Sea, a body of water nine miles wide and nearly fifty long, rimmed by mountainous cliffs along its shores.
“Spent much time in this area, Pilate?” inquired Antipas, as they jogged down the roadway in the same carriage.
“Just a short visit to Jericho two years ago.”
“We’re entering one of the most fascinating regions in all your Roman Empire, no, perhaps in all the world.”
“A rather comprehensive statement.”
“But true nevertheless. Look just north of Jericho. See those outcrop-pings of earth beyond the spring and the palm groves? They mark the site of the oldest city in the world, a civilization going back literally thousands of years.”
“Any proof of that?”
“My father, Herod, was interested in antiquities and once had his men dig into those mounds. Near the bottom they found stone tools of such crudeness and age as have been found nowhere else.”
Pilate pointed to the south and asked, “What’s that establishment up on the hill overlooking the sea?”
“Where? Oh, there. That’s the monastery of the Essenes, a truly unbelievable collection of scholars. They follow the law so closely they refuse to urinate or defecate on the Sabbath. No women are allowed in their community. All wealth is held in common.”
“Oh yes, I understand that—what was his name—John, yes, John the Baptizer was associated with them for a while.”
“You’ve heard of the Baptizer?” Antipas’s eyes had widened in surprise.
“Hasn’t everyone?” Pilate laughed. “Where’s the man holding forth lately?”
Hesitantly, Antipas replied, “In one of my prisons. His movement was getting dangerous…But look, Pilate, we’re almost at the shore of the Asphalt Lake.” Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouted, “Everyone dismount!” Then he proceeded to tell his guests about the geographic miracle which was the Dead Sea.
“You’re looking at the very lowest surface in the Empire, nearly a quarter-mile below sea level. If some mad engineer cut a canal from the Mediterranean to this lake, waters would rush in to drown the whole Jordan valley to a depth of 1,300 feet.” He paused to see if his guests were impressed. “And don’t let the cool blue of the lake fool you. Its waters are a hot, oily fluid, about one-quarter salt and asphalt. Here, Pilate, put your hand in the water.”
It felt like warm, sticky soup.
“Now watch this, Pilate,” said Antipas, taking an egg from the commissary carriage. “Do eggs float in water or sink?”
“They sink, of course,” Procula answered for him.
Antipas dropped the egg into the sea, where it bobbed like a cork. “Now, Chuza”—he turned to his chief steward—“why don’t you take a swim for us?”
“Must I, Excellency?”
“On second thought, no. You’re normal size. You wouldn’t float until chest level. Send in your roly-poly friend there instead.”
One of the chefs in Antipas’s commissary, a man of huge girth, stripped to his undertunic and waded out into the Dead Sea. He got no further than seven or eight paces, for when the water reached just above his paunch, he actually began floating, pitching about and rolling out of control, to the cheers and guffaws of the whole entourage.
In a final demonstration, Antipas had an ox dragged into the water, bellowing and groaning, and that frenzied animal also floated. “The water’s so dense a
man could break his legs if he jumped into it from any height,” the tetrarch commented. “And it’s so brackish no living thing can exist in it. No fish, nothing.”
The chef had neglected to rinse himself off after his briny dip and soon resembled a walking pillar of salt, so quickly had the fiercely hot and dry air evaporated the watery residue on his skin, leaving an ugly, itchy deposit of chalk white.
“You can wash off at Callirrhoë,” Antipas called, as the party wound its way around the northeastern corner of the Dead Sea and continued south toward their destination, the fortress-palace of Machaerus.
Procula was riding with Herodias in the carriage just behind Pilate and Antipas. Periodically, Pilate turned around to see how his wife was faring in the company of the woman who was the talk of Palestine. She flashed him a knowing smile to convey the message, “Everything all right…so far.”
Pilate was holding up his end of the conversation with Antipas. “Doesn’t Strabo’s new Geographica speak of subterranean gases and fires around this lake?” he asked.
“Nature has a simmering furnace under this area. Usually its vapors filter upward in pleasant form, as in the hot springs just ahead. But sometimes the furnace explodes into volcano-like eruptions of gas, fire, and brimstone, like those which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah a little south of here. But that was many centuries ago.”
The retinue stopped briefly at Callirrhoë, where Antipas showed his guests the thermal springs resort while the chef washed off his sultry, stinging stickiness. This celebrated spa was known throughout Palestine for its sweet, bubbly mineral waters. Herod had spent some of his last days here, trying desperately to shake off the horrible malady that would shortly claim his life. But the feverish convulsions, tumors, and gangrene proved terminal.