by Paul L Maier
“As a Roman used to his daily baths, this place should have special fascination for you, Pilate,” Antipas bantered, “but we can return here later. Machaerus is just beyond the next hill.”
Herod Antipas had inherited Machaerus from his father, who built the fortress-palace to safeguard his southeastern frontiers against the Moabites and Arabs. The huge, trapezoidal mound on which it was situated further isolated the castle from surrounding hills, and it was easy for Pilate to appreciate its legendary invincibility as a military stronghold. Supposedly, Machaerus ranked second only to Jerusalem’s Antonia as a citadel. The arduous ascent along hairpin curves was so taxing to the horses that the entourage got off their carriages to spare the animals.
It was nearly sundown when they reached the portico around the base of the citadel. The view westward was spectacular, commanding at least half the Dead Sea, which lay lifeless several thousand feet below in its water-hewn tomb. Later that evening, the gathering night only improved the vista. A rising moon shed a frosty incandescence over the rugged wilderness of Judea, as though new snow had fallen in an area fifty degrees too warm for it. Beneath the center of it all lurked the sepulchral, now-misty torpor of the Dead Sea, trapped by surrounding mountains and scarred by a glittering swatch of moonlight. Only some pinpoints of light to the northwest, marking Jerusalem, gave any evidence of habitation.
After retiring, Pilate and Procula finally had the chance to compare notes on the day’s events. “And how does it feel to be safely imprisoned in your enemy’s fortress?” she led off.
“Please, Carissima, we’re on a diplomatic visit, so let’s call our host friendly rival instead.” He chuckled. “Wait, are you serious?”
“Why, yes,” she said in a half-tone, betraying neither truth nor jest.
“Well, you can sleep securely. Our auxiliary bodyguard is certainly—”
“Of course, of course.” She laughed. “I’m just wondering why he invited us to Machaerus instead of Tiberias. Remember what happened here about three years ago?”
“No. What?”
“This is where Antipas’s first wife, King Aretas’s daughter, ‘vacationed’ on her escape from Antipas. From here she fled to her father.”
Procula’s comment gave Pilate cause for some political considerations. His informants had told him that Antipas feared Aretas would make war on him for the way he had treated his daughter. And if it came to blows, Antipas would probably want the prefect of Judea to assist him with his cohorts.
“Tomorrow, Procula, when we start discussing politics, be prepared for a blackening of King Aretas to prepare me for a possible war against him. But I wouldn’t send a single auxiliary to fight Antipas’s battles for him. Do you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because if the tetrarch of Galilee disgraced himself further by losing a frontier war with the Arabs, Rome could use that as an excuse to add Galilee to the province of Judea. Sejanus told me of eventual plans to move the Herodians out of their control of Palestine in favor of direct Roman administration!”
“And if this happened under the governorship of Pontius Pilate, it would look awfully well on his record, wouldn’t it?”
He did not reply, but she could almost feel his smile in the darkness.
Just before drifting off to sleep, they were startled to hear some plaintive chanting from the depths of the palace, which echoed throughout Machaerus.
“Probably Antipas offering his bedtime prayers,” Pilate suggested. “That fox can afford to pray.”
The week at Machaerus turned out pleasantly. The hosts, it seemed, were on their best behavior. As predicted, Antipas did indeed vilify Aretas, but it was done by means of some histrionics which only amused Pilate. A presumed Arab spy, “caught” near Machaerus during their visit, was made to confess that King Aretas was planning an invasion not only of Galilee but of Judea as well. Pilate had one of his guards who knew Arabic go down to the dungeon, talk to the spy, and report back to him privately.
“From his knowledge of the language,” the guard confided, “I’d say that as an Arab that clown was a good Galilean. But I left the impression that I believed his story.”
Yet, the daily hunting expeditions into the wild countryside, the nightly feasting, and the delightful baths at Callirrhoë easily compensated for Antipas’s tricks. It was not until later in the week that the tetrarch got a bit tiresome in trying to pick the brains of the prefect.
“Just what is happening in Rome, Pilate?” asked Antipas, in the course of a night’s revelry.
“How do you mean?”
“Is it to be Tiberius or Sejanus?”
“An impossible alternative. After Tiberius dies, then perhaps Sejanus.”
“You’ve heard what they’re saying in Rome, ‘Sejanus is emperor; Tiberius, only an island potentate.’”
“Are you trying to impugn the loyalty of the emperor’s praetorian prefect?”
“Of course not,” Antipas corrected himself. “What I meant to ask,” he nervously snickered, “was, ‘Will it be the young Gaius Caligula or Sejanus?’”
“I really don’t know. Possibly Sejanus as regent for the young Gaius.”
It was a safe statement. Probably, he thought, Antipas’s original alternative of Tiberius or Sejanus better expressed his true thought, and had Pilate answered such a treasonable choice incorrectly, it might have doomed his career should Antipas try to compromise him.
“Well, then, put the case that Sejanus is regent for the young Gaius,” Antipas persisted. “Who, ultimately, would control Rome?”
“That, my friend, is in the hands of the gods.” The nonreligious Pilate resorted to religion at such times. Antipas only smirked, realizing that Pilate had affixed a period to their conversation on Roman politics.
That night, Pilate’s sleep was again disturbed by the haunting voice from the bowels of the castle, apparently chanting its prayers and singing melancholy hymns. Equally mystifying was the conduct of Antipas’s chief steward the next morning. Answering a knock on his door, Pilate found Chuza. “Excellency,” he said, “I must discuss an urgent matter with you. A request…” Just then, one of Antipas’s servants came by and Chuza broke off. “Breakfast will be served shortly, Excellency.” Then he whispered, “Later.”
But the “later” never materialized, since all Machaerus was in an uproar of preparation for the tetrarch’s birthday feast that night. His half brother, the tetrarch Philip, arrived just in time to help celebrate, as did Antipas’s half niece-stepdaughter, Salome, who had been visiting her half uncle, Philip. The daughter of Herodias, Pilate and Procula noted immediately, had completed the metamorphosis from the spoiled girl they remembered in Caesarea to a sensually attractive young woman.
The banquet was attended by all of Antipas’s many guests at Machaerus, including tribal leaders from Galilee, as well as his officers and courtiers. It was a formal affair, carried off in the best Hellenistic tradition. Some of the viands Pilate had not tasted since his own wedding banquet. As to beverages, he commented, “For a non-Roman, Antipas, you’re a worthy connoisseur of the vine.”
“My fellow son of Bacchus,” he responded with a wine-reinforced amiability, “you forget that the family of the Herods have Roman citizenship. We’re enrolled in the Julian gens.”
“A toast, then, to the cousin of the Caesars.” Pilate laughed, a little too loudly. Procula poked him with her sandals.
“Why so dour a face, my Chuza?” Antipas called across the table to his chief steward. “You can worry about my estates when we return to Galilee.”
Chuza brightened up, though later in the evening he cast worried glances in Pilate’s direction. Procula saw it and alerted her husband. Both shared a twinge of concern, wondering what message Chuza had failed to communicate. Surely he wasn’t trying to warn them of physical danger?
When the fourth course had been cleared away, Antipas snapped his fingers and the flute and harp melodies which had serenaded the feast now gave way to a
program of entertainment. Some of it, Pilate noticed, was a bit ostentatious, but that was forgivable, since all floor talent had to be imported to that solitary location. The jugglers from Jericho were a bore, easily upstaged by the acrobatic apes of a local bedouin. Someone proposed that the monkeys be given a little wine to liven their act. It had the desired effect.
Then Herodias rose from the table, inviting Procula and the other ladies to follow her out of the banquet hall to the women’s quarters of the palace, since Antipas’s celebration was now over so far as they were concerned. In Greek-style dinner parties, the women would not even have appeared at the table, but the more civilized Roman custom allowed them to participate, until it was time for the comissatio, which was exclusively for the men. Since the culminating comissatio or post-banquet social drinking bout often involved risque entertainment, some of the more conservative Galilean elders paid their respects to Antipas and Pilate and also retired.
Antipas now pulled a cord, which released a cloud of rose petals and flower garlands from the ceiling. Servants picked up the floral wreaths and arranged them about the heads and necks of the men. Then they carefully sprayed perfume on each. Flowers and perfumes were used, not for adornment, but because their fragrance was thought to prevent, or at least delay, drunkenness.
“Let’s choose a king!” Antipas called, for the next stage in the ritual was to pick someone to preside over the festivities. A servant brought dice to Antipas. He shook them, calling out, “Herodias, help me” and threw an eight. Then he handed the dice on to Pilate, who cried, “Procula, help me” and threw a six.
Next, the dice went to Philip, who shook and cried, “Salome, help me” and shot eleven. This raised a few eyebrows, since each was to call on the spirit of his wife or sweetheart to assist his throw, and Salome was neither to Philip—so far as anyone knew.
Since no one exceeded Philip’s eleven, he was formally declared “King of Drinking.” From now on Philip would have to direct the comissatio, determining the order for proposing the toasts, and in what proportion water was to be mixed with the wine.
“We drink to the health of our honored host on his birthday—at a good, stout one-half!” Philip led off. Slaves quickly measured out equal portions of wine and water into a large mixing bowl, and stirred the blend. Then they ladled out exactly seven-twelfths of a pint into the goblets of each of the guests, who had to drain them in a single quaff. The precise quantity was no accident: one-twelfth pint was meted out for each letter in the name of the man whose health had been proposed. “Antipas” made seven twelfths.
The entertainment continued. A small corps of pantomimes performed several indecent playlets, which did not go over as well as Antipas had hoped. Philip then rose to his feet and said, “We drink to the health of our honored guest, the prefect of Judea. May his tenure be long! A hearty two-thirds!”
Amid cheers of the guests, slaves measured out two portions wine to one of water and again hastily ladled out seven-twelfths pint of the mixture to each guest, for the seven letters in “Pilatus.”
The final floor routine was a troupe of very badly coordinated dancing girls, clearly local talent hastily conscripted for the evening. There was a bit of grumbling disapproval from the guests. Then Philip accidentally knocked over a flagon of wine onto the tunic of a Galilean chief sitting next to him. A slave, hurrying to assist the man, collided with another servant, who dropped a tray of dishes. The resounding clatter shattered the mood of the banquet, and the furious tongue-lashing given the hapless slave by the rotund chef helped matters not at all. Antipas’s birthday party was coming apart at the seams. He called Chuza to him, whispered something, then sent him scurrying off.
Four toasts, and several degrees of intoxication, later, Antipas arose to announce that Salome had consented to honor their comissatio by performing a dance. Everyone put down his chalice and stared at the host for this precedent-shattering idea. Entertaining at a comissatio was only for lewd servant women or actresses and prostitutes, not members of one’s own family. Philip glared at his half brother with all the fury of a wounded animal. Pilate wondered if Antipas were really that drunk.
Two lyrists, concealed behind curtains, started playing at each other in graceful counterpoint, and then the precocious Salome appeared. Clad in the festival costume of a Galilean peasant girl, the nineteen-year-old performed a sprightly folk dance which was popular during the Feast of Tabernacles. Salome whirled close to the banquet tables so that she could be seen to proper advantage, since only torches and candles illuminated the hall. Pilate was amazed at what three years had done to the girl. She looked arrestingly lovely, no longer the passionate teenager, but now a richly voluptuous woman. Enhanced by the ruddy warmth of the fire-glow, her exquisite performance of the dance captivated Pilate as much as Antipas and his friends. She was careful to lavish elfin gestures on each important guest and especially Philip, the “King of Drinking,” who sat enthralled with infatuation for Salome.
Slaves suddenly appeared by each candle and torch, and, at a given signal, all lights were extinguished. Startled, Pilate sat up and grabbed for his dagger until he saw a brazier flaring up in the middle of the darkness. Then the lyres started plucking out a very different rhythm, a slow and languid staccato which gradually picked up tempo. A small drum now added its hollow thump to the music.
Then Salome reappeared, dressed only in the gauzy tunic she had been wearing under her peasant costume. It was a girl-size garment hugging the lush contours of a grown woman, and Pilate noticed at once the brief distance the hem extended down her upper thighs. Salome’s whole body seemed to gyrate and throb a perfect response to the music as she darted up to and back from the fire, caressing the warmth, then swiveling away from it. Several times Pilate and the other men gasped as she vaulted right over the flames unsinged. With the brazier as the only light in the hall, gigantic shadows played on the ceiling, enlarging her nubile form to heroic dimension. The source of it all was a symphony of sensuality, her fair skin painted a golden russet by the flames, the diaphanous white tunic clinging precariously to the rest of her.
Pilate was distracted by some labored breathing next to him and he pried his eyes away for a moment to find the cause. It was Herod Antipas, gaping at Salome in a near-hypnotic trance, a man so helplessly captivated by the sight that his lower jaw sagged limply and he was almost snorting with emotion. A slave approached with a napkin to absorb a string of drool which was starting to dangle from Antipas’s mouth. Ignoring the wiping, Antipas mumbled, “Salome, my daughter. Salome…my own daughter? No, thank the Fates, my stepdaughter.” Then he smiled.
Salome concluded her dance with a deep bow in front of Antipas. Then the brazier was extinguished and the torches relit.
Pilate, Antipas, and the other guests rose as one man to cheer and applaud. Salome’s performance was the breath of excitement which had resuscitated the corpse of Antipas’s party. And, somewhat tipsy now, but overflowing with gratitude to his stepdaughter, the tetrarch fawned, “Splendid…magnificent, my darling Salome! And now you must have a reward for your performance. Ask me for anything: I’ll give it to you!”
“Thank you, Father. But…how do you mean?”
“I said, Lovely One, ask me for anything and it’s yours, by Heaven, even if it’s half my kingdom.”
Antipas’s comment was seconded by approving cheers. “Ask for Perea,” Philip laughingly suggested. “Or all of Galilee—that would be exactly half his kingdom.”
Further advice was silenced by her reply. “Thank you, noble Father, but your appreciation is enough reward.”
“Ask for something, Salome! I want to give you a gift!”
“Well…do you mind if I ask Mother first?”
“Not at all,” Antipas replied.
While Salome retreated to the women’s quarters for Herodias’s advice, the host was the target of a good bit of banter. “Beware, Tetrarch,” said the commander of his guard at Tiberias, “and remember, you swore to fulfill h
er request!”
“Did I?” wondered Antipas, showing a trifle of mock concern.
“You said ‘By Heaven,’ which is one of the stronger oaths.”
“Ahahaha!” exulted Philip. “Excuse me, gentlemen. I’m going to tell Salome to ask for Galilee. Then I’ll marry her, and add Galilee to my own tetrarchy. And then,” he paused, “I’ll be the size of your Judea and Samaria, Pilate!”
Antipas frowned fiercely for a moment, then released a colossal guffaw.
“Laugh, will you?” Philip said, as he got up from the table. No one knew if he were staging a practical joke or not.
But Salome returned. Stillness descended on the hall as everyone wondered what she would choose. Only the soft tread of her sandals was heard as she carefully walked up to Antipas and looked at him with a puckish smile.
“Yes, dearest,” he said. “What have you chosen?”
“As reward, Father, I want you to give me—immediately—the…the head of John the Baptizer on a platter.”
But for a few indrawn breaths, there was total silence. Salome repeated her request, more firmly.
“Aha,” Antipas emitted a forced chuckle, “you’re joking, of course, Salome.”
“No, Father.”
“Your mother…did suggest…insist?”
“She told me to remind you of your oath.”
There was no sound, and this compounded the unreality of the situation. In the course of a raucous evening, nothing is louder than silence.
In his mind, Antipas at first tried to discount it all as a drunken nightmare, but that would not work. He had imprisoned the Baptizer as a punitive act to stop his haranguing him: “It’s not legal for you to have your brother’s wife.” Herodias hated him for that and had nagged Antipas to have him executed. But John was a holy man, and Antipas had not intended to bother a hair on his unkempt head. Fact was, when Herodias was not around, he even enjoyed talking with the desert prophet, nimbly dodging the verbal arrows John fearlessly shot at him.