Pontius Pilate: A Novel

by Paul L Maier

  Too young to understand what was happening, the little girl was carried off to the dungeon sobbing that she was sorry, crying that she would never again do whatever she had done that was wrong, that she would forever be a good girl if they would just spank her and let her go.

  In the murky depths of the Tullianum, the executioners first thought this was rather amusing, but then, just as they were about to put the garrote on her slender neck, someone remembered that never in Rome’s past had capital punishment been inflicted on a virgin. This caused them to hesitate, but, according to the stories Procula had heard, the delay was short-lived. A brute of an executioner jumped the girl, threw her on the moist floor of the dungeon, and raped her then and there to solve the legal problem. Only then were she and her brother strangled to death in the same halter.

  At that point in Procula’s report, Pilate shuddered with horror and loathing at that species of the human animal known as Roman man. Despising his own city and countrymen—it was a new experience for Pontius Pilate.

  “But it doesn’t make sense,” he protested. “There are too many unanswered questions. Why didn’t the praetorians defend Sejanus? And why did Macro, his own subordinate, lie to him about the tribunician power? Who baited the trap for October 18, and why?”

  “Well,” Procula explained, “only young Caligula remained as an obstacle between Sejanus and the throne. Finally it was Antonia who—”

  “Caligula’s grandmother?”

  “Yes. She learned that Sejanus had an agent ready to denounce Caligula before the Senate on trumped-up charges, which she could prove false. She also had other evidence pointing to years of intrigue and conspiracy by Sejanus—”

  “What? Sejanus actually guilty?”

  “More on that in a moment. Antonia’s problem was how to get the information to Tiberius on Capri, with Sejanus controlling all communications between the island and the mainland. She managed to send word via Pallas, her most trusted slave, who luckily wasn’t searched. So, at long last, Tiberius’s eyes were finally opened. Immediately he summoned the young Caligula to Capri for protection, and then plotted the fall of Sejanus.”

  “The princeps certainly proved himself a master deceiver…”

  “He had to be, Pilate! Imagine, even Capri was crawling with Sejanus’s agents. The Praetorian Guard was his. The nearest legions were his. So Tiberius had to take him off guard, which explains those rumors about the tribunician power all but conferred on Sejanus. Fortunately for the emperor, Macro, as guard commander on Capri, was privately critical of his prefect, and Tiberius took him into his confidence. He told him to deliver the letter indicting Sejanus to the consul Regulus, not Trio, who was Sejanus’s friend.”

  “If only he’d known! Sejanus would simply have surrounded the Senate with his praetorians. Why did they leave?”

  “When Sejanus swallowed Macro’s bait about the tribunician power and hurried inside the Senate, Macro went back outside and confronted the praetorians. He produced a special commission from Tiberius, which appointed himself as new praetorian prefect to succeed Sejanus. Naturally the guardsmen were dumbfounded, but when Macro added that the princeps promised them a large bonus for quiet obedience, they obeyed his order to return to camp.”

  “Incredible! Evidently Sejanus spent so much time in politics that he neglected to maintain close contact with the guards, his power base.”

  “No sooner had the praetorians left than Laco, who was party to the plot, moved in to surround the Senate with his night watch. Tiberius’s letter was intentionally as long and rambling as possible to give Macro time enough to hurry over to the Castra Praetoria and establish command over the other praetorian cohorts before Sejanus could take countermeasures. By the way, Tiberius was so worried that the guards might stay loyal to Sejanus that he had escape ships waiting in the harbor of Capri which would take him to loyal armies in the provinces. And just to make sure he’d have a head start on Sejanus, he watched constantly from the high cliffs of Capri for a fire signal from the mainland which would alert him in case his counterplot failed.”

  Pilate sat quietly for some moments, searching for moorings of logic in this flood of information. Then he turned angrily to his wife. “Wait a minute. Sejanus chasing down his own emperor? Are you suggesting he plotted against the very life of Tiberius?”

  “It’s not clear yet. When I left Rome, the trials against Sejanus’s partisans, those who escaped the mobs, were just getting underway.”

  “But would it have been reasonable for him to attack the only man who could name him heir apparent? And even if Sejanus were as black as you picture him, wouldn’t he have let Tiberius live out his life on Capri before making his move?”

  “Perhaps. Though after Tiberius’s letter was read to the Senate, the Roman Empire wasn’t big enough for the two of them.”

  Immersed in his own train of thought, Pilate now lashed out angrily. “The more I hear of this, the more convinced I am that probably the most monstrous injustice in history has taken place against a man who gave his emperor a lifetime of service, protecting him against a dozen plots. And what was his reward? Death—and the slaughter of his innocent family. What was this alleged ‘conspiracy’ and ‘intrigue’ of Sejanus? Likely a fable spun out by Antonia! After all, she is the mother-in-law of Agrippina and therefore prejudiced against—”

  “Stop, Pilate!” Procula cried. “I’ve tried hard to avoid the I-told-you-so attitude in view of our political differences. You know how we’ve gone round and around on Sejanus and Agrippina. But Sejanus’s plot, his horrendous guilt, is now a sober and proven fact!”

  “How proven?”

  “Besides what I’ve already told you, one of the conspirators, Satrius Secundus, turned state’s evidence and supplied absolute proof. Some of Sejanus’s correspondence with provincial governors was intercepted, and it’s equally incriminating.”

  Pilate looked as if his soul had been lacerated. For some time he deliberated, then admitted, “Sejanus’s letters did hint that some kind of showdown was approaching. What if they go through his files and find drafts of those letters to me which mentioned the approaching crisis? They may think I was party to the plot!”

  Slowly, solemnly, Procula replied, “It could well mean the end of your prefecture, Pilate.” Both were silent. Tears ran down her cheeks. “You have to face the truth,” she finally cried. “Just having been a friend of Sejanus may incriminate you enough not only to lose your office, but”—she burst into tears—“your life itself.”

  “Now, now,” Pilate consoled, “isn’t that a little extreme?”

  “No! Before I left, Father warned me that you could be recalled at any moment. The prisons of Rome are bulging with supporters of Sejanus, and the trials may turn into a legal terror.”

  “But Tiberius won his power play. Why is he now so vengeful?”

  “Are you finally ready to hear the whole truth? You wouldn’t have believed it earlier.”

  “Of course…”

  “Do you remember Drusus?”

  “Agrippina’s son?”

  “No. The other Drusus—the only son Tiberius ever fathered—the one who died three years before we sailed for Judea.”

  “Yes. Obviously. What about him?”

  “What did he die of?”

  “Some kind of fever, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s what everyone believed at the time, including the princeps, who was heartbroken at not having his own flesh and blood succeed him on the throne. But the horrible truth was finally revealed by Apicata, the divorced wife of Sejanus. After she’d seen her children strangled and thrown down the Stairs, she committed suicide, but not before she wrote Tiberius that Drusus had not died a natural death.”

  “What?”

  “Sejanus had seduced Drusus’s wife Livilla…and the two of them poisoned Drusus, hoping to marry after his death.”

  Pilate was too stricken to speak.

  “When Tiberius learned the tragic truth, he nearly went m
ad. He now refuses to leave Capri, and lives only to avenge himself on everyone connected with Sejanus.”

  “Sejanus…poisoned…Drusus?”

  “Tiberius wouldn’t believe it from Apicata’s letter alone. After all, she might have invented the story in revenge for the execution of her children. But the slaves and attendants of Livilla corroborated the poisoning.”

  “What did Tiberius do to Livilla?”

  “She died of compulsory starvation…And by the way, do you recall how Nero died?”

  “He committed suicide on Pontia.”

  “Yes, but now it comes out how that happened. Sejanus’s agents lied to poor Nero that the Senate had condemned him to death. They even had an executioner stalk about the island, testing out a strangling rope, until it was too much for Nero and he took his own life.”

  Pilate slumped in his chair. “Sejanus plotted that too?”

  “Yes. And what, do you suppose, caused all the quarreling between Tiberius and Agrippina which led to her exile? Sejanus telling Agrippina the princeps was plotting against her, then telling the princeps Agrippina was plotting against him. And who imprisoned the younger Drusus on the Palatine? And who planned the judicial murder of the young Caligula? It was all part of Sejanus’s huge conspiracy to win the throne for himself, a plot which duped Tiberius for almost ten years!”

  Slowly Pilate reacted. “And now, of course, he’ll make his move against all supporters of Sejanus.”

  “You can’t blame him for that.”

  “I…I must have time to think, Procula. It was good of you to get me…the facts.”

  * The Roman date for 31 A.D. “A.U.C.” signifies Ab Urbe Condita, “from the founding of the city,” i.e., Rome.

  Chapter 14

  Pilate knew that the next months would determine his future career, even his life itself. That he could share in the fall of Sejanus was easily possible, since he heard that friends, supporters, and appointees of the fallen prefect were being imprisoned to await trial by the Senate on charges of maiestas, treason in “diminishing the majesty of the Roman People.” The end might come in the form of a letter of recall, delivered by a praetorian courier fresh from Rome. More likely, a newly commissioned prefect of Judea would land in Caesarea with orders for him to return to Rome for trial. Each large ship arriving at the harbor struck a twinge of uncertainty in him.

  Or might the fates be kind and allow Tiberius to forget his close association with Sejanus? It was nearly six years since his last visit with the princeps under Sejanus’s patronage, and the only thing Tiberius might likely recall from that occasion would be the collapse of the grotto. No, that was wishful thinking. The rockfall would only anchor the entire visit, and what had preceded it, more securely in the emperor’s mind.

  But the Tiberiéum. Pilate’s last direct word from the princeps before the fall of Sejanus had been favorable, a message of appreciation for the now-completed basilica and an accolade for Jerusalem’s new water system. The fact that the aqueduct cost Rome hardly a sesterce had been especially appealing to Tiberius, who made an act of worship out of balancing the imperial budget. Yet if he did remain in the emperor’s good graces, Pilate’s acta for 31, an end-of-the-year report, should have received some acknowledgment, some indication that it would be “business as usual” in Judea despite the upheavals in Rome. But no word from Tiberius had arrived.

  In making policy, the princeps would probably lean heavily now on Sertorius Macro, the new praetorian prefect. Pilate reviewed his relationship with Macro, whom he had known casually as a fellow tribune at the Castra Praetoria, but there was little from this earlier acquaintance to indicate how he would advise Tiberius concerning Judea. A good hater, Macro was already happily at work, bringing Sejanians to trial.

  New policies and changes of officials in the Near East now seemed the order of the day. Aelius Lamia, the absentee governor of Syria, was graduated from that phantom post to become urban prefect of Rome, while Pomponius Flaccus succeeded him in Syria. And Flaccus actually sailed east to assume his governorship. For the first time, then, Pilate would have a higher-ranking colleague overlooking his shoulders from the north, a possible hamper on his freedom.

  Down in Egypt, Vitrasius Pollio had been in office only a matter of months when he died, and, after an interim appointment, Tiberius sent another man named Flaccus, A. Avillius Flaccus, to succeed him. So change was in the air, and Pilate could only wonder when it would be his turn, especially after the execution of his patron. But still no letter from Capri or Rome.

  He made his usual trip to Jerusalem for the Passover festival in 32, but this time his retinue carried along some well-wrapped and crated pieces of freight. During the journey he kept an anxious eye on the joggling bundles, for they represented his latest proof of loyalty to Tiberius, something of which he had maximum need at the time.

  Ideally, there should have been something like the Tiberiéum for the other capital of his province, Jerusalem, a public edifice in honor of the emperor. Pilate now cursed himself for not having thought to name the new water system there the “Tiberian Aqueduct.” Herod Antipas, with his perennial courting of the princeps, his “Tiberianizing” of every place name in Galilee, might now rank higher in the emperor’s favor than in the days of Sejanus. Pilate had to find some way of honoring the princeps in the heart of the Holy City itself, but without offending the Jews in the process. The solution lay in the packages.

  This time he had to be especially careful not to antagonize the Jews, for rumors poured out of Rome that since Sejanus had been anti-Semitic, Tiberius was now veering toward a pro-Jewish policy. As a first step, exiled Jews were being encouraged to return to Rome. Jerusalem, of course, had hailed the fall of Sejanus with rejoicing, and in view of the restored status of Jews in the Empire, Pilate had cautiously ordered his provincial mint to stop producing coins with a lituus symbol, the Roman augur’s spiral-headed staff which Pilate, under pressure from Sejanus, had intended as a Romanizing gesture in Judea. But now was no time to offend his subjects with the pagan crosier motif, and the pressure behind such coinage was dead anyway.

  After arriving at Herod’s palace in Jerusalem, Pilate carefully unwrapped his bundles and had servants polish the contents. They were large heraldic shields, heavily coated with gold, which bore the simple inscription:

  In Honor of

  TIBERIVS CAESAR

  Dedicated by

  PONTIUS

  PILATVS

  His goldsmiths in Caesarea had worked the shields handsomely, and Pilate carefully hung them in the great reception hall of the Herodian palace.

  He thought the gesture well-suited to his purposes. The gleaming escutcheons were a public demonstration of his loyalty to the emperor, in the very city which had once demanded the removal of medallions with his image. A sample of the shields was already en route to Capri, along with a notice of their forthcoming dedication in the Jerusalem palace. Tiberius was known to like that kind of thing: trophies, citations, plaques, and other tokens of recognition fairly cluttered his personal offices both on the Palatine and at Capri.

  And the shields could hardly offend the Jews. They contained no tracings or engravings to represent anything animate or inanimate. No images. Only lettering. Nothing on the shields, then, was contrary to Hebrew law, for the law did not condemn written inscriptions.

  The next morning, Pilate was doubly glad that he had been careful regarding Jewish sensitivities. A courier arrived from Caesarea, bringing a long-awaited—and long-dreaded—message from Tiberius. Pilate had just missed receiving it when he set out for Jerusalem. With throbbing pulse he nervously slit the seals with his dagger and read the following, written before the sample shield had arrived:

  Tiberius Caesar Augustus, pontifex maximus, consul five times, acclaimed imperator, holding the tribunician power for the thirty-third year, to Pontius Pilatus, praefectus Iudaeae, greeting. If you are in health, it is well. I also and the army are well.

  Following the death of t
he traitor, murderer, and enemy of Rome, Sejanus, I have learned that the accusations he made against the Jews of Rome are false slanders, invented by him to do away with the Jewish nation. From henceforth, penal measures will extend only to Jews guilty of actual crimes, and not to their entire people as such.

  I have written my prefects elsewhere in the Empire to conciliate the Jews living under their jurisdiction, and not to disturb their established customs. On the contrary, they are to protect them. The same must certainly apply to the Judean homeland. I herewith charge you to maintain the peace of Judea by disturbing none of the Jewish institutions. Farewell.

  Given the Ides of February, A.V.C. 785, in the consulship of I. Gnaeus Domitius and M. F. Camillus Scribonianus

  So his first word from Tiberius was a directive in behalf of the Jews—and Pilate could not have been happier or more relieved. The imperial message had not ordered his return to Rome to stand trial for complicity with Sejanus. In fact, the last sentence of the letter nearly implied a reconfirmation of his office.

  Possibly, then, Tiberius had forgotten his close association with the fallen prefect. Or had he? There was no commendation for him in these lines, nothing in response to his glowing report for the year 31, so Tiberius might still be in the process of constructing a case against him prior to official recall. In that event, dispatching the golden shield to Capri had been a good bit of timing, even though that gesture alone would hardly avert disaster.

  Jerusalem celebrated the Passover of 32 with more joyous fervor than Pilate had ever noted before. The reason was hardly a mystery. The anti-Semite who ranked second in Rome was no more, and pilgrims streaming into Jerusalem from all parts of the Empire were spreading the news about Tiberius’s new conciliatory policy toward Judaism. A special service of thanksgiving saw the vast terraces of the temple submerged under a sea of humanity. Four sons of Herod the Great had come to Jerusalem for the occasion—probably to capitalize on the popular goodwill of the moment, Pilate reasoned.