And so it is that John is hurled into the dungeons of Machaerus, there to rot until Antipas sets him free—or Herodias has him killed.
Meanwhile, a far greater threat to Antipas is beginning to emerge. Jesus of Nazareth has now embarked on a spiritual journey, a mission that will challenge the world’s most powerful men.
CHAPTER SEVEN
VILLA JOVIS, CAPRI
A.D. 26
NIGHT
Far away from Galilee, the Roman who considers himself to be the stepson of god is on the move. Life in Rome has been hard on Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus—or so he thinks. So he has exiled himself to this mountaintop island fortress on Capri to live out his days in pleasure and privacy. Now he reclines in his bedroom as nude handmaidens and young boys copulate in front of him. They were handpicked for their beauty and brought from the far-flung reaches of the Roman Empire against their will to perform erotic sexual acts for “the old goat,” as the sixty-eight-year-old Tiberius is called behind his back. Some days the children might be asked to dress as Pans and nymphs, then flit about the royal garden, offering themselves to one another and to the emperor’s invited guests.
Tonight the orgiasts remain inside this sprawling palace with its marble floors, erotic statues, works of art, and stunning views of the Mediterranean Sea far below. In case the performances of the young girls and boys ordered to submit to the jaded, pockmarked emperor lack imagination, explicit sex manuals from Egypt are on hand for instruction.
The young performers can’t help but sneak a glance at Tiberius. If all goes well, he will join in, perhaps selecting one of the teenaged boys or girls for himself. But if they fail, and if Tiberius doesn’t find their contortions stimulating, the emperor will not simply leave the room. He will do something far worse. There is a good chance he will hurl their bodies off “Tiberius’s Leap,” the thousand-foot cliff alongside the palace. From that height, it doesn’t matter if a person lands in the sea or on the rocks jutting out into the Gulf of Naples. There is no surviving the fall.
Which is just as Tiberius designed it. Perversely, just as he enjoys sex and watching others have sex, he also finds delight in watching his victims scream for their lives.
The truth is, almost all of tonight’s players will suffer the terrifying fate of being thrown off the cliff. Tiberius cannot abide the thought of rumors about his debauchery making their way back to Rome. The best way to keep these children silent is to kill them after he uses them.
But the young players don’t know this. They actually believe they will one day make it out of Villa Jovis alive and return home to their villages. So they perform as if their lives depend upon it, succumbing to any whim or want of the vile Tiberius.
Meanwhile, the aging emperor—a man who once knew true love and happiness—reclines on a pile of pillows, a cup of wine always within reach, his eyes glazed and his skin mottled from eczema and boils. Tiberius is a man without a conscience.
* * *
It could have been the deaths of his two sons that brought Tiberius to Capri. Or perhaps it was the unbearable presence of his mother, the scheming Livia, widow of the great Caesar Augustus. Maybe it was the dreadful crowds of petitioners who besieged him each day in Rome, reeking of desperation as they begged for this favor or that. It might have been the fear of assassination, because court intrigue in the form of angry lieutenants, jilted spouses, and distant nephews with their sights set on his throne seemed to grow more pervasive by the day.
Or it might have been something as simple as Tiberius being tired of people whispering that he drinks too much. He has long worn the mantle that comes with being born into a lifetime of power, with its expectations and judgments. Whatever the reason, he has escaped to a hilltop castle in beautiful Capri, over the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean, an otherworldly turquoise, where he can eat what he wants, sleep with whom he desires, drink as much as he wants, and rule Rome from a distance.
So that he knows what fates the gods will bring, Tiberius has brought along the one man he trusts above all others: Thrasyllus, the royal astrologer. In addition to the baths, cisterns, great hall, private suites, and lighthouse Tiberius built to make life on Capri as comfortable as possible, he also constructed the special observatory that will allow Thrasyllus to make sense of the stars each night.
Of course, should Thrasyllus fail Tiberius, whether through bad information or willful manipulation, his long fall into the sea will be no different from that of the young sex slaves.
For Tiberius learned long ago that no one can be trusted. He was born two years after the death of Julius Caesar, whose name has been incorporated into his own. When his mother divorced his natural father to marry the man who would one day be known as Augustus, the three-year-old Tiberius actually benefited from the betrayal. The Roman emperor soon adopted him as his own son, and Tiberius rode through the streets of Rome in Augustus’s chariot during the public celebration marking the crucial victory over Marc Antony and Cleopatra.
The boy grew up privileged, trained in the classical manner, excelling in oratory and rhetoric. By age twenty, he was commanding armies. A brilliant tactician and fearless fighter, Tiberius was known for his successes on the battlefield—but also for his dark and gloomy behavior and the severe acne covering his face. Upon his return to Rome, he found love and married a young woman of noble birth named Vipsania. They had a child, Drusus Julius Caesar, after which Vipsania was soon pregnant with a second baby. But Augustus cruelly intervened. In an act that would dramatically transform Tiberius, the self-proclaimed son of god ordered Tiberius to divorce Vipsania after eight years of marriage and wed Augustus’s recently widowed daughter, Julia. When Tiberius argued against the divorce, he was ordered to be compliant or suffer harsh punishment. Devastated, Vipsania suffered a miscarriage.
Tiberius was distraught but obeyed the emperor. A short time later he accidentally ran into his beloved Vipsania on the streets of Rome and broke down, making a very public display by sobbing and begging for forgiveness. When news of this behavior reached Augustus, he demanded that Tiberius never again speak with Vipsania.
And so died the human part of Tiberius. At that moment, his life of cruelty, depravity, and drunkenness began. The man who once studied rhetoric and who loved the mother of his child was emotionally destroyed. Never again would he act in a humane manner. But his behavior didn’t bother his new wife, Julia, who herself embraced debauchery. She had a fondness for dwarves, and when Tiberius once again marched off to war—this time in Gaul—she kept such a man nearby at all times for her immediate pleasure. Julia was a great beauty, which made it easier for her to indulge her base instincts. She attended orgies, openly prostituted herself, and publicly flaunted her disregard for Tiberius. Most grievous of all, when Tiberius returned from Gaul, he found that she had turned their home into a brothel.
Emperor Tiberius
Even Augustus was appalled. He granted Tiberius a divorce. But the man who would one day be emperor would never marry again.
Deeply shamed, Tiberius, approaching forty years old, exiled himself to the Greek island of Rhodes. There he began to drink in ever-larger quantities and established a pattern of cruel behavior that he would embrace to the day he died. He routinely committed murder, even ordering the decapitation of a man whose only crime was making a poor mathematical calculation.
In the final years of his reign, Augustus recalled Tiberius from Rhodes, grooming him to become emperor. There was no other suitable prospect. Tiberius accepted the challenge in willing and ruthless fashion. After Augustus died in A.D. 14, Tiberius ordered the execution of any would-be pretender. For twelve long years, Tiberius did battle with the Senate and oversaw the empire in a proficient, workmanlike manner. But upon the sudden and unexplained deaths of his adopted son Germanicus1 and natural-born son Drusus,2 ages thirty-three and thirty-four, respectively, Tiberius could take no more.
Fed up with the intrigues of Rome, Tiberius ordered that renovations and enhancements be m
ade to Augustus’s villas on the island of Capri. This included the construction of “lechery nooks” and the special pools in which he now swims naked with young boys. His servants are authorized to kidnap children, and Tiberius even employs a man known as “Master of the Imperial Pleasures,” whose sole job is providing the emperor with new bodies.
In the midst of all this, Tiberius continues to hold control of the vast Roman Empire. From high on a mountain, safe from assassination plots, and surrounded only by those he can murder on a whim, Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus issues the moral and legal decrees that will determine the fate of millions. Those mandates especially affect Roman administrators.
Pontius Pilate, newly installed as Roman governor of Judea, knows that his personal and professional future depends on making the degenerate Tiberius happy. Despite his own pagan lifestyle, Tiberius admires the Jews’ religious ways. He considers the Jews the most devout subjects in the empire when it comes to keeping the Sabbath holy. Tiberius sends an order to Pontius Pilate on how to treat the Jewish population: “Change nothing already sanctioned by custom, but to regard as a sacred trust both the Jews themselves, and their laws, which are conducive to public order.”
So it is that Pontius Pilate honors that “sacred trust” by strengthening his bond with the high priest Caiaphas, the figurehead of the Jewish faith and the most powerful man in Jerusalem. According to Tiberius’s orders, Pilate is not to meddle in matters of Jewish law.
It is an order that Pilate will remember all too well.
* * *
Herod Antipas, now approaching fifty, understands that allegiance to Tiberius is vital. He has spent a great deal of time in Rome, educating himself in Roman ways and customs and absorbing Romans’ fondness for literature, poetry, and music. The Jew Antipas even dresses like Roman aristocracy, wearing the semicircular piece of cloth known as a toga rather than the simple robes of the Jewish people.
During his time in Rome, Antipas learned to douse his food with fermented fish sauce, a pickled condiment favored by Romans with a strong taste that masked spoilage from lack of refrigeration. He attended chariot races at the Circus Maximus. He might even have taken a slave for a lover. In Rome, prostitution is legal and even taxed. The only shame was for a male citizen of Rome to be the submissive partner in a homosexual relationship, which was why Julius Caesar’s long-rumored affair with the king of Bithynia was never forgotten by his enemies.
Antipas has great power over the Jewish peasants, but he must do as Rome tells him to do. He can never comment negatively on anything Tiberius does—even though the Jews are every day becoming more disenchanted with Roman rule. His fear of Tiberius also prevents Antipas from making any reforms that would help the Jewish people. Caught in the middle, Antipas keeps his mouth shut and accumulates as much wealth as he can.
* * *
The Roman Empire may be vast, but all those roads built by the legions, and all those shipping lanes plied daily between Rome and her many outposts, mean that rumors travel fast. Household servants gossip, and word has spread about Tiberius’s aberrant and violent behavior. He murders at will, killing entire families for any perceived slight. He defiles even the youngest child. He retaliates against any woman who will not have him—even a woman of noble birth and marriage—by letting his servants violate her.
But Antipas is not Tiberius. The ruler of Galilee has many faults, among them vanity and personal weakness, but his behavior is nothing like that of the emperor of Rome. Yet the moral depravity of Tiberius cannot help but seep into the fiber of even the most far-flung province, causing an erosion of discipline and justice. While the emperor will never make his way to Judea and never come face-to-face with Jesus of Nazareth or with the Passover pilgrims who flock to Jerusalem each year, every decision ordered by the new Roman governor Pontius Pilate is made to gain Tiberius’s approval. It is the same with Antipas, as evidenced by his naming his dazzling new city on the Sea of Galilee after the all-powerful emperor.
Such is life in the Roman Empire, which has begun its slow decline into ruin. There is little justice or nobility among the ruling class. And so the Jewish peasants look for a savior, a man promised to them by the prophets. For a time, some thought the savior might be John the Baptist. But he languishes in prison.
Now there is cautious conversation about a new man, one far more powerful than John. Jesus of Nazareth is about to arrive.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JERUSALEM
APRIL, A.D. 27
DAY
Jesus clenches a coiled whip in his fist as he makes his way up the steps to the Temple courts. Passover pilgrims surround him. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish believers have once again traveled a great distance—from Galilee, Syria, Egypt, and even Rome—to celebrate the climax to the Jewish year. Not that they have a choice: failure to visit the Temple during Passover is one of thirty-six transgressions that will result in the holy punishment of karet, being spiritually “cut off” from God. Those who transgress will suffer a premature death or other punishment known only to the deity.1 So, as he has done every spring since childhood, Jesus of Nazareth has made the trek to Jerusalem.
The spiritual emotion that flows through the city is wondrous, as these many Jews come together to openly celebrate their faith and sing praises to God. Agents of the Temple have repaired the dirt roads coming into town to make them smooth after the hard winter rains. Grave sites are clearly marked, so that no pilgrim will inadvertently suffer impurity by touching one. Special wells are dug so that every man and woman can immerse him- or herself in the ritual bath, in order to be pure upon entering the Holy City. Mikvot (purification pools) are carved into the bedrock and lined in plaster, into which an observant pilgrim steps down for cleansing.
Jesus himself submerges himself in a mikvah as a last stop before Jerusalem. Inside the city walls, he sees the hundreds of temporary clay ovens that have been constructed in order that each pilgrim will have a place to roast his Passover sacrifice before sitting down to the evening Seder feast. He hears the bleat of sheep as shepherds and their flocks clog the narrow streets, just down from the hills after lambing season. And Jesus can well imagine the peal of the silver trumpets and the harmonious voices of the Levite choir that will echo in the inner courts of the Temple just moments before an innocent lamb is slaughtered for the Passover sacrifice. A priest will catch its blood in a golden bowl, then sprinkle it on the altar as the lamb is hung on a hook and skinned. The Hallel2 prayers of thanksgiving will soon follow, and the Temple courts will echo with songs of hallelujah.
This is Passover in Jerusalem. It has been this way since the rebuilding of the Temple. Each Passover is unique in its glory and personal stories, but the rituals remain the same.
Now, as he steps into the Court of the Gentiles, Jesus is about to undertake a bold and outrageous moment of revolution.
For this Passover will not be like those that have come before. It will be remembered throughout history for words of anger. Unfurling his whip, Jesus prepares to launch his ministry.
* * *
The partially enclosed Temple courts reek of blood and livestock. Tables piled with coins line one wall, in the shade of the Temple awnings, lorded over by scheming men known as shulhanim, “money changers.” In long lines, out-of-towners await their chance to exchange their meager wealth in the form of coins minted by agents of Rome. The Roman coins are adorned with images of living things such as gods or with portraits of the emperor. But this coinage must be converted into shekels,3 the standard currency of Jerusalem. In keeping with the Jewish law forbidding graven images, these special coins are decorated with images of plants and other nonhuman likenesses. Also known as the “Temple tax coin,” the shekel is disparaged by many pilgrims because it is the only form of money acceptable for paying the annual tax or for purchasing animals for ritual slaughter.
The money changers demand unfair exchange rates for the privilege of turning local money into shekels. The Temple high priests also profit
from this scam. Within the Temple’s inner courts are massive vaults filled with shekels and the foreign coins exchanged each year by pilgrims. When the Temple loans that money—as it so often does, to peasants who need help paying their taxes—the interest rates are exorbitant. Ledger sheets within the Temple’s grand vaults keep tally of all debts, and those who cannot repay suffer severe indignities: the loss of a home, loss of land and livestock, and eventually life as a debt slave or membership in the “unclean” class. The slums of lower Jerusalem are packed with families who were driven from their land because they could not repay money they borrowed from the Temple.
So while Passover might be a holiday about faith and piety, it is also about money. As many as four million Jews make their way to Jerusalem each year. This means more income for the local shop owners and innkeepers, but the Temple priests and their Roman masters get most of the profit through taxation and money changing. Even more money is made when the poor must buy a lamb or dove for the mandatory Passover sacrifice. If a priest should inspect the animal or bird and find even a single blemish, the sacrifice will be deemed unclean and the peasant will be forced to buy another. It is no wonder that the people quietly seethe when doing business with the Temple priests. Many wish they could burn the ledger books and loot the Temple vaults. And in four decades, the sons and daughters of Israel will do just that.
But that event is far away during this Passover week. Today Jesus climbs to the Court of the Gentiles and makes his way into the broad open-air plaza. Since his baptism and time spent fasting in the desert, his ministry has been a quiet one.
Jesus of Nazareth has no army. He has no wealth. He has no sword. He has no headquarters and none of the infrastructure needed to support a movement. Nothing in his behavior so far has been rebellious or confrontational. His greatest social outing since being baptized by John has been attending a wedding in the Galilean village of Cana with his mother. If Jesus means to start a revolution by revealing himself as God, the planning is taking place only within his head. He has not preached a single message before a crowd. He has not challenged Rome or the Temple’s high priests—nor does he seem interested in doing so.
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