Matthew found a cheap basement, but Valerius, the hyperetes, was unhappy with it and haughtily stalked off, leaving his sack behind in a huff. Consequently Hilarus, the teacher, also declared that he would not spend another night in the shit — he wasn’t just anyone, he was a teacher. He tossed his sack over his shoulder and started off, but Matthew unexpectedly socked him on the jaw, took the sack, and sat down on it. Not sure what else to do, the rest just lingered around the enormous harbor, where life went on as normal and no one took the least notice of them.
“You’re not going to go mutinous on me,” Matthew yelled. “Anyone who mutinies, I’ll kill!”
Hilarus, weeping, wiped his nose and asked, “Why did you let him go? Why did you let him go?”
“Because I’ll lodge a complaint against him back home,” Matthew continued to yell. “And they’ll kick him out of the synagogue so fast his feet won’t touch the ground!”
Uri would have liked to side with Matthew, that resolute and staunch man whom he had admired up until then, even though they had barely spoken. He, the weak kid, would have liked to defend the strong man, only he had no idea what to say or do in this situation, so he too just faltered mutely, at a loss.
Hilarus acquiesced and stayed. They trudged into the cellar, locking the door behind them with a great many chains (the locks and chains were fortuitously lying in a corner, as if waiting for them), and then went off to eat.
On Matthew’s suggestion, everyone took his jug along to fill with wine later. Led by Matthew, who knew perfectly well how to handle an unruly crew and blessed power of a decent meal, they traipsed into a tavern — grubby though it might have been, packed with whores and hideous characters from any number of harbors on the Great Sea, the wine was good — after which they went to the market, bought some fish and drank more wine, before having their jugs filled and heading out to the pier to keep drinking. They got tighter than Uri ever imagined was possible, any more than he expected that one day he would puke in the sea. He did that at Syracusa, however; Iustus, the stonemason, held his forehead. Blessed be Syracusa forever, Amen! Even if there was nowhere for them to bake the fish, so by the morning it stank and had to be thrown away.
They woke up with splitting headaches in that basement, the cellar of a formerly rich man’s burnt-out villa, where a vinegary fluid was leaking from buckled containers, as it probably had been for years, when Valerius returned contritely. His face and neck were covering by angry red scratches and bites. Matthew acknowledged him with a nod and then went off to the harbor to plot a passage for them somehow; they agreed to meet on the pier.
They locked up the basement and went off to the pier, where a tall lighthouse stood; at the top was a small chamber where flares burned constantly, and, according to the locals, inside the tower was a spiral staircase. As they waited, they struck up a conversation with some other idlers, who gradually let on that the reason for the delays was probably more serious than a mere storm: the Greeks were having their way with the Jewish fleet’s gullible new local representative (the previous one had been replaced, maybe because he filched too much). The harbor’s military commander, a centurion, favored the Greeks; the Jews had obviously not greased his palm sufficiently.
The Jews were having some trouble nowadays — that was the general view of the Latini, Greeks, Syrians, Gauls, and Spaniards. When asked why, they answered with incredible stories about a revolt in Caesarea and some sort of uprising in Jerusalem. About how the Jews in Jerusalem had clashed, they said, with a Roman legion and made off with their battle standards, which were now under guard at Temple, in the innermost shrine. And how the Jews had wanted to stone the Roman prefect at a chariot race in Caesarea, and the prefect barely escaped with his life. Syracusa’s Greeks and Latini and Syrians and Arabs and Abyssinians and others regaled them with these and other ridiculous stories.
The Jews could not take Roman military banners into the Temple in Jerusalem. Just one person, the high priest, was allowed in the innermost sanctum at all, and even he only once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which was in the autumn, whereas now it was almost spring. It was just as far-fetched to imagine that the Jews would want to stone the governor at a chariot race in the stadium; besides, the guards would have clearly been able to see the stones in the spectators’ hands. All the same, these rumors were unsettling; something had undoubtedly happened in Judaea, and that was exactly where they were headed.
When Matthew found them at the lighthouse, they began to grill him on what he knew. Matthew admitted that the delay was probably not caused by reported storms; no Jewish ships had arrived in recent days from the port of Caesarea, even though the sea was calm, as the Greek boats that had called in at Caesarea could attest; and it was, indeed, true that the Jewish fleet had a new local representative, the old one had been replaced and the new man was rather feeble, but the military commander was not biased toward the Greeks, and anyway he, Matthew, had already bribed him twice; and how was a Roman centurion supposed to put Jewish ships ahead of the Greeks if none had called in for days now?
“Wouldn’t we be better off on a Greek ship?” Iustus asked.
That was not such a bad idea; more than a few Greek ships had set off for Caesarea over the past two days, with two of them calling in at Crete. But Matthew still shook his head. The Greeks were asking exorbitant fares, and then there was the risk of getting robbed en route. They needed to find a Jewish boat; no Jews would not dare to fleece once they found out this was the delegation.
“Do you mean that if we weren’t, then they would?” Uri inquired.
“We’re no worse than other pirate peoples,” Matthew replied in a superior tone.
They all laughed, and when it was time for the noonday prayer, they all beseeched the Lord to finally send a few Jewish ships to dock in Syracusa.
Three boats did arrive soon after, but these were from Alexandria, and they were going back there; two were Greek and one Jewish. They talked with the Greek sailors. They had also heard about a furor in Jerusalem, but they thought it was highly unlikely that the local governor had ordered Roman army standards to be taken into the Temple Square. The Jewish protest would follow immediately, as he was well aware; more likely, it was an overzealous regimental commander. Several of them had heard that someone resembling Tiberius had also been taken into the Temple. Others disputed that; apparently the Jews had written a letter to Tiberius about the matter, or at least the Jewish high priest in Alexandria had done so, the president of the Alexandrian Sanhedrin, the council of Elders, Alexander the gerusiarch and also alabarchos. It was also reported that Alexander, the head of the Jews in Alexandria, said that the emperor would almost certainly reprimand the prefect, maybe even relieve him of his office, because he was not prepared to see the Pax Romana threatened in the provinces. The Alexandrian Jewish sailors spoke highly of Alexander, whereas the priestly clans of Jerusalem were worthless, an opinion they made clear, although not in so many words. The Roman delegation also grasped from the Alexandrian Jews that they should feel shame that their city didn’t have a house of prayer like the Basilica in Alexandria, which rivaled the Temple in Jerusalem — not that their co-religionists from Alexandria mentioned a single word about it. But as far as thinking goes, they were almost certainly thinking that — so surmised the Roman Jews. Plotius fancied he knew for sure that Alexander did not stem from a priestly family but was a descendant of common Jewish slaves who had settled in Egypt, so he was not rightfully entitled to the title of priest: a gerusiarch and alabarchos, yes, but in no way a priest. These Greeks were ignorant.