“Are they rich merchants?”
“No,” said Plotius. “Landowners.”
Vast latifundia — estates — had come into existence in Judaea over the past decade or two since peace had been secured, because the first-born sons who had inherited land were generally unable to come to terms with the other siblings about how that land should be divided, so generally the land would be sold and the money split up, with everyone getting very little, as a result of which they would move into town and become homeless plebs; for that reason the supply of land had swollen so much that it was only possible to sell at prices well below its true value. In other words, the same thing was happening in Judaea as in Italia, the only difference being that in Palestine the land was communal in principle; that is, it was supposed to be redistributed every fifty years, but that had long not been the case, and as a result there was even more ownerless land in Palestine ripe for stealing.
Anyone who had any capital to invest put it into land, including the families of the high priests, even though in principle they were forbidden to do so. They did not buy in their own names, but the land was nevertheless theirs; by now three quarters of Judaea was the personal property of members of families of the high priests, and they sold bits of this on at huge premiums to others, including Romans, even though it was not permitted to sell any part of the Holy Land to non-Jews. Then again, land was supposed to be left fallow for one year in seven to let it recover, but nobody did that.
“There’s not one law that is not transgressed in Judaea,” asserted Plotius. “That’s true in Rome too: every law is transgressed if people can get away with it, but it’s even easier for them to get away with it in Judaea.”
Uri inquired why Plotius did not stay in Judaea if things were going so well for him. Had his family called him back, perhaps?
“I’ve got a wife and I also have a son — Plotius Fortunatus, he’s called. But I don’t see them often, and I don’t miss them very much,” said Plotius. “They have gotten used to the fact that this is my line of work, it’s not they who are the reason. The fact is that Judaea is of no interest; Jerusalem is a hole. It is said that the Temple will be magnificent when it’s ready, but that’s just tripe; there is nothing to see of it, it’s been surrounded by scaffolding for decades. The crowds that flock there during festivals are just appalling, to say nothing of the infectious diseases they carry! Jerusalem is tedious; there’s nothing to do, just a bunch of whores — and those are all wretched: even they are no pleasure at all. Even the Transtiberim is more interesting than Jerusalem, where nothing ever happens or ever will!”
“It did now.”
Plotius gestured dismissively.
“Protests are always going on, especially around feast days, when any number of crazies flood into the city, but then the Jewish watchmen easily deal with them. I don’t know if mercenaries really did take military standards into the Temple, but even if they did, the stink was raised in Caesarea, not in Jerusalem, and that’s a Greek town, not ours, never will be, for all that Jews make up the majority who reside there these days.”
“All the same, the boats are not sailing for some reason,” Uri offered.
“There are other times they don’t sail either,” said Plotius. “Twice already I have spent weeks in Syracusa waiting for a boat and almost died of boredom. There are not many items of Jewish produce that are worth shipping to Italia. Dates you can get elsewhere, and balsam is not something that sells in big amounts; wood is about all that’s worth trading. Whole forests are being felled in Palestine for Rome; they tend to ship the timber to Judaea, and they don’t like ships coming over here empty. So they wait there until a cargo of some sort is finally collected. Or enough people collected.”
Uri did not understand, and Plotius was somewhat surprised that he had to explain this too:
“Spies. They’re important people, and they have money. They come from Syria, Babylon, Armenia — wherever. They carry military and commercial information. We’re important as well, because we shall be carrying a big sum of money on the return journey. It will be easy finding a boat to Caesarea for the return journey: we’ll have enough money to make it worth the captain’s while even with an empty hold. Here in Syracusa there are lots of goods to pack in, and he will be happy making the trip back because they’re things that people will buy in Judaea. But if there happens to be no Jewish ship in the harbor here, we shan’t be able to persuade anyone to take us. What are they going to bring back? Nothing. Any timber that has accumulated there will be picked up eventually by our boat: it will take time for the next forest to be felled.”
Uri mused.
“Could it be that we won’t make it to Judaea in time?”
“Never fear!” assured Plotius. “From Caesarea we’ll be able to make it to Jerusalem in four days, even crawling on our bellies, it’s only two hundred stadia or so. Something is bound to come along sooner or later.”
Uri cogitated; this fellow impressed him. He went on to ask, “What made you become a member of the delegation?”
Plotius did not reply immediately.
“I’ve got things to do in Judaea,” he said finally. “And you’ll be paying for my trip — you Roman Jews, I mean.”
“And how did that work out? Did you apply to the archisynagogos, and he put your name forward?”
Plotius laughed.
“No, it doesn’t go like that… I started by knocking on the doors of the rich people in my congregation… I made it in their interest… There’s the rotation thing, isn’t there, and even though I had not yet been a delegate, some individuals from my family had been, and not so long ago either… I made it onto the list at the last moment, maybe even later than you… I promised them something by way of business.”
So there was someone else who had been squeezed in as an afterthought, not just him; maybe most of them had. So they have no reason to be hostile toward me, Uri realized with relief.
They got back to the pier that evening; their companions were all there, Matthew included. They were right in the middle of an excited discussion. Matthew had located a boat repairer who had a bireme standing ready and waiting in his shipyard, and its owner would only be coming two weeks later to pick it up, until which time the boat was free to come and go between Syracusa and Caesarea. The boat master was secretly inclined to make the boat available and would even ask to be paid for the return trip, because even so he would be better off than if the boat — it was not his anyway — sat in the docks; he was even ready to rustle up free of charge the oarsmen and officers needed, though of course they would need to be paid both ways by the delegation. He was, however, asking for a deposit: half the value of the boat, which of course he would hand back when they got to Syracusa on the return journey.