Uri listened in amazement. An intelligent man, this sorcerer. He might be a sorcerer, but he speaks like a philosopher. Maybe there will be surprises in store for me on the trip, after all.
“Are you also a healer for Pilate?” Plotius asked.
“No,” the Magus answered. “He has a Roman physician, and rightly so. He lets Pilate’s blood, controls his diet, prescribes the order in which baths should be taken. That’s what Pilate believes in, and who am I to undermine that belief? Me, a Jew. As far as his wife is concerned, he was able to admit that Greek medicine had been a washout, but that is not so for himself. I would not have taken him on anyway; I’m not crazy, I’m used to dealing with rural Jews and have no idea what troubles high-ranking Romans. Mediocre as the salves and pills of a Latin doctor may be, he certainly knows better than me what makes Pilate’s belly gripe. More than that, I have striven all along to know as little as possible about him: any time that his wife began to gossip about him I interrupted her and asked her not to go on. I’m sure she would have told this to her husband and in doing so I earned his confidence more than by my initial success in curing his wife. Well, it’s from there that I got this villa.” He gestured around him. “Anyway, it’s not actually mine, I only rent it. I don’t want property of my own; I never did have my own house, and I don’t intend to either. It only brings trouble.”
The members of the delegation carried on eating and drinking in silence. Except for Matthew, they were surprised by the magus; they had not imagined a Galilean quack would be anything like this. Matthew also kept quiet as he ate, but Uri could see that a serenely sardonic sparkle of triumph was glinting in his eyes.
Uri had never before met a man who was so forthright in the way he expressed himself. Roman Jews kept those kinds of ideas to themselves, if they thought them at all; they would never say them out loud. Was the Magus not afraid that someone might inform on him? He must be very sure of himself, and especially about Pilate’s affection for him.
“So, Pilate is restless nowadays?” Alexandros finally inquired in Greek.
“It would seem so,” Simon the Magus replied in Greek. “He was already wound up before the demonstration, though. Previously, he only sent a courier once or twice a week to Rome or Antioch, but in recent weeks it has been five or six, and there are as many coming the other way. I don’t know what’s afoot, but something must have happened in Rome.”
The delegates looked at one another. What on Earth could have happened in Rome? There had been nothing when they set off. The state couriers made the trip more rapidly than their delegation: with fresh remounts at relay stations, they were able to cover the Rome — Naples route in five days; then if they sailed straight via Alexandria to Caesarea, they might be able to make that in two weeks, though that was not significantly faster. It was unlikely anything had happened in Rome, because the news would have reached them in Syracusa through some loudmouthed courier on one of the ships plying the Ostia — Syracusa route; after all, news of the demonstration in Caesarea had already reached them in Messina.
Matthew asked about what had actually happened two weeks back.
Simon related that a crowd of a few hundred had come from Jerusalem and demonstrated for days in front of Pilate’s palace. Leaning out of the window, without regard for possible arrows or javelins, Pilate had politely asked them to go home, but they stayed. He could have had them dispersed by his soldiers, as there were three cohorts and an ala, a division, stationed in the barracks at Caesarea, but he did not; indeed, he issued the order that not a single hair be harmed on the head of any Jew, and he tried to bring the raving lunatics to their senses, telling them that the military insignia that had been taken into the palace in Jerusalem were not images, merely inscriptions with the names of the emperor Tiberius and himself, and anyway the standards had been furled when they were taken up into the tower of Phasael that Herod had built in the Upper City, as they had always done, ever since a Roman governor resided there. Nobody had taken any exception to that previously, so he was of the opinion that it was perfectly in line with Jewish law to carry them in like that.
Pilate’s arguments were to no avail, however; the crowd had been stirred up against him.
Then the Jews had marched to the stadium, and there they were surrounded by an armed detachment. What else were they supposed to do? The Jews had thrown themselves to the ground and demanded to be executed, but then Pilate had arrived in great haste. He ordered the soldiers to leave the stadium and told the Jews that, though it was a grave affront to imperial dignity, in the interests of keeping the peace he would have the military insignia withdrawn. That is what happened, and not a single hair on anyone’s head was harmed. The malcontents trooped home, and it’s been peaceful since then.
“Is it true that a letter of complaint was sent to Tiberius?” Matthew asked.
“I’ve heard rumors of the kind, but I don’t know for a fact. Allegedly Tiberius wrote back immediately and chided Pilate. But then that’s only gossip; Pilate’s couriers aren’t in the habit of opening his correspondence.”
“So, it’s been peaceful since then?” Alexandros asked.
“Yes, peaceful,” said the Magus, but shook his head to show a lack of conviction. “Except for people: the numbers of crazy people grow by the day. I haven’t visited Jerusalem or been around the two counties for months. The time has come for me to leave this nice, cool villa behind; time to do what I can for the crazy people whose troubles I can sense and recognize. Here I have only one crazy person entrusted to me, and I can do nothing for her any longer.”
After a short pause he added, “It’s been peaceful for too long. A second generation has grown up now that has not seen war. From what I see, people can’t stand peace, because when left in peace there’s time to think — and that is painful. There’s as much deception and lying as ever, but now there is time to get caught up in it. Injustice may be a slow-killing poison, but it does kill. Left in peace, the soul becomes crippled — in war, only the body. It will come to war sooner or later. The Creator planted it in us; somehow the soul must want it that way.”
Alexandros livened up, his eyes flashing:
“And what does the Lord want?”
Simon the Magus look wearily at him.
“The Lord God let us choose for ourselves what sort of trouble to get into with each other and ourselves,” he said, now slipping back into Aramaic. “‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,’ He said. All interpreters of the Law also say it: ‘Do not do unto your neighbor what you would not do unto yourself.’ That is the Great Commandment, the Last Word, on which even the schools of Hillel and Shammai agree. Nobody in their right mind can expect anyone who does not love himself to love his neighbor.”
That was the most comfortable of all their lodgings so far, and Matthew allowed them to wander around as they wished during the day.
“But be back by nightfall,” he ordered. “I don’t know when we will be moving on. We have a whole week to get there.”