However, the overriding problem, Pilate feared, was not so much a matter of loyalty as of numbers. The whole of his military consisted of one ala, a cavalry company, and five infantry cohorts of five to six hundred men each, or about three thousand troops in all. If a well-organized general revolt did erupt in Judea, a mere three thousand men could hardly put it down. At best, they could stage a holding action in their fortresses until help arrived from Syria, hence Pilate’s nagging concern about which legions were available on his borders.
As prefect, he had supreme authority in the military, judicial, and financial administration of Judea throughout the eleven toparchies or districts into which it was divided. Many of the juridical and fiscal responsibilities were assumed by ten local Jewish Sanhedrins in the toparchies, which, in turn, were responsible to the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, with Pilate exercising only general surveillance and hearing appeals. In matters military, however, he could not delegate authority to non-Romans, so such tasks as manning the garrisons, rotating the cohorts, and ensuring logistics regularly occupied his day.
It was now November, and time to restation the five auxiliary cohorts for the winter. One regularly occupied the Tower Antonia, the great fortress that controlled Jerusalem. Another cohort or two was regularly based in Caesarea, while the rest manned various citadels across the countryside. By reshuffling the troops in his garrisons and camps, Pilate hoped to defeat restlessness and boredom among his soldiers.
After the first rain, which signaled the onset of winter, he recalled the Jerusalem cohort to Caesarea. To take its place in the Jewish capital, he dispatched the Augustan Cohort of Sebastenians, a unit from Sebaste that had distinguished itself in putting down a Zealot insurrection some years earlier. The emperor had rewarded it with a special honor, which permitted the cohort to name itself “Augustan” and carry in its identifying colors a special medallion with the emperor’s image.
Just before setting out for Jerusalem, the tribune commander of the Augustan Cohort mentioned to Pilate, “We haven’t been stationed in Jerusalem for some time, so I don’t know how the Jews will react to our ensigns.”
“What do you mean?”
“The other cohorts don’t have iconic standards. There are no images of the princeps or anyone else on them, so the Jews don’t mind them. But anything that’s pictorial offends them.”
“Why?”
“A special command from their deity. I believe it’s in their sacred writings.”
Pilate summoned a member of his council who was the authority on Hebrew religion. He read the following from a book the Jews called Exodus: “You shall not make yourselves a graven image or likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or the earth beneath, or the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them…”
“That’s no problem,” Pilate broke in. “The Jews didn’t make those images. We did. And they certainly don’t have to worship them.”
“My men earned those medallions,” the tribune added, “and removing them would hardly be good for their morale.”
“True,” Pilate said, “but there’s no need to offend the Jews needlessly. Have your cohort enter Jerusalem late at night, when the standards wouldn’t attract attention, and then restrict them to the Antonia. Would the Jews still be offended?”
“Hardly!” the tribune smiled.
“Farewell, then.”
The tribune replied with a smart military salute, clenched fist crossing over to strike his chest.
On the march down to Jerusalem, the men of the Augustan Cohort amused themselves by singing bawdy songs, cursing happily, and exchanging ribald jokes. There was also a good deal of wagering, the stakes set on whether or not they would be back to Caesarea before April, when the rains stopped. They did not look forward to a winter in Jerusalem.
Their nocturnal entry into the city was made without incident, and the tribune thought Pilate’s suggestion particularly well-conceived. Until the next morning.
It all began when an elderly Jew left the north portico of the temple after morning sacrifice and pronounced his daily malediction on the Tower Antonia, the Roman fortress growing out of the northwestern wall of the temple precinct like some incongruous tumor. Then he noticed the new set of standards fluttering from its battlements and squinted for sharper vision. Widening his eyes in disbelief, he scurried back into the temple enclave and climbed a wall for a better vantage point from which to confirm his horrifying discovery. There the unhallowed sight was unmistakable: several spears, standing on a dais, had crossbars from which wreaths and golden disks were hanging. And embossed on the disks in bas-relief were the effigies of human heads!
Compounding the horror of the aged Jew was the fact that just in front of the special shrine in which the ensigns were housed, two Roman centurions were burning incense or doing some mode of sacrifice to these standards. The old Israelite quivered with rage. His eyes ran with tears. The sacrilege! The idolatry! And directly overlooking the holy temple! Turning about, he shouted at the top of his frail lungs: “Thoaivoh ne-estho be-yisroel ubi-yerusholaim! An abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem!” “Abomination! Abomination!”
A cluster of early worshipers, priests, and temple guardsmen quickly surrounded the scandalized elder, all eyes toward the Tower Antonia. “Idolatry! Sacrilege!” they joined in the outcry, and hurried throughout the enclave to summon further witnesses. The trickle of news became a spreading torrent. Within an hour it had swept over Jerusalem in a riptide of fury, and the Antonia was besieged by an immense throng which now broke into an angry chant: “ABOMINATION! REMOVE THE IDOLS! PROFANATION! REMOVE THE IDOLS!”
Up on the Tower, one auxiliary, who had been watching the crowd mass with growing contempt, suddenly sneered, “I’ll give the swine something to really squeal about!” Grabbing the large central standard with the images of Augustus and Tiberius, he tauntingly swayed it to and fro before the multitude. An enraged, deep-throated roar erupted from the crowd.
The situation was worsening when the tribune of the Augustan Cohort appeared and arrested the self-appointed antagonizer. The standards were jerked from his grasp and he was led off in custody, a sight that temporarily calmed the crowd. The tribune took advantage of the moment and called down from the parapets, “Send your representatives into the courtyard. I will hear your grievances.” He looked at the thousands of faces tilted up in his direction and for some moments there was merely a picture of mass hesitation. Then slowly the raised fists were lowered, and the low-key din of discussion replaced the shouting. Several minutes later, the Rabbis Helcias and Jonathan, accompanied by several of the Jewish temple guard, met the tribune inside the Antonia.
“Your military standards are idolatrous!” Jonathan led off.
“Only your opinion,” the tribune countered. “And how can you dictate what colors my cohort should fly?”
“The disks carry graven images. They violate the law of Moses.”
“The medallions are engraved with the busts of Caesar Augustus, who sent gifts of golden candlesticks to your temple and favored you in other ways; and of the Emperor Tiberius, for whom you just sacrificed two lambs and an ox in the temple this morning.”
“For whom, but not to whom!” Helcias objected. “Your soldiers were offering sacrifice to the ensigns, and the emperor cult which they represent.”
“Our cohort won the privilege of flying these medallions from the emperor himself,” the tribune snarled. “How dare you question our insignia!”