It seemed an accurate prediction, for by the time they had finished lunch, the chanting had indeed stopped and Pilate received congratulations for the way he handled his first encounter with the Jews.
Early the next morning, Pilate confidently climbed up to his balcony to survey the square in front of his palace, certain it would be empty of people but for a few fanatic diehards. He had already dispatched a squad of troops to clean up the litter that would be left by the departed throng.
He looked out over the balustrade and cringed; if anything, the masses had grown during the night. Scattered shouts began to ricochet among the jews—“Look! There’s the prefect!”—and a thousand arms pointed toward the balcony. A colossal blanket of people, ruddy orange in the rising sun, came quivering to life. They stood up and started shouting, “Remove the idols!”
Pilate jerked himself away from the railing and retreated inside the palace. Now angry rather than startled, he summoned his staff and announced orders for the day: “One cohort to guard the palace—yours takes over today, Tribune—but it will be normal routine for the rest of you. That mob can shout till its voice is a gravelly whisper! We’ve tried to reason with them, but the emperor’s honor must be preserved. Tribune, tell your men not to antagonize the crowd, but be prepared to defend yourselves if necessary.”
It became an exasperating day, with tempers getting shorter each passing hour. Periodically the clamor grew intense, then it would vanish for several hours. From the women’s quarters of the palace, Procula looked down at the multitude, ill with uncertainty but trying to manage a confident front for her husband. She wanted to plead with him to give in. After all, what were a few military emblems compared to the peace of a nation? But she knew better than to inject herself into affairs of state. From the first reports of turmoil in Jerusalem, she had had a premonition that the affair would expand into major trouble for her husband, but she had not expected to have thousands camping on her doorstep. What if it came to violence? She was sure that the noisy mob could overwhelm the palace guard. For the first time in her life, Procula knew fear—haunting, numbing fear.
The third day it rained. Pilate looked up at the clouds and was jubilant. “Ave, Jupiter Pluvius! More, you Rainbringer!” And as if in response, a heavy squall blew in from the Mediterranean, unleashing a deluge upon the protesting throng. A relentless, soaking drizzle followed.
Soldiers reported that some of the Jews were starting to leave the square. “Fine. How many?” Pilate inquired. He dispatched couriers to take counts at the three points of exit. A half hour later they returned to report, “According to our tally, about twenty-seven people left during the squall, and—”
“What! Only twenty-seven out of all those thousands?”
“They were the very aged. I understand the priests instructed them to leave.”
“Incredible!”
That evening, dozens of campfires illuminated the square as the Jews dried their clothes and warmed themselves against the bleak November night. They joined in singing some plaintive folk songs, which penetrated the palace as if it had walls of gauze instead of stone. One haunting psalm tune seemed to be repeated often, with everyone joining in the singing. Procula asked one of her attendants who knew Hebrew about it. “Oh, that’s very familiar, very sacred to them,” she said, and then supplied a translation.
God is our refuge and strength—a well-proven help in trouble.
So we will not fear though the earth should change
—or mountains quake in the heart of the sea.
The other nations rage, their kingdoms totter
—He utters his voice, the earth melts.
He makes wars cease throughout the earth
—He breaks the bow, shatters the spear, burns the chariots.
“Be still, and know that I am God.
—I am exalted among the nations, exalted in the earth!”
The Lord of hosts is with us—the God of Jacob is our refuge.
“Why that’s beautiful poetry,” Procula commented.
“Their mythology leaves no doubt as to who is in charge of the world,” Pilate observed.
“Only this isn’t mythology to the Jews, Excellency,” Procula’s attendant replied. “They believe their god truly possesses this majesty.”
“If Romans had one-quarter of their faith,” Procula noted, “Augustus wouldn’t have had to legislate religion or take citizens by the scruff of the neck and make them sacrifice to the gods.”
“But if it breeds this kind of fanaticism—adult, presumably intelligent people inviting illness—then Judaism commands my sympathy, not my admiration.”
Pilate, of course, could not forget the mass at his door, and that night he even dreamed about the multitude. He was on the dais in front of the palace, holding a huge ensign from which dangled two enormous iconic disks with the imperial busts. On the balcony were Tiberius and Sejanus, glaring down at him as if anticipating weakness on his part. The mob howled in a ghastly frenzy, but Pilate refused to give in. Finally the Jews stormed the dais, clutched at the disks, and triumphantly tore them to tatters. With a hideous scowl, Tiberius ordered a review of Pilate’s cohorts and sentenced them to decimation, that terrible military punishment for failure which selected every tenth man for execution by flogging before the eyes of the rest of the troops. The grisly tally ended with a ninth man at the end of the ranks. Pointing a quaking finger at Pilate with a malicious leer on his pock-marked face, Tiberius ordered that he be the final tenth—a terror which lurched him awake. But behind the grotesque caricature of the nocturnal fantasy had been a certain grim logic, Pilate thought.
And now it was the fourth day. The crowd had not budged. Pilate turned the palace over to his highest-ranking tribune, ordered a carriage and guard, and retreated with Procula into the countryside. Since the conveyance could be closed against public gaze, there was no difficulty escaping the people, and Pilate felt entitled to a brief rest. They turned north up the coast road toward the grandeur of Mount Carmel, trying to shed their common concern before the spectacular seascapes along that part of the Palestinian coast. The storm of the previous day had cleared the air, and it seemed that spring, not winter, was approaching.
There was no conversation about the Jewish demonstration. They had finally discussed it the previous night, but without resolution. He would not retreat where Rome’s honor was concerned, while she urged him to concede such minutiae as the medallions in order to keep the peace. Only she regretted using the word “minutiae,” since Pilate had nearly exploded at it, delivering a heated lecture on the consequences if Tiberius learned that his bust had been removed from regimental colors.
For the first time Pilate wondered what would happen if events actually came to bloodshed in Caesarea. Would it spark a general revolt in Judea? An angry mob in one city was not that dangerous, but a whole province in arms was something else, and certainly more than five cohorts could handle. When he had suggested to Sejanus that Judea might be undermanned, the only answer he received was: “Just 1,200 men, strategically placed, control all Gaul. A mere score of lictors keep the peace in Asia Minor. You should have no trouble in little Judea, Pilate. We need our legions on the frontiers.” At the time he had recoiled with embarrassment. Now he wished he had expressed a strong counterargument: unlike Gaul or Asia, Judea was practically the only rebel province in the Roman Empire, having been torn by twelve major rebellions since its conquest.
The outing did little good. It was not even an escape, since nature seemed to conspire with the Jews in reminding Pilate of their protest. The panorama of whitecaps rolling in from the Mediterranean looked like the Jewish thousands. The tiers of pine trees staring down at them from the somber green hills were the Jewish thousands. Even the approaching rows of white clouds high in the northern sky were the Jewish thousands. Pilate ordered his driver to turn back to Caesarea.