The fifth day of the protest saw a dangerous complication developing. The gentile population of Caesarea grew hostile to the demonstration, for it had now interrupted business. In reaction against inflated local prices, the Jews were managing to import their own provisions. The Caesareans busily organized counterdemonstrations, which lavished appropriate insults and catcalls from the surrounding perimeter. One group of town youths released some stolen pigs into the plaza, which the Jews angrily beat off into a squealing retreat. Other gentiles drew rude, insulting portraits of Jews on large sheets of papyrus and hung them from buildings bordering the square.
A few more provocations and Pilate knew it would come to bloodshed, a civil war in his capital less than two months after his arrival—a handsome entry on his record back in Rome! Clearly, the disturbance would have to be terminated.
Following a strategy meeting with his council, he mobilized two local cohorts and ordered a third to come over from Sebaste. Early the next morning, trumpeters silenced the crowd for an announcement. A herald called out that the prefect of Judea would personally reply to their petition from his tribunal in the great stadium at the southeastern edge of town. The people were to assemble there within the hour. The throng hesitated, waited for instructions from the priests, and then did as directed.
The governor’s tribunal or judgment seat could be set up anywhere at will, since it was the portable raised platform used by the Roman magistrate whenever and wherever he acted in official capacity. Obviously, the tribunal might have been erected in front of the palace to accommodate the multitude, but Pilate wanted to raise the siege of his palace and evacuate the plaza.
All the lower tiers of carved stone seats in the great hippodrome at Caesarea were filled with the mass of Jews. Preceded by lictors as he ascended his tribunal, the prefect of Judea was arrayed in a gleaming official toga that flashed more than a modest amount of imperial purple. To inaugurate the ceremonial, a trumpet corps blasted out a fanfare as the golden eagle which symbolized Rome and the purple governor’s standard—Sejanus’s gift at Puteoli—were mounted at the center of the dais. The fluttering pennant with its image of Tiberius caused no crisis, since priests passed the word that Caesarea was not the Holy City, but merely the pagan capital of a foreign power.
As a concession, Pilate did refrain from taking omens or offering public sacrifice. The Jewish leaders were stationed in front of the tribunal, and now they formally renewed their petition for the removal of the hated medallions from Jerusalem.
“You permit no images of any kind? No pictures or portraits? No sculpture?” Pilate inquired.
“No,” they replied.
“Perhaps I can understand your aversion to foreign themes in your art, but have you no representations of even Jewish people or Jewish things?”
“No. Making graven images contradicts the law of Moses and the word of God,” replied Rabbi Eleazar, who was one of the spokesmen.
“Have you no art, then?”
“No pictorial or representative art…only ornamentation and architecture.”
“On that point, gentlemen, you are either playing with the truth or are amazingly uninformed,” countered Pilate, with the half-smiling assurance of one armed with a surprise argument. “I’ve heard that Jews in Mesopotamia paint pictorial frescoes on the walls of their synagogues, no less, while I know for a fact that Jews in Rome draw and sculpt figures of human beings on their burial vaults.”
“Don’t conclude from the sins of our cousins, far-removed from the Holy City, what our true doctrines are,” exclaimed Ishmael ben-Phabi, the incarnation of Judean orthodoxy.
“What about the golden eagle which Herod placed over the very gate of your temple?”
“That was torn down by the people even before his death.”
“What about your coinage, then? Don’t you carry silver denarii with Tiberius Caesar’s image and superscription on them?”
Momentarily the priests paused to ponder Pilate’s argument. Then Rabbi Helcias, the temple treasurer, replied, “Because we must pay tribute to Rome, we must perforce use Rome’s money. But such denarii are never used for tithe offerings at the temple. Also, we attach no religious significance to coinage as you do to your standards. This is the difference.”
“We don’t ask you to worship our standards!” said Pilate, raising his voice, astonished that his argument did not penetrate.
“Our law forbids religious images, especially in the Holy City,” Eleazar replied, equally amazed that Pilate could not grasp the concept.
“Enough!” Pilate shouted down from his tribunal. “Here is my final judgment: the ensigns of the Augustan Cohort will remain in Jerusalem! I shall not insult our emperor by permitting their removal. You must give me your immediate agreement and leave Caesarea at once.”
For several moments there was a shocked silence. Then head turned to head and a furious rumble of discussion began. Finally the spokesmen filed up to the tribunal and said, with one voice, “We shall remain until the idols are removed.” And the rumbling mass voice came to life once again, “REMOVE THE IDOLS! AWAY WITH THE ABOMINATIONS!”
Pilate clapped his hands twice, and suddenly the upper passageways of the great stadium disgorged hundreds of trotting, armed troops who surrounded the multitude in a ring of iron, three men deep. A low, quavering moan welled up from the astounded Jews.
“I convict you all of treason and sedition against Emperor Tiberius Caesar…unless you cease this protest immediately and return to your homes!” Pilate paused, then added, “And the penalty for treason is death.”
His threat caused a great commotion. There was much anguished groaning, and several of the women began to cry hysterically. Many in the crowd recited psalms and prayers, with arms raised heavenward in supplication. Others dropped to their knees or covered their heads. But there was no sign of capitulation.
Pilate glared down at the leaders of the protest and snapped, “Surely you don’t want the blood of these thousands to stain your hands. Lead them back to Jerusalem in peace.”
There was no reply. “Auxiliaries…advance!” Pilate ordered. The armed circle constricted about the host of humanity.
“For the final time,” Pilate announced, “anyone who shows his loyalty to the emperor by leaving Caesarea peacefully may raise his hand and the troops will allow him to pass through their ranks unmolested. Raise your hands and go in peace—now! Those who remain will be cut down where they stand.”
A young boy began to cry, raised his hand, and ran out between the ranks of soldiers. Several women and a few more youngsters followed him. Rabbi Eleazar consulted with his colleagues and then announced, in a voice charged with emotion, “All women and all children under sixteen years of age may raise their hands and depart in peace. Go! But men of Israel, stand firm in the Lord!”
Many of the women and children left, but what appalled Pilate was the number who chose to remain with the men. And not a man left the arena.
One final nudge, Pilate thought, and called out, “Auxiliaries…unsheath your swords!”
A shrill and prolonged rasp of metal against metal rent the air. The Jewish leaders cried, “We would sooner die than see our law transgressed!” and threw themselves onto the ground, baring their necks for macabre convenience. The rest of the assembly also fell prone and joined in singing again, “God is our refuge and strength,” the psalm that had impressed Procula.
Pilate was utterly thwarted. Certainly he had never planned to massacre thousands in cold blood. He was merely playing the time-honored game of bluff. Caesar had used it repeatedly in his campaigns, and it had always worked for him. What should have happened—Pilate had banked on it—was mass hysteria among the Jews and a stampede out of the stadium, then a headlong flight back to Jerusalem. But here they were, like so many docile sheep, bleating for their own slaughter. Pilate was almost angry enough to give the execution order anyway. But he came to his senses with the grimly humorous thought of how his report to Rome would begin: “Pilate to Tiberius: I killed six thousand Jews in my first six weeks here. With that average, I should wipe out the entire nation in a short time…”