When Jerusalem finally appeared beyond a high ridge, the city seemed more like a mirage shimmering upward in the heat, a glistening sight quite painful to the eye. Its lime-white walls and buildings formed too stark a contrast in reflecting the afternoon sun against a background of brown hills and azure sky.
Procula confessed that it was one of the most fascinatingly odd-shaped cities she had ever seen. Whereas most metropolises had their focus of importance in a central citadel, marketplace, or forum, Jerusalem had apparently shoved hers off to one side. Nothing in the center of the city compared to the broad rectangular area wedged into its northeastern corner. This was the sprawling temple enclave, bordered by a maze of colonnaded porticoes and gates, which occupied nearly a quarter of Jerusalem. To the Jews, this was the center of the world. In the middle of the uncluttered terrace and gleaming in Hellenistic style, yet Semitic opulence, stood the great temple itself.
But just northwest of it was an architectural error, the Tower Antonia, so-named by Herod for his patron, Mark Antony. “That ugly fortress doesn’t belong there,” Procula objected. And it was true. The Antonia, while not ugly, was clearly out of place in its setting. It was a square citadel, a turret rising from each of its corners, with the colors of Pilate’s second cohort fluttering from the battlements. The fact that this stronghold was taller than the temple and dominated the sacred precinct had magnified Jewish irritation at the time of the standards affair. Nature was partially responsible, the base of the Antonia being a sharp butte of living rock which had always loomed over the temple area; and to protect the city, that rocky rise had been fortified long before Rome arrived in Judea.
Pilate and Procula were still at the summit of a suburban ridge, a splendid vantage point for viewing the whole of Jerusalem. “It’s clear that Herod’s been here,” Procula observed. “Look at the theater over there.”
“Yes, and there’s a hippodrome just south of the city. And see the little Greek forum just off the west wall of the temple? Back of that colonnade there’s even a gymnasium.”
“A Hellenization of Jerusalem?”
“Oh, Herod didn’t really Hellenize the city—it was his supporters, the Herodians, and some of the local gentiles who used these facilities.”
“Down there, Pilate, just below us—what are those poles stuck in the ground on that rise?”
“That’s Skull Place, as the Jews call it. Golgotha in their language. A good name, because capital cases are crucified there.”
Pilate signaled his cavalry escort to move on, and the retinue clattered into Jerusalem through the western or Water Gate. Immediately, Procula felt engulfed by another world, at least a millennium more ancient. Jerusalem’s labyrinthine lanes and passages were a confusion of Oriental sights, sounds, and smells. An aroma of aged mutton hovered over the city, exuding from countless little butcheries along the streets, no two of which seemed on the same level. There were choruses of sheep bleating, donkeys braying in ridiculous staccato, and above it all, citizens calling to each other in a tongue Procula could not decipher. It was Aramaic, the everyday language of Palestine, though some of the sages in Jerusalem communicated in pure Mishnaic Hebrew.
Slowed by the crowded streets, their retinue attracted some attention. The pointing hands and craning necks spoke a language of their own but the message was clear: “Look—there’s the governor and his wife.” Neither happy nor hostile, the people merely seemed curious. But because there were so many of them, Procula felt a pang of self-consciousness and kept rearranging her shawl to hide more of her face until a sharp turn brought them into the relative privacy of Herod’s palace courtyard, just south of the west gate.
Styled in the finest Hellenistic tradition, with lavish use of porticoes interrupted by pools and fountains, the palace was sybaritic in its luxury. Plainly, it was even larger than the temple itself, although its surrounding terrace was not comparable. The royal residence was divided into two wings, which Herod had named the Caesareum and the Agrippeum, in honor of his two most important friends.
Inside, Procula admitted that she had seen no mansion in Rome which could match the sweeping height of the interior chambers, all trimmed with alabaster, and only the imperial palace on the Palatine harbored the exquisite gold and marbled furniture that Herod had accumulated here from distant lands. The palace at Caesarea was opulent; this one was prodigal. The difference, easily explained, was that Herod had spent most of his time in Jerusalem.
Pilate stationed his cavalrymen at one end of the Agrippeum, in handsome barracks Herod had constructed for his bodyguard. Their revelry that night could not even be heard in the main atrium of the Caesareum, testimony enough to the size of the place.
Procula spent the next days digesting the Jewish capital. While her husband was occupied with official business, she explored the city with several women of the Herodian palace staff. The great temple she found particularly intriguing, but her first visit to the sacred enclave nearly caused a riot.
While her attendants were chatting with a friend in the outer courtyard of the temple, Procula moved beyond a low balustrade on the terrace and was climbing the steps to peer into the sacred interior of the sanctuary. Suddenly a cry shattered the air, and in a trice she was surrounded by a band of angry temple guards, each brandishing a short stave. Their captain unleashed a furious torrent of Aramaic.
Procula’s women rushed up to where she stood and almost hysterically shouted back in the same language. Several of them were in tears and nearly beside themselves.
Glowering at Procula, the captain demanded, “Why have you, a gentile, violated our Holy Temple?”
Both afraid and yet angry, Procula merely stared fiercely at the man, since she could not understand him.
“Don’t touch this woman!” one of her attendants cried. “She’s the governor’s wife!”
Momentarily stunned, the captain of the guards asked, “But why did she try to subvert our law?”
“She didn’t know about the restriction! It was our fault for not warning her. But don’t worry, she didn’t defile the temple itself.”
The captain pondered momentarily, then said, “No matter. She must pay the penalty.”
“You utter fool! You’d execute the wife of your governor? Have you lost your mind?”
The captain hesitated. “Well, we’d better take this matter before the high priest and the Sanhedrin.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, you blunderer!” Procula’s attendant hissed. “Unless you want the armies of Rome to destroy Jerusalem for your folly in arresting the wife of a Roman prefect!” Then, switching to Greek, she said, “Come, Lady Procula.”
The guards, completely befuddled about what to do in such an unprecedented circumstance, stood aside and let Procula return to the women. Only then did she follow their pointing fingers to a stone tablet embedded in one of thirteen similar columns surrounding the temple. They all bore this inscription, in Greek:
Let no gentile enter within the balustrade and enclosure surrounding the sanctuary. Whoever is caught will be personally responsible for his consequent death.
First then did Procula realize the mortal danger into which she had innocently strayed.
Legally, Pilate could not have saved his own wife had the Jewish authorities—as seems unlikely—condemned her for this infraction. But the brave bluff of the women had prevented any extension of the incident, and they all hurried back to Herod’s palace.
Pilate was angry at the confrontation. Several times he asked the women if any of the guards had laid a finger on Procula. Then, recalling his role as governor, not just husband, he inquired if any imbroglio had developed among bystanders at what they might justifiably consider an outrage. A negative to both queries closed the book on the incident.