“Ah, but don’t you have a surplus after you’ve met the primary obligations of the tribute?” Caiaphas countered, argument for argument.
“No. All surplus in the provinces goes to the emperor, who uses it for government. Running the Empire is enormously expensive.”
“Well, the sacred money can’t be used in this manner,” Helcias insisted.
“But if the offerings are given for the maintenance of the temple, this must certainly include provision for an adequate water supply.”
“Providing water is a secular, not a religious matter,” Caiaphas argued. “It is the concern of the civil and political authorities, not the priests. Therefore the Corban may not be used for this purpose.”
“But the temple is the largest user of this ‘secular water,’ if you will, in the city of Jerusalem. Stones and mortar may be secular construction materials, but they built your very religious temple. Your sharp distinction between temple and state suggests a refuge from fiscal responsibility.”
Caiaphas glared at Pilate. “If you don’t respect my opinions in this matter, respect the people’s, then. The people would not permit the Corban to be used for this purpose.”
“The people will be grateful for a copious water supply. Probably only the ultra-orthodox would object to such an application of the treasury, and then only if they learned about it. You see, you need not publicly announce that the temple treasury will underwrite the aqueduct.”
“I doubt if the Sanhedrin would allow it.”
“That’s your affair, Pontiff Caiaphas. But do point out to the Sanhedrin an interesting group of traditional laws taught by your sages concerning the use of shekalim. They may have some bearing on this question.”
Pilate was smiling. He had played his trump, and he knew it ended the discussion. Astonished that a Roman prefect even knew of the existence of the halakoth or Jewish traditional laws, Caiaphas and Helcias excused themselves, promising to bring the matter before the governing council of the Sanhedrin.
His adviser on Hebrew affairs had alerted Pilate to the traditions concerning the use of shekalim, the half-shekel temple dues, and these approved using any surplus from the temple offerings for the upkeep of “the city wall and the towers thereof, and all the city’s needs.” And foremost among the needs of any metropolis was adequate water supply. In fact, maintaining the temple water channel was one of the items specifically sanctioned as proper expenditures of the temple treasury.
Two days later, Caiaphas and Helcias informed Pilate that the Corban would help defray the cost of the aqueduct, but only under the following conditions:
1. The temple authorities agreed to the arrangement only under protest.
2. Since this was a private agreement between the prefect and the temple authorities, the financing of the aqueduct was to be kept in confidence by both parties.
3. If the public learned that the sacred treasury was subsidizing the aqueduct, the temple authorities would state that their hands had been forced in the matter.
4. Instead of supplying some new reservoir in Jerusalem, the aqueduct was to lead directly into the system of underground cisterns already in existence under the temple. These basins, enlarged to receive the new flow, would, in turn, supply the rest of the city.
The last item surprised Pilate, since he had imagined that there was nothing but rock under the temple. His engineers surveyed the ancient cisterns cut into the temple mount and reported that some were of great capacity, fifty to sixty feet deep. One of the larger basins, called The Great Sea by the priests, had an estimated two-million-gallon capacity, though it was nearly bone-dry at the time. The cisterns could easily be expanded without weakening the temple foundations, and the enlarged capacity would receive anything the proposed aqueduct could provide. And since the temple mount was higher than much of Jerusalem, the cisterns could supply continuous water pressure to the city conduits.
Now it was merely a matter of haggling between Pilate and Caiaphas on final terms of their agreement. Caiaphas understandably insisted on an absolute upper limit to the amount of the Corban’s contribution, whereas Pilate would have preferred submitting a final statement reflecting actual expenditure. They finally compromised on a formula whereby the temple treasury would underwrite the full cost of extending the underground cisterns, but only three-quarters of the estimated expense for the rest of the aqueduct. Pilate reasoned that his Jerusalem cohort could provide the extra labor which would enable him to make up the difference. Now he could slake Jerusalem’s thirst without upsetting his ledgers in Caesarea.
Pilate and Procula left Jerusalem with the satisfaction of seeing preliminary construction crews already at work. The populace was delighted with the prospect of a better water supply—it was rumored that new public fountains would be installed—and, as happens so often in civic ventures, no one bothered to ask who was footing the bill.
Chapter 9
The prestige of the prefect of Judea was now more than salvaged. His subjects were starting to forget the quarrel over the military standards, since Pilate had kept his part of the agreement: no more offending medallions were brought into Jerusalem. On the contrary, and unlike previous governors of Judea, this Roman was apparently interested in public welfare; the new water system under construction in Jerusalem attested to that. The Jews were prepared to forgive.
Inevitably, Pilate was more popular with his gentile subjects. During the winter of 27–28, Caesarea’s Tiberiéum was completed, although artistic embellishments would be added to the structure for the next decade. But it was now open to the citizenry, and at the formal dedication a letter from the emperor himself was read, dispatched directly from Capri. There was no question that Tiberius had authored it. Who else would thank the Caesareans for not having honored him with a temple, and then suggest that even the Tiberiéum might be excessive? Who, but the same person who would regard it as an insult if the structure had not been named in his honor! The letter concluded with an accolade for Pilate, which, of course, had been one of the desirable side effects of the entire project.
The following spring, Pilate took Procula north to Antioch, the Syrian capital, on a business-and-pleasure visit. He had administrative matters to discuss with Pacuvius, the legate and acting governor in place of the absentee Aelius Lamia.
Pacuvius, Pilate discovered, was an epicure who had one of the strangest habits imaginable in an era of bizarre conduct: he regularly held mock funerals for himself. In the midst of the feasting and drinking at his own wake, he would have himself carried to the bedroom while his eunuchs sang, “He has lived his life! He has lived his life!” He explained it to Pilate thus: “This way I get to enjoy my own funeral, and each new day is a bonus for one fully prepared to die.” Pilate did not try to plumb Pacuvius’s logic.
Procula, meanwhile, went sightseeing in Antioch. She found the city corrupt, confusing, crowded, but a richly cultured and altogether fascinating place. To the unskilled observer it seemed another Alexandria, but this was no center of learning, as the Egyptian capital. Antioch was rather given over to trade and pleasure, with emphasis on the latter. Daphne, one of its suburbs, was known throughout the Mediterranean as a hedonist’s paradise, a Levantine center for sacred prostitution.
One afternoon while her husband was busy with Pacuvius, Procula paid a cautious visit to Daphne and was enthralled with the natural beauty of the sprawling park. Lushly wooded with thick groves of laurel and cypress, the delightful pleasure resort was gushing with brooks, rapids, and waterfalls. At the center of it all stood the great shrine to Apollo, which conferred the right of asylum on the entire preserve and, incidentally, attracted to the park a variety of society’s outcasts.