The dust settled. Bodies, bruised and brutally torn into shreds of red flesh, lay strewn in clusters near the two major exits, trampled to death by the panicking crowd. Hysteria had claimed as many lives as had Roman clubs and swords.
The plaza quivered with wounded demanding immediate attention. One bewildered casualty tried to stand up, but collapsed because his left foot was missing. Pilate ordered his troops to give aid to the injured, but few Jewish mothers wanted his men to so much as touch their wounded sons and husbands.
Jerusalem’s new water supply was used for a quite unexpected purpose: washing the wounded, cleansing the dead. Slowly, the square was cleared. There were no further protests. And everyone began using Jerusalem’s improved water system—a victory hollowed, Pilate knew, by his resort to force.
Frustration, resentment, and especially apprehension swirled in the cauldron of his emotions. Would the violence go down in Jewish memory as “The Jerusalem Massacre,” or rank simply as “Riot Number 13” in the perennial quarrel between Jew and Roman? On the answer to that question hung the chances of his success or failure as prefect of Judea.
When he returned to Caesarea, Procula wanted to know everything, and this time he had to recount events that she had missed with something less than enthusiasm. As if to compound his mood, he found her asking some searching questions about the aqueduct riot.
“I know you were in a terrible spot,” she admitted, “but put yourself in place of the Jews. They had imagined all along that Rome was paying for the aqueduct, only to discover that it was their own temple treasury instead.”
“What we should’ve done, I see now, was to announce from the start that it was legal to use temple funds for that purpose, so people would’ve gotten used to the idea. Because our action was legitimate. No one seems to remember that.”
“All right, but once the protest was made, did you really have to resort to force?”
“I tried to avoid it. They left me no choice. You should’ve heard the insults, some even involving you.”
“The people wouldn’t move away from the palace. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you simply leave them standing there and go on about your business?”
“For days on end, like the first time here in Caesarea?”
“Why not? Wouldn’t that have been better than bloodshed? Eventually the crowd would have dispersed itself in boredom.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Some fanatics would probably have camped there permanently. But you fail to see that this demonstration was a direct challenge to Rome. To have let it go unopposed would have flaunted weakness and encouraged a Jewish revolt. That point is simply beyond debate.”
“But why kill anyone?”
“I told you,” Pilate snapped, “I ordered my men not to use swords. They exceeded my orders. Some had to. We were greatly outnumbered, of course.”
“I wonder. Your men were armed and prepared. The crowd was not.”
Now at the end of his patience, Pilate fairly exploded: “What do you take me for, Volesus Messala, the proconsul of Asia who beheaded three hundred provincials one morning, then strutted among the corpses, boasting, ‘What a kingly deed!’? I hate this kind of thing.”
“But…”
“But why go to Asia? Let’s look at the record here in Judea. At the time Herod died, our legate Varus had to put down an insurrection in Jerusalem. He ended by crucifying two thousand Jews. And if you think that’s bad for a Roman—and it is—remember what the Jewish King Alexander Jannaeus did to fellow Jews who opposed him. While that wretch was lounging with his concubines at a public feast, he had eight hundred of them crucified for his entertainment; and, while they were still alive, he ordered the throats of their wives and children cut before their very eyes.”
“Stop, Pilate!”
“Well, against that kind of cruelty, don’t quarrel with a necessary police action which unfortunately resulted in some casualties.”
“Tell me, Pilate, can one justify a wrong by resorting to favorable comparison with a greater wrong?”
Pilate clenched his hands until the knuckles whitened. “I had to do it, Procula.”
Chapter 10
Jerusalem was quiet now. No further anti-Roman demonstrations followed the clash over the aqueduct, but deep resentment against Pilate lingered. That this did not ignite sympathy riots elsewhere in Judea was due less to any chastened mood of the Jews than to their greater concern over the Antipas-Herodias scandal in Galilee.
The smoldering indignation of the people at this notorious misalliance was being fanned into flame by a newly popular desert prophet named John the Baptizer, who was holding forth in the rugged badlands east of Jerusalem toward the Jordan River. John would have escaped Pilate’s notice but for two factors which could prove dangerous when combined: first, the man was apparently announcing some oncoming world crisis—“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” was his most typical pronouncement in reports Pilate gleaned concerning the wilderness preacher; second, great numbers of Judeans of all classes were marching out into the desert to hear him. Many were being converted and washed at the Jordan in a purification rite called baptism.
Prophets of judgment and doom were familiar enough in Pilate’s world; they cluttered public squares from the Athenian agora to the Roman Forum. But they had few listeners, fewer converts. The Baptizer, by contrast, was commanding multitudes with his oratory, and the locale was not sophisticated Rome or Greece, but volatile, ever-turbulent Judea. Here, possibly, was another pseudo-Messiah in the making, another religio-political troublemaker who could add to the administrative woes of the prefect of Judea.
Pilate dispatched an Aramaic-speaking aide down to the Judean wilds to hear John and report back to him on the movement. The intelligence that he provided, after his return, answered a few questions, but raised so many more that it left Pilate thoroughly perplexed.
“This John makes no Messianic claims for himself, so you can bury your anxiety on that score,” the aide told Pilate. “One look at the man, of course, would convince anyone that he’s not the Jewish Messiah. Hardly.” He laughed. “He wears a straggly beard and a rough camelskin tunic with a leather belt. I inquired about his background, and it seems he was associated for a while with the Essene monastery just above the Asphalt Lake. Then he launched out into the wilderness on his own, keeping himself alive on a diet of honeycombs and—would you believe it—insects, locusts!”
“Friend, fried grasshoppers are a delicacy on Roman tables,” Pilate advised. “It seems your Baptizer is something of a primitive gourmet…But how do you know he doesn’t have Messianic ambitions?”
“While I was there, some priests from Jerusalem asked him about it, and he said, ‘I am not the Messiah.’ Then they inquired, ‘Are you the prophet Elijah?’ He said, ‘No.’ Finally, they demanded point-blank, ‘Who are you then? What do you have to say about yourself?’”
“How did he answer that?”
“‘I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord.’”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That he’s the forerunner of the Messiah, who’s just about ready to appear in Judea.”
Pilate frowned. “How did this news strike the people?”
“Hard to say. Some seemed disappointed that John himself was not the Messiah, since he preaches a powerful message and is regarded as a kind of oracle for advice. For instance, some of the pious folk asked him how they ought to live, and he gave them a simple message about sharing. But then some tax collectors also wanted counsel, and he suggested, ‘Collect no more than your due.’”