“Would that they did just that!” Pilate grunted.
“Part of our cohort from the Antonia was out there to police the crowds, and several of the troops asked John, ‘And we, what shall we do?’”
Pilate moved forward in his chair to catch every syllable of the reply.
“The Baptizer told them, ‘Rob no one, either by violence or by fraud,’ I believe he said, and…oh yes: ‘Be content with your wages.’”
“By Hercules, that’s good advice!” Pilate chuckled. “I’m beginning to like the Baptizer. How did the Jewish authorities react to this fellow?”
“With extreme suspicion. And you can’t blame them. When some of the Pharisees and Sadducees came to hear him, this John blasted them with such a verbal assault as I’ve never heard before. ‘You brood of vipers!’ he snarled. ‘Who warned you to flee from the approaching wrath? Repent!’”
“Brood of vipers?” Pilate laughed. “A real Demosthenes!”
“That’s about it. Oh, later in Jerusalem I heard a rumor that the Baptizer had actually singled out some Galilean in his crowds as the coming Messiah.”
“What? Any demonstration by the people in support of this Galilean?”
“Nothing I heard about.”
Pilate paused to think. “And John the Baptizer…what, if anything, should we do about him?”
“I think he’s moving beyond the Jordan, so we can’t touch him. That’s Herod Antipas’s territory.”
“And even if he stays in Judea,” Pilate said, “I think we should let him alone. Unless, of course, he raises a sedition. He may be a good counterpoise to the Jerusalem authorities. The greater the number of divisions among the Jews, the harder it’ll be for them to unite against us. Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Essenes, followers of the Baptizer—several more parties wouldn’t hurt at all.” Pilate reflected, then smiled. “And John’s attacks on the tetrarch of Galilee and his beloved Herodias make me look positively virtuous by comparison.”
As it happened, John the Baptizer was no long-distance critic. Instead of castigating Antipas from the safety of Pilate’s Judea, the desert prophet boldly crossed over into the territory of the tetrarch to continue his preaching.
During the remainder of the year 29, Roman travelers visiting Caesarea told Pilate of dramatic changes taking place back in Rome. An era had passed, they said, with the death of the aged empress-mother Livia, wife of Augustus. Surprisingly, Tiberius had not left Capri to attend his own mother’s funeral. Public business detained him, he claimed. But all Rome knew that mother and son had been estranged ever since her attempt to interfere in affairs of state. Indeed, many gossiped that Livia herself was the real reason for Tiberius’s prolonged sojourn at Capri.
Shortly after Livia’s death, Pilate was told, the long struggle between Sejanus and Agrippina came to a head. Ever since the praetorian commander saved his life at The Grotto, Tiberius had placed progressively greater confidence in Sejanus, and the after-effects of the Sabinus affair now gave him an enormous advantage.
Titius Sabinus, a leader of Agrippina’s party, had been indicted for plotting to murder Tiberius and raise Agrippina’s son to the throne. The Senate ordered the execution of Sabinus, and his corpse was pitched down the Stairs of Mourning, that steep flight of steps over which bodies of traitors were hurled into the Tiber.
Although there was no proof that Agrippina and her son Nero* were implicated in the plot, Tiberius added to the climate of suspicion by sending the Senate a letter which faulted Agrippina for pride and arrogance, and accused Nero of homosexuality and profligacy. Since the letter contained no direct charge of treason, the Senate found itself in a terrible dilemma. Any motion of censure would be a mortal offense to Nero, the heir apparent, while failure to act would antagonize the reigning emperor.
During the debate, the Senate house was surrounded by a mob which brandished images of Agrippina and her son, pleaded for their safety, and shouted that the princeps’ letter was a forgery. The demonstration turned into a riot, which cowed the Senate into dispersing without acting on Tiberius’s communication. At that report, Pilate derived a bit of comfort from the fact that he was not the only Roman magistrate to face angry crowds.
Sejanus, of course, quickly mastered the situation with his praetorians, but warned Tiberius that sedition was in the air and that a coup in favor of his adoptive daughter-in-law and grandson was possible. The emperor dispatched an angry missive to the Senate, rebuking the Roman rabble for disloyalty and calling the Senate’s temporizing an insult to the imperial majesty.
Senators, in fright, hastened to fall in line. They vied with one another in a scramble to introduce motions declaring Agrippina and Nero public enemies. The decrees passed unanimously, leaving their punishment up to the emperor.
Tiberius soon banished Agrippina to Pandateria and Nero to Pontia. Both were islands, some thirty-five miles off the Italian coast near The Grotto. Sejanus had triumphed.
News of these events relieved Pontius Pilate, since his very career was staked to Sejanus’s success. Had Agrippina been victorious and Sejanus been exiled, all Tiberius’s appointments which had been made with the advice of the fallen prefect would likely have lapsed. Pilate would have been recalled. At best, his political career would have been at an end; at worst, if Agrippina wished to institute a vindictive purge, he might well have shared in Sejanus’s disgrace and exile.
Early the next year, news of Sejanus’s further success reached Caesarea. The Senate had continued its campaign against the house of Agrippina by pronouncing another of her sons a public enemy; and the youth, Drusus, was imprisoned in an underground chamber at the Palatine palace. Romans now ventured to speak openly of Sejanus as virtual successor to the imperial throne, since only one son of Agrippina remained—Gaius (Caligula)—but he was barely eighteen, and if he proved disloyal and went the way of his brothers, it would be Emperor Sejanus, pure and simple.
Throughout 30 A.D., successive reports reaching Pilate added brush strokes to the portrait of Sejanus’s prospects. The Senate voted that his birthday should be a public celebration, and gilded statues of him were appearing throughout Rome. Whenever public officials consulted Tiberius, they now always consulted Sejanus as well. His mansion was besieged with delegations. Public prayers and sacrifices were offered “in behalf of Tiberius and Sejanus.”
Pilate peered into his own future, quaffing the news from Rome like heady wine. He reckoned himself in the inner circle of Sejanus’s closest political adherents, and had not the prefect personally promised greater honors if he proved himself in Judea? Sejanus had climbed the praetorian stairs to success, a route similar to his own, and what would be more natural for Sejanus as emperor than to extend a helping hand to one who was standing where he once stood?
What appointment would Sejanus give him after Judea? Another province, perhaps Egypt? More likely, one of the major administrative posts in Roman government. Sejanus would want to be surrounded by his own men. Nearly any office would be open to Pilate, including the privilege of sitting in the Senate, or even that proven springboard to limitless power, praetorian prefect, vice-emperor of Rome.
Or was he fooling himself? How high did he really rank in Sejanus’s favor? Would Sejanus’s accession actually spell his own advancement? With a twinge of regret, Pilate recalled how Sejanus had criticized his handling of the standards episode. But surely his firmness during the aqueduct riot more than counterbalanced any image of a “weak Pilate” Sejanus might have conjured up for himself.