Indeed, Sejanus had reacted to Pilate’s report of the aqueduct imbroglio with enthusiastic approval of his use of force. His only regret, in fact, was that many more rioters had not been killed as a standing object lesson to any would-be Jewish revolutionaries. Pilate noticed that the anti-Semitic streak in Sejanus was now blossoming into a full-blown hatred of the Jews, magnified also by the burning glass of political hostility, for many Jews had supported Agrippina’s Julian party in tribute to Caesar’s memory. According to reports, the Roman Jews, in turn, were becoming thoroughly alarmed at Sejanus’s continuing triumphs.
Pilate had a different cause for concern: Sejanus had not written him in months. All this information was coming from unofficial sources. But one day, finally, a praetorian courier delivered a communication which was virtually imprisoned under heavy seals. Pilate whittled away at them with his dagger and read:
L. Aelius Sejanus to Pontius Pilatus, greeting. The task of securing Rome against our enemies must excuse my interrupted correspondence. By now you must have heard that victory is ours.
Does this mean we can relax our guard? The gods forbid! The princeps hints that he may pardon the sons of Agrippina. And who is the enemy which silently plots my destruction and secretly assists the cause of Agrippina? The Jews of Rome. Here, I think, is their line of communication: the Jews contact members of Herod’s house living here in Rome, particularly Berenice. (She is the mother of that Herodias whom you wrote about, the one who recently married Herod Antipas.) And Berenice has the ear of the Lady Antonia (Mark Antony’s daughter and sister-in-law of Tiberius), who has access to the princeps. And what message runs from the Jews to Berenice to Antonia to Tiberius? “Sejanus is a danger to the state.”
I have warned the Jewish leaders in the Trans-Tiber that I will no longer tolerate their schemes against the state. In reprisal, you must now move to restrict the Judean authorities in some way. Write me what specific measures you will undertake. My reasoning should be obvious: pressure on Judaism is applied much more effectively at the heart than at the extremities.
How far has your project of Romanizing the Jews proceeded? Not far, I fear, but you had set yourself a virtually impossible task to begin with. Continue firm in Judea, Pilate, and you will have an auspicious future. Farewell.
Pilate was perplexed by the letter, if not alarmed. Small wonder it had been sealed so tightly. Never before had Sejanus betrayed such emotional anti-Semitism. Although he was anything but a pro-Jewish partisan, Pilate wondered if Sejanus was justified in ascribing all of his woes to the Jews of Rome. He found several glaring chinks in Sejanus’s logic. If, indeed, the Jews had used a Berenice-Antonia-Tiberius route for attacking him, it might only have been in defense against Sejanus’s prior attacks on them. Even more likely would be Antonia’s own aversion to Sejanus: Agrippina, after all, was her daughter-in-law. It would hardly take Berenice to suggest to her that the praetorian prefect was ruining her family.
Fulfilling the directives in Sejanus’s letter would be difficult, but there was no alternative to compliance. The idea of some restriction on the local Jewish leadership might be feasible; it might also prove disastrous to the peace of the land. It would have to be some token which looked big to Rome, but was not that fundamentally important to the Sanhedrin, Pilate decided.
He took his clue from a curious custom regarding the robes of the high priest. In order to control the Jewish priesthood, Herod had gained custody of the sacred vestments and Rome succeeded Herod in that prerogative. Worn by the pontiff only four times a year, at major festivals, the robes were locked in the Antonia until the feasts approached, when they were given back to the priests, who had to return them immediately afterward. It was a token of Roman supremacy which had never sparked a riot. Pilate looked for a similar symbolic restriction of the Sanhedrin.
He found it in the jus gladii, the “law of the sword,” the right to execute in cases of capital punishment. Until now, the Great Sanhedrin had full authority to conduct trials and execute sentences for capital crimes perpetrated by Jews in Judea. To implement Sejanus’s directives, Pilate now planned to withdraw from the Sanhedrin the right of execution and add it to the jus gladii already possessed by the Roman prefect. From now on, the Sanhedrin could continue to try Jews in capital cases, even find them worthy of death, but the actual sentencing and execution would have to be carried out by the prefect of Judea.
Pilate was pleased with the idea. In Roman eyes, nothing showed sovereignty so much as the right to control sentences of death. He could easily play this up in his report and so satisfy Sejanus. As to Jewish feelings in the matter, he could assure the Sanhedrin that their right to try capital crimes was not grossly affected, since the prefect would usually confirm the sentence determined by them. It might actually be a convenience to the Jewish authorities, since the nasty business of execution would be taken out of their hands.
During his visit to Jerusalem at the Passover of 30, Pilate discussed his planned revision with Caiaphas. Confiding to him the pressures from Sejanus which had prompted the change—and as diplomatically as he could—he gave the high priest no choice but to accept.
Caiaphas brought the news to the Sanhedrin, and fully a week passed before he reported their reaction. They had grudgingly accepted, but with the stipulation that Pilate and his successors never alter their verdict in a capital case. Pilate said that he would discuss the proviso with his superiors. At any rate, in symbolic response to the new limitation, the Sanhedrin ceased meeting in the Hall of Hewn Stone near the inner temple, their senate chamber as unrestricted leaders of the Jewish nation, and moved to the market of Annas, farther over on the temple mount.
Pilate tried to sweeten the pill by granting a Jewish request that he release one prisoner, chosen by the people, at each Passover, a festival amnesty which was unparalleled in the Roman Empire, but a concession with no great implications.
* Not the future emperor.
Chapter 11
Pilate’s invitation to visit Herod Antipas finally arrived. It had taken the tetrarch of Galilee almost three years to return Pilate’s hospitality in Caesarea. Although the sensitive Procula resented the apparent slight, her realist husband pointed out that social amenities necessarily had to wait until the popular scandal at Antipas’s marriage to Herodias had exhausted itself.
Antipas would be celebrating his birthday shortly after the approaching Feast of the Tabernacles, the invitation read, and in case Pilate and Procula should be in Jerusalem for the festival, he would gladly escort them to his nearby Perean palace, a delightful place overlooking the Asphalt Lake, for a week’s stay. Procula had not intended accompanying her husband to the Jewish harvest festival, but now she changed her mind. They accepted, and made the now-familiar trip to Jerusalem.
Following closely in autumn on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Sukkoth, or the Feast of Tabernacles, was one of the most joyous and certainly the greatest of the Hebrew festivals. It was a time when both Pilate and Antipas, neither of whom would win any popularity contests in Jerusalem, could appear in the city without inspiring hostile demonstrations. People were too happy for that kind of thing.
Sukkoth passed without incident. With the eight-day festivity ended, Antipas, his bride-of-a-year, Herodias, and a sizable group of Galilean leaders and court retainers conducted Pilate and Procula on a carriage caravan which wound its way eastward down the rugged Judean hills. Between curves, the grand expanse of the lush-green Jordan valley came into view, a welcome contrast from the adobe-colored wilderness surrounding them. The Jordan itself meandered back and forth ridiculously, as if unsure in which direction to flow. But finally, near the palms of Jericho, it seemed to orient itself and aim reluctantly for an oblong, finger-shaped basin of slate-blue water called the Asphalt Lake or Dead Sea, a body of water nine miles wide and nearly fifty long, rimmed by mountainous cliffs along its shores.