Procula’s comment gave Pilate cause for some political considerations. His informants had told him that Antipas feared Aretas would make war on him for the way he had treated his daughter. And if it came to blows, Antipas would probably want the prefect of Judea to assist him with his cohorts.
“Tomorrow, Procula, when we start discussing politics, be prepared for a blackening of King Aretas to prepare me for a possible war against him. But I wouldn’t send a single auxiliary to fight Antipas’s battles for him. Do you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because if the tetrarch of Galilee disgraced himself further by losing a frontier war with the Arabs, Rome could use that as an excuse to add Galilee to the province of Judea. Sejanus told me of eventual plans to move the Herodians out of their control of Palestine in favor of direct Roman administration!”
“And if this happened under the governorship of Pontius Pilate, it would look awfully well on his record, wouldn’t it?”
He did not reply, but she could almost feel his smile in the darkness.
Just before drifting off to sleep, they were startled to hear some plaintive chanting from the depths of the palace, which echoed throughout Machaerus.
“Probably Antipas offering his bedtime prayers,” Pilate suggested. “That fox can afford to pray.”
The week at Machaerus turned out pleasantly. The hosts, it seemed, were on their best behavior. As predicted, Antipas did indeed vilify Aretas, but it was done by means of some histrionics which only amused Pilate. A presumed Arab spy, “caught” near Machaerus during their visit, was made to confess that King Aretas was planning an invasion not only of Galilee but of Judea as well. Pilate had one of his guards who knew Arabic go down to the dungeon, talk to the spy, and report back to him privately.
“From his knowledge of the language,” the guard confided, “I’d say that as an Arab that clown was a good Galilean. But I left the impression that I believed his story.”
Yet, the daily hunting expeditions into the wild countryside, the nightly feasting, and the delightful baths at Callirrhoë easily compensated for Antipas’s tricks. It was not until later in the week that the tetrarch got a bit tiresome in trying to pick the brains of the prefect.
“Just what is happening in Rome, Pilate?” asked Antipas, in the course of a night’s revelry.
“How do you mean?”
“Is it to be Tiberius or Sejanus?”
“An impossible alternative. After Tiberius dies, then perhaps Sejanus.”
“You’ve heard what they’re saying in Rome, ‘Sejanus is emperor; Tiberius, only an island potentate.’”
“Are you trying to impugn the loyalty of the emperor’s praetorian prefect?”
“Of course not,” Antipas corrected himself. “What I meant to ask,” he nervously snickered, “was, ‘Will it be the young Gaius Caligula or Sejanus?’”
“I really don’t know. Possibly Sejanus as regent for the young Gaius.”
It was a safe statement. Probably, he thought, Antipas’s original alternative of Tiberius or Sejanus better expressed his true thought, and had Pilate answered such a treasonable choice incorrectly, it might have doomed his career should Antipas try to compromise him.
“Well, then, put the case that Sejanus is regent for the young Gaius,” Antipas persisted. “Who, ultimately, would control Rome?”
“That, my friend, is in the hands of the gods.” The nonreligious Pilate resorted to religion at such times. Antipas only smirked, realizing that Pilate had affixed a period to their conversation on Roman politics.
That night, Pilate’s sleep was again disturbed by the haunting voice from the bowels of the castle, apparently chanting its prayers and singing melancholy hymns. Equally mystifying was the conduct of Antipas’s chief steward the next morning. Answering a knock on his door, Pilate found Chuza. “Excellency,” he said, “I must discuss an urgent matter with you. A request…” Just then, one of Antipas’s servants came by and Chuza broke off. “Breakfast will be served shortly, Excellency.” Then he whispered, “Later.”
But the “later” never materialized, since all Machaerus was in an uproar of preparation for the tetrarch’s birthday feast that night. His half brother, the tetrarch Philip, arrived just in time to help celebrate, as did Antipas’s half niece-stepdaughter, Salome, who had been visiting her half uncle, Philip. The daughter of Herodias, Pilate and Procula noted immediately, had completed the metamorphosis from the spoiled girl they remembered in Caesarea to a sensually attractive young woman.
The banquet was attended by all of Antipas’s many guests at Machaerus, including tribal leaders from Galilee, as well as his officers and courtiers. It was a formal affair, carried off in the best Hellenistic tradition. Some of the viands Pilate had not tasted since his own wedding banquet. As to beverages, he commented, “For a non-Roman, Antipas, you’re a worthy connoisseur of the vine.”
“My fellow son of Bacchus,” he responded with a wine-reinforced amiability, “you forget that the family of the Herods have Roman citizenship. We’re enrolled in the Julian gens.”
“A toast, then, to the cousin of the Caesars.” Pilate laughed, a little too loudly. Procula poked him with her sandals.
“Why so dour a face, my Chuza?” Antipas called across the table to his chief steward. “You can worry about my estates when we return to Galilee.”
Chuza brightened up, though later in the evening he cast worried glances in Pilate’s direction. Procula saw it and alerted her husband. Both shared a twinge of concern, wondering what message Chuza had failed to communicate. Surely he wasn’t trying to warn them of physical danger?
When the fourth course had been cleared away, Antipas snapped his fingers and the flute and harp melodies which had serenaded the feast now gave way to a program of entertainment. Some of it, Pilate noticed, was a bit ostentatious, but that was forgivable, since all floor talent had to be imported to that solitary location. The jugglers from Jericho were a bore, easily upstaged by the acrobatic apes of a local bedouin. Someone proposed that the monkeys be given a little wine to liven their act. It had the desired effect.
Then Herodias rose from the table, inviting Procula and the other ladies to follow her out of the banquet hall to the women’s quarters of the palace, since Antipas’s celebration was now over so far as they were concerned. In Greek-style dinner parties, the women would not even have appeared at the table, but the more civilized Roman custom allowed them to participate, until it was time for the comissatio, which was exclusively for the men. Since the culminating comissatio or post-banquet social drinking bout often involved risque entertainment, some of the more conservative Galilean elders paid their respects to Antipas and Pilate and also retired.
Antipas now pulled a cord, which released a cloud of rose petals and flower garlands from the ceiling. Servants picked up the floral wreaths and arranged them about the heads and necks of the men. Then they carefully sprayed perfume on each. Flowers and perfumes were used, not for adornment, but because their fragrance was thought to prevent, or at least delay, drunkenness.
“Let’s choose a king!” Antipas called, for the next stage in the ritual was to pick someone to preside over the festivities. A servant brought dice to Antipas. He shook them, calling out, “Herodias, help me” and threw an eight. Then he handed the dice on to Pilate, who cried, “Procula, help me” and threw a six.
Next, the dice went to Philip, who shook and cried, “Salome, help me” and shot eleven. This raised a few eyebrows, since each was to call on the spirit of his wife or sweetheart to assist his throw, and Salome was neither to Philip—so far as anyone knew.