“Aha! A prophet with taste.”
“There’re other stories. For instance, during a storm on—”
“Enough, Cornelius! All this is simply the old thaumaturge phenomenon. Every religious culture I’ve come across has its wonder workers, its magicians, and the Jewish tradition is more religious than most.”
“I suppose you’re right. But you can see why he has such a hold on the people.”
“Of course.” Pilate closed the conversation and was about to dismiss the centurion when he had an afterthought. “Wait, Cornelius. Just who is this prophet? Did you learn anything about the man himself?”
“Some people think he’s the Baptizer, returned from the dead. Herod Antipas is supposedly terrified at the thought.”
“He must be losing his mind to believe that.”
“Others claim he’s none other than Elijah, the most famous of past Hebrew prophets.”
“Equally ridiculous! Come, come, man, couldn’t you get a better identification than that?”
“Yes. I did. The prophet’s name is Joshua. He comes from Nazareth in Galilee.”
“Hmmmm. Joshua, eh?”
“Yes, Joshua or Yeshua. In our language it would be Jesus.”
Chapter 13
When the blow fell, Pilate felt his career cracking under it. The shattering happened at Rome, but the fissures radiated across the Mediterranean world. This was more than a passing crisis, for it threatened the very life of the prefect of Judea, and hundreds like him. Pilate would never be able to shake off the searing memory of what happened when Procula returned, unexpectedly, after an overland trip from Rome in the winter of A.D. 31–32.
Overtired, distraught from the cruel journey—Romans never traveled in winter except for emergencies—Procula could only report the horror in Rome and collapse from exhaustion. Pilate spent a night of agonized despair, trying to sort the fragments of fact into some mosaic of reason until Procula could explain it all the next day.
She was composed enough the following morning to furnish the details about October 18, 784,* a date which changed their lives, and which marked probably the most dramatic event in the long cavalcade of Rome’s past. Procula told the story slowly, fully, deliberately, consulting a long scroll of notations she had made of the entire episode, knowing that Pilate would have to have precise information. Much of the detail was supplied by a cousin of Procula who was a senator and an eyewitness.
Tiberius had not written the Senate for some time, she said, but now the praetorian commander at Capri, Sertorius Macro, was delivering to the Senate a lengthy and important document from the emperor. Sejanus, of course, wanted to know the contents of that communiqué, for rumors swept the city that here, at last, was the conferral of tribunician power which would make him joint emperor.
Early on the brisk and beautiful morning of the eighteenth, Procula continued, Sejanus led his crack first cohort of the Praetorian Guard to the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine, where the Senate would sit that day. The site was thronged with cheering Romans. Anyone who hoped to rank in Sejanus’s favor wanted to be on hand when the great man was rendered even greater. At the door of the temple, Macro, who had Tiberius’s letter in hand, encountered Sejanus.
“Why the fretting, Sejanus?” he wondered good-naturedly.
“The princeps hasn’t written in some time. Naturally I’m concerned.”
“Shall I break the seals on this and let you have a look ahead of time?”
Sejanus merely smiled at the pleasantry, for it would have been treason to open the letter before it was presented to the Senate.
“Come here, friend.” Macro smiled. “I’ve something confidential to tell you.”
Bystanders and arriving senators saw Macro whisper something to Sejanus. They could not know what, but when Sejanus’s frown melted into a smile of satisfaction, they could guess what Macro had in fact confided: the tribunician power was his! The news immediately flashed through the crowd and a volley of cheers arose.
Elated, Sejanus hurried inside the Senate chamber, receiving felicitations from every side. His partisans were jubilant, applauding him openly, and even his enemies now had to wear a counterfeit mask of joy, Sejanus noted with double satisfaction.
The conscript fathers took their places as a lictor signaled with his fasces and all excited talk in the chamber died instantly. The presiding consul, Memmius Regulus, led a file of magistrates to curule chairs in front of the chamber, and then solemnly threw several pinches of incense over coals glowing on Apollo’s altar. Next he offered hallowed grain to a coop of sacred chickens, while a venerable senator, clutching a spiral-headed crosier, watched them closely. The excited cackle of the hens signaled the senators that the omens were favorable even before the augur could announce, “There is no evil sight nor sound.” A relieved murmur filled the chamber. Business could now begin.
After disposing of preliminary matters, Regulus, one of the consules suffecti, or substitute consuls for the year, rose to read Tiberius’s letter.
There were no surprises in the opening paragraphs, though it did seem to many that they had never heard the emperor quite so verbose. His words seemed to compete with each other, rather than serving to support a uniform train of thought.
Sejanus waited anxiously for the prolix ramblings to reach their theme, but Tiberius, at his discursive best, was first taking the senators on a tour of the Empire’s problems. He shambled on over a gamut of topics ranging from wheat production in Sardinia to the offensive garlic breath of the masses at public games.
“He’s obviously getting senile,” one senator in the front row whispered to another.
The princeps’ first reference to Sejanus finally came, a bit of criticism over his fiscal policies. This raised a few brows, but the letter next digressed to the need for public restrooms in the Forum. Then, just as abruptly, Tiberius returned to Sejanus for a slighting reference to the prefect’s ambitions, but quickly the lines skimmed over to another topic.
“What do you make of it?” the consul Trio asked Sejanus, after he had sidled over to him.
“Typically Tiberius. He wants to keep me humble, and he also loves to shock. Watch. First he shoots his barbs. Then, just when the Senate is ready to write me off, comes the emperor’s surprise: the tribunician power. Sejanus is closer than a son after all, even if he does need a little discipline.”
“It’s an old man’s game.”
“Quite.” Sejanus noted the concerned glances from some of his partisans and smiled to reassure them. After all, he knew how the letter would end.
But many in the Senate were beginning to doubt that the message would ever end. Regulus droned on and on and on.
Sejanus grew impatient. This was to be his moment of glory, but the princeps was injecting a massive dose of tedium into the occasion. He looked around for Macro, but could not find him.
Then he heard something which brought him up short. Regulus raised his voice at this passage:
…Finally, Conscript Fathers, I regret to inform you that our trusted minister and prefect, Lucius Aelius Sejanus, is a traitor. He has endangered the state, indeed, the princeps himself, by his fanatic persecution of Agrippina and the House of Germanicus, his lawsuits against members of the Julian party, his overwhelming personal ambition, and the conspiracy he has undertaken against Rome. Sejanus is another Catiline. I ask you now to show your loyalty by immediately arresting the prefect Sejanus and keeping him under close guard until I come to Rome. And since I am an old man, in the very peril of his life, I ask that you send a guard to Capri under the command of the consul Regulus to escort me to Rome. Farewell.