Within the last year, however, Pilate had been drawn more and more to Procula and they had actually fallen in love, an unexpected and—by the standards of Rome—an unnecessary development. Procula was now little more than half his age—he in his upper thirties, she in her late teens—an average disparity, though friends were quipping that Procula might be getting a bit old for Pilate. Not a man to deceive himself, Pilate realized that the opposite was closer to the truth, and now resolved to marry as soon as possible so he and Procula could enjoy a full life together. He knew she would offer no resistance, since, in her own quiet way, Procula had been hinting at matrimony for the last two or three years.
After Sejanus’s confirmative report, Pilate retired to his quarters to indulge in that premeditated assault on the human body which the Romans called their “bath.” Cleanliness was only an incidental by-product of this elaborate process, which demanded a frigid plunge, then a parboiling in the hot bath, a roasting in the steam room, a parching on marble slabs in the dry-heat chamber, a scraping down with strigils, a thorough rubdown, and finally, an anointing with perfumed unguents to appease the violated skin. All this was genuinely relished probably only by masochists, but most Romans readily endured the bath: the sultry Mediterranean climate demanded it, and this was also prime time for the men of Rome to transact their professional and business affairs.
For his evening with Procula, Pilate chose a tunic-toga ensemble which was properly gleaming white. After entrusting the Castra to his officer of the day, he walked the short and familiar distance under the massive maroon arches of the Julian Aqueduct, through the lush Gardens of Maecenas, to the Proculeius mansion. The prospect of seeing Procula and announcing the news which would, hopefully, alter both their lives exhilarated Pilate. Today would be one of those hinge occasions, from which life would arc off in a new direction.
Her name was really Proculeia, the feminine of the gens name of the Proculeius family, but usage had shortened it to Procula, a familiar Roman given name. Society knew her as the girl who “had a grandfather, not a father.” Actually she had both, to be sure, but her grandfather was the Gaius Proculeius whose wit was so keen, whose career so colorful that he obscured his immediate descendants. A close companion of Augustus—he once saved his life in a naval battle—Proculeius had personally captured the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, for Augustus, and after returning to Rome in glory had rejected political office to serve as patron of the arts instead.
Procula had been raised in her grandfather’s shadow, for it was her father, the Younger Proculeius, who inherited the family residence near the Porta Tiburtina, overlooking the Gardens of Maecenas, and here she grew up in almost patrician luxury. The Pontii, near neighbors of the Proculeii in Rome’s fashionable fifth district, were not so wealthy, but when the father of Pontius Pilate casually suggested the alliance of their families to Proculeius Junior, he was favorably inclined. The Proculeii and Pontii, after all, had much in common: both were highest-class equestrians; both had a military history; and both, lately, favored the party of Sejanus—except for Procula, who had a woman’s sympathy for Agrippina.
Turning down Tibur Way, Pilate soon arrived at the two-story Proculeius mansion. Like many of the grand old houses of Rome, this one had an attractive, pillared portal, but very little else to commend it from the outside. It was the interior which harbored beauty in the Roman home, and the Proculeius mansion was popularly known as the “Tiburtine Art Museum” for its frescoes and the magnificent sculptures collected by the Elder Proculeius from across the Mediterranean. A servant admitted Pilate into the atrium, from which the entire pillared interior could be viewed as far as the garden, a tasteful composite of marble and mosaic, richly colored curtains, and fountains gently splashing into sunken pools.
“Please inform the Lady Procula of my arrival,” Pilate told the domestic. While waiting, he sauntered over to the impluvium and put his foot on the edge of that rectangular basin, situated directly under an opening in the roof which admitted both sunlight and rain. Moments later he was caught by a shove from behind which nearly toppled him into the pool.
“I’ve been watching you the whole time from behind that column,” Procula chirped.
“You lynx of Hecate!” he laughed, gathering her into his arms. “Come out into the garden—I have a rare piece of news for you!”
“Oh? What is it? Surely not, at long last, the date of our wedding?”
“Perhaps. You’ll see.”
No conversation with Procula in recent months had been complete without her injecting some reference to marriage, and Pilate smiled to himself that this time she was not far wrong. They strolled through the peristyle, an even more elaborate inner court, and out into the garden. Procula was wearing a simple house tunic; not until marriage could she assume the formal stola of the Roman matron. She looked petite at Pilate’s side, although a pile of luxuriant brown hair, combed up and held in place with jeweled pins, augmented her stature. The pronounced family features of the Proculeii had generously softened in her case to confer a serene loveliness, which was not lost on the aspiring young men of Rome. Only Pilate’s nimble wooing of the last year and the security of the mutual family contract had preserved their courtship.
“Procula,” Pilate asked as they reached the garden, “if I…if we had to live for a while outside of Rome—beyond Italy, in fact—where would you prefer to go?”
“Why? Are you being sent somewhere?”
“Answer my question first.”
“Greece, of course. Now, not Athens necessarily. None of the cities. Just a sunny little island in the inky blue Aegean.”
“Be serious, Procula.”
“Oh, all right then,” she pouted. “Egypt. The grandeur of Alexandria, the mystery of the Nile.”
“Wrong again. Try in between.”
She paused, then brightened. “Syria! Is it Syria, Pilate? Imagine living in luxurious Antioch.”
“No, my romantic little magpie!” He laughed. Then, assuming a contrived pomposity, he announced, “Sejanus has formally recommended to Tiberius Caesar that I be appointed prefect of Judea.”
“Judea?” She paused, looked out across a stand of pines into the darkening sky, and repeated, “Judea!…Well, the Jews are a fascinating people, I suppose…”
Pilate sensed that this was a noble effort to conceal disappointment, so he quickly told her what the advancement meant to his career, and also of the sparkling hints for the future Sejanus had so broadly dropped. But Procula, more surprised than really disillusioned by the news, was already planning ahead in another category.
“The question of where you’re appointed doesn’t concern me nearly as much as whether or not you’re going alone, Pilate.” There was a smoldering determination in her hazel eyes that he had never noticed before.
Precisely here he made the capitulation which nature, society, and his inmost feelings demanded of him. “Procula,” he hesitated momentarily, “are you prepared to go with me to Judea—as my wife? Are you ready to choose the day—”
“Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia,” she whispered with a radiant smile, the formula she would repeat later at their wedding, “Where you are Gaius, there am I Gaia.” Gaius represented any Roman name, since it was the most common.
After their exuberant embrace, Pilate said, “Do you realize how lucky we are, Carissima? Several years ago, the Senate almost made it illegal for governors to take their wives along to their provinces. Caecina Severus stood up and proposed that the women be left behind, otherwise ‘ambitious, domineering wives’ would turn their husbands’ heads and change Roman policy in the provinces.”