Since Mount Gerizim was only thirty miles from Caesarea, Pilate learned the date almost as soon as the Samaritans. He had planned to send only an auxiliary guard to police the situation and, if necessary, prevent the people from being exploited. But when he learned of the call to arms, he drastically revised his plans, for Gerizim lay astride the major north-south highway of central Palestine, the shortest route from Jerusalem to Galilee. With the imposter’s Messianic claims, anything might be possible from an armed crowd.
Marshaling two detachments of heavily armed infantry and half his cavalry, Pilate set out for Samaria’s holy mountain. His auxiliaries included men from the Italian Cohort in the unlikely event that, if it came to blows, his Samaritan auxiliaries might lose heart at having to battle their brother Samaritans. His cavalry squadron, the Ala I Gemina Sebastenorum. “First Wing of Sebastenians,” was totally Samaritan.
The gravity of the situation was underscored by the pseudo-prophet’s call for weapons, the first potential armed resistance Pilate faced in his almost ten years as prefect of Judea. Many threatening multitudes had gathered in Judea during this time, but they had never been armed. Coupled with the Egyptian prefect’s warning of growing anti-Roman sentiment supported by secret caches of weapons, Pilate’s concern mounted. Incipient insurrection had to be crushed at its birth, or his five cohorts would never be able to control it. Calling to Vitellius for emergency help would hardly be an appropriate overture to their first meeting.
Pilate and his troops arrived late in the evening before the day of the projected climb of Mount Gerizim. He saw that it would be strategically foolish to attempt a blockade of Tirathana, the village where the Samaritans were encamped, so he had his men bivouac secretly along the path which would be used for the ascent.
The next day, an enthusiastic horde surged out of the village and headed for the lower reaches of Gerizim, the one mountain which, they swore, had kept its peak dry in the Great Flood, the holy hill toward which all pious Samaritans faced in prayer. But soon they found their route blocked by ranks of infantry, with cavalry moving in on their flanks.
Pilate had his herald trumpet the throng to attention. Then he called out to the Samaritans: “If you are merely on a religious pilgrimage to the top of your sacred mountain, why do you need weapons? Lay down your arms!”
Loud protests and grumbling answered him, then hissing and jeers. One spokesman shouted, “We won’t leave ourselves defenseless, Prefect! If we throw down our weapons, your men will attack us.”
“No harm will come to you if you lay down your arms. But it’s treasonable to assemble a crowd of this size fully armed. You have an illegal army here.”
There was a short pause, then a yell from the Samaritan ranks: “And this illegal army shall be victorious! Under the guidance of our Holy Restorer, no harm can come to us. Fellow Samaritans, drive these pagans off our sacred mountain!”
A lusty war whoop followed, and the battle was on. The Roman troops were taken by surprise, since they had not really expected resistance, and the center line of Pilate’s outnumbered infantry bent into a concave crescent from the onslaught. He himself was gashed on the cheek by a flailing Samaritan sword, and barely managed to beat off his attacker. It was his first pitched battle as prefect of Judea.
The Samaritans fought with blazing religious enthusiasm on their own holy ground. Though cut down steadily, they advanced rank after rank. The hills re-echoed the strident clang of swords smashing on shields, the triumphant yell of men driving javelins into their mark, the shrieks of the wounded.
Wheezing in the whirling dust, Pilate quickly checked the position of his forces, then signaled his infantry to counterattack while his herald trumpeted the cavalry to swoop down from the sides. The Roman forces soon regained control. The horse closed in on the Samaritan flanks and pressed them hard. Fortunately, women and children in the multitude had fled the scene, and now some of the men joined them. But the Samaritan core continued fighting surprisingly well, and troops fell on both sides. Finally, however, the professional discipline of the auxiliaries made the difference. Although outnumbered by the Samaritans, they now put their motley army to flight and then chased down the fugitives. Some escaped, but many more were taken prisoner.
Outraged at the resistance and smarting from his own wound, Pilate declared martial law and set up a military tribunal shortly after the battle. The ringleaders of the armed rebellion he sentenced to death, as well as several who were most influential in the religious hoax, including the pseudo-Restorer himself. Since crucifixion would take too long, they resorted to simple field execution by sword. The uprising was quelled entirely.
Pilate hoped the Samaritans would eventually appreciate his liberating them from belief in an obviously false Messiah who was trying to deceive them. Unlike Judea’s “king of the Jews,” this one was truly guilty. Leaving a tribune with one cohort to police the area, he returned to Caesarea in triumph.
It was late in November of 36. After the Samaritan tumult, things had gone better for Pilate. Judea was again peaceful enough to warrant his planning a trip with Procula to Greece and the Aegean islands in the new year. She needed the change; so did he. There were no quarrels with the Jews. In fact, Caiaphas had commended him for his handling of the Samaritan challenge. Even the chronic neighboring rivalry with Herod Antipas seemed to swing once again in Pilate’s favor, despite the tetrarch’s coup at the Euphrates. Earlier that month, Antipas was ignominiously defeated in a war with King Aretas, who had finally launched his long-expected attack against the man who had divorced his daughter and insulted their royal house.
While savoring this development, Pilate was informed that a special envoy named Marcellus waited to see him with an important message from the governor of Syria. As he was shown into Pilate’s office, Marcellus gave a smart Roman salute, clenched hand on chest. Pilate returned it. Then he was handed Vitellius’s letter. While slitting the seals, he assumed it was an invitation to a state visit in Antioch, for which he had been angling in order to meet the powerful Vitellius. Then he read:
Lucius Vitellius, proconsul Suriae, to Pontius Pilatus, praefectus Iudaeae, greeting.
The Council of Samaria has formally accused you of a needless massacre of their countrymen at Mount Gerizim in your province. They have sworn to me that the gathering intended no sedition or rebellion against Rome, but assembled at Tirathana only as refugees from your violence. Members of the Council have reaffirmed their allegiance to the princeps.
By authority of his imperial majesty, Tiberius Caesar Augustus, and as his special commissioner for eastern affairs, I herewith suspend you from your duties as praefectus Iudaeae, effective immediately, and cite you to return to Rome as soon as possible in order to give the emperor your account of the affair at Mount Gerizim in defense against charges brought against you by the Council of Samaria. A Samaritan delegation will serve as accusatores at your arraignment in Rome.
Marcellus, my associate who delivers this message, will serve as acting prefect of Judea during your absence. You will be kind enough to spend the next week in familiarizing Marcellus with the functions of your office. Late in December, I will arrive in Judea to assist him, as well as to review affairs in your province. I trust you will not delay your return to Rome, and that a guard will not prove necessary to assist in that return. Farewell.