Pilate knew he should refuse the invitation and he was about to refuse. But once Chaerea’s intentions registered in his mind he was unable to refuse. That night he could barely sleep, and Procula asked what was the matter. “Indigestion,” he fibbed.
Early the next morning, he and Chaerea went to the Palatine. As a precaution, Pilate was wearing an old praetorian uniform whose helmet covered his face fairly well. About 10:00 A.M. they walked over to the palace theater where Caligula was attending a dramatic spectacle. Chaerea seemed to be communicating with scattered pairs of eyes solely by using his own. Staying in a dark alcove at the rear of the theater, Pilate cringed a bit when he saw the theme of the pantomime: a robber chieftain being crucified. Soon the stage was saturated with great quantities of artificial blood, a deadly omen to portent-seeking Romans. At the close of the mime, Caligula stood up and delighted his guests with the announcement that he himself would make his public debut on the stage that evening. Then he left for lunch via a covered passageway which connected the theater with the rest of the palace.
Pilate watched him walking through the lengthy portico. Suddenly Cassius Chaerea and another praetorian tribune named Sabinus loomed up in his path.
“May we have the day’s password, Princeps?” asked Sabinus.
“Well, let’s see…How about ‘Cupid’ in your honor, gentle Chaerea,” said Caligula, a sickly sweet smile stretching his gaunt features. “No, on second thought, we’ll make it ‘Jupiter.’”
“So be it!” cried Chaerea, as he yanked out his sword. “As god of sudden death, may he assist yours!” He plunged the sword into Caligula’s neck.
“Guards!” he screamed, a rivulet of blood pouring from the gash.
Sabinus dirked him in the breast. Caligula yelled in pain, his knees starting to bend. Praetorians and magistrates in on the plot now came running toward Caligula from both ends of the portico, brandishing bared daggers. They clustered about the falling emperor to share in the honor of his assassination.
Too late the litter bearers and members of his German bodyguard came dashing to his rescue. Caligula was dead, his body torn by some thirty wounds.
Pilate quickly blended into the crowd and escaped the scene, as Chaerea had insisted, for there was danger from Caligula’s bodyguards. He had now seen what he came to see. And he luxuriated in a flood of relief.
Caligula’s corpse was hauled outside where it was spat upon and ridiculed by the rejoicing populace. His statues were toppled. Cries of “Liberty!” “Restore the Republic!” rent the air. It was a tyrant’s typical end.
News of such a death spread faster than normal communications. Across the Mediterranean in Syria, Petronius learned the glad news almost a month before Caligula’s letter ordering his suicide arrived, since the ship carrying it had been delayed three months by storms. Now he could read the death command in laughter rather than terror. He was saved. In Jerusalem, the temple reverberated with thanksgiving to God for having delivered his people from the tyrant and his statue. The Jews were saved. Those senators and equestrians who now read their own blacklisted names in the confiscated notebooks “The Dagger” and “The Sword” were saved.
But no one was more jubilant than Pilate and Procula. The madman who for nearly four years had represented a standing threat to his freedom, if not his life, was no more. With tears of happy gratitude he embraced his friend Chaerea. Pilate was saved.
Chaerea produced “The Dagger” notebook and showed Pilate one of the most recent entries in the list of prominent equestrians. It read:
Pontius Pilatus?
Chapter 25
Understandably, Pilate had long since developed republican inclinations. His decade of trying to please the irascible Tiberius, followed by four fearful years under Caligula had buried his erstwhile monarchism. Many an evening discussing politics with Cassius Chaerea had aided in the republicanization of Pontius Pilate, and he now took pride in his kinship to Pontius Aquila, the conspirator against Caesar.
Just after the assassination, Pilate did what lobbying he could among his equestrian and senatorial friends to urge a restoration of the Republic. And now his and many other personal efforts seemed rewarded. The Senate convened in extraordinary session to declare the end of the Roman Empire, that near century which had witnessed the rule of Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, and now, by far the worst, Caligula. In its place, the conscript fathers voted to revive democracy and restore the Roman Republic.
Pilate was present as guest of the Senate through the influence of his now-important friend, Cassius Chaerea, Rome’s man of the hour. When the tribune-hero asked the triumphant consuls for the new watchword, they replied “Liberty,” to the wild cheering of the senators. The glorious day of political freedom had dawned.
Meanwhile, unknown to Chaerea, Pilate, or any of the republicans, fate was calling to center stage the forgotten man of Roman politics, Caligula’s Uncle Claudius, who had spent the fifty years of his life, not really waiting in the wings, but acting out a ludicrous sideshow of his own. Spindly-legged and wobbly from a childhood infantile paralysis, Claudius had other handicaps, including mental blocks and a speech defect which made him stammer and appear simple-minded. Tiberius had named his nephew “Clau-Clau-Claudius” and given him no serious consideration as his successor, since the imperial family thought him merely a biological embarrassment. Caligula had treated him as court buffoon, a role Claudius was only too happy to play, for otherwise he would have been put to death as a rival to the throne. But, in fact, Claudius was no fool. His personal impediments had driven him into the seclusion of scholarly pursuits, and, tutored by the great Livy, he wrote important works on Etruscan and Carthaginian history, as well as Roman law.
Claudius thought he himself would not survive Caligula’s assassination. During the bloody turmoil that day, he had fled into the palace and hid. Later, when the praetorians were ransacking the place, they chanced to notice two feet sticking out beneath a curtain in an upstairs alcove. The feet, of course, belonged to Claudius, who expected instant death. Instead, the troops whisked him off to the Castra Praetoria and hailed him as the new emperor. The guards were supported by many in the populace who feared that a democratic republic would only return Rome to bloody civil war.
But the Senate would not back down at a time of unparalleled opportunity. The conscript fathers dispatched two tribunes to the Castra, who advised Claudius not to assume the principate but yield to the Senate, which would stop him by military force if he had not learned his lesson from Caligula’s fate. Claudius wavered, but since he was safe with the praetorians, he temporized for the moment.
Enter King Herod Agrippa, adventurer, opportunist, fisher-in-troubled-waters, and now alterer-of-Roman-history. When he learned that Claudius was being detained at the Castra Praetoria, he hurried over to join him at the camp. Both the same age, Claudius and Agrippa had been educated together at the palace school.
Claudius was at the point of yielding to the Senate, when Agrippa arrived and urged him not to let power slip from his hands. “History is summoning you, beloved Claudius,” he said. “The blood of the Caesars pulses in your veins and must not be frustrated. You were born to rule. What will future ages say of a Claudius who was too selfish to guide Rome with his moderation and wisdom?” Claudius promised to think about it.
After Agrippa left the Castra, he received a summons from the Senate. Quickly perfuming his hair as if he had just been called away from a banquet instead of visiting Claudius, he appeared before the senators. They requested his advice, as a visiting sovereign, on the present constitutional crisis. Shrewdly, Agrippa appeared pro-Senate, but argued that the Urban Cohorts, on whom the fathers were relying in the coming showdown with Claudius, were no match for the praetorians. “Instead of declaring civil war,” he urged, “why not send a delegation to Claudius and negotiate your differences?” The Senate agreed. Naturally, Agrippa was one of the ambassadors dispatched to the Praetorian Camp.