During the evenings I often drank from my mother’s worn old goblet, for I felt I should need all possible luck on my dangerous enterprise. Vespasian still had his grandmother’s buckled old silver goblet and he remembered my plain wooden mug from our time in Britain and admitted that he had begun to feel a paternal friendliness toward me then, because I respected the souvenir of my mother and had not brought silver dishes and gold goblets with me on active service, as many wealthy young knights did when they began their military careers. Such behavior only tempts the enemy and provides loot for the plunderer. As a sign of our lasting friendship, we took turns drinking from our sacred family goblets, for I had good reason to let Vespasian sip from Fortuna’s goblet. He would need all the luck he could find.
I brooded over whether I should dare dress in Jewish costume when I went into the city, but then thought it would be overdoing it, although numerous Jewish merchants had been crucified all over the camp as a warning against stealing up to the walls after dark and passing information on our plans and new military machines.
I wore my helmet, chest harness, armor and leg guards on the day when I finally scrambled to the wall at the place I had decided on. I thought such equipment would protect me from the first blows if I got inside the city. Our guard posts had had orders to send a shower of arrows after me, and by making a great deal of noise, draw the Jews’ attention to my attempt.
They did as they had been ordered so well that I was hit in my heel by an arrow and ever since then have been lame in both legs. I decided to seek out that all too zealous bowman if I returned alive and see to it that he received the severest possible punishment for disobeying clear orders. He had had orders to shoot beyond me, if also as close as possible. But when I finally did return, I was so pleased that I did not bother to find the man, and also my wound contributed to the fact that the Jews believed my story.
After abusing me for a while, the Jews fought off with stones and arrows a Roman patrol trying to pursue and capture me. During this attempt, to my great sorrow, two honest legionaries were killed, and I took it upon myself to support their families later on. They belonged to the 15th legion which had come all the way from Pannonia and they never again saw their beloved muddy banks of the Danube, but died for me in the land of the Jews, which they had already had time to curse a thousand times over.
At my entreaties, the Jews finally lowered a basket from the wall and pulled me up in it. I was so frightened in the swaying basket that I managed to pull the arrow out of my heel without feeling any pain. The barbs, however, stuck in the wound, which soon began to fester, and on my return to the camp I had to seek the help of the field surgeon, roaring with pain as a result, which is probably why I have been lame ever since. My previous experience with field surgeons had been bad enough and should have been a warning to me. But those scars were my only hope. After venting their anger at my Roman attire, they at last gave me an opportunity to explain that I was circumcised and a convert to Judaism. This they at once confirmed, after which they treated me somewhat better. But I do not like to remember the Parthian centurion, dressed as a Jew, and his fierce interrogation to determine my identity and the truth of my story before he considered he could hand me over to the real Jews,
I shall only mention that torn-out thumbnails grow again quite quickly. I know that from experience. My thumbnails however were not counted as service merit. In such cases military regulations are absurd, for I had much more trouble from my thumbnails than from my excursions around the walls within range of the catapults. Such things are counted as service merits.
To the fanatics’ Council I could produce a testimonial and a secret authority to negotiate from the Julius Caesar synagogue. These valuable papers I had hidden in my clothes and had naturally not shown to Vespasian, for I had been given them in confidence. The Parthian could not read them either, for they were written in the sacred language of the Jews and sealed with the Star of David.
The Council of the synagogue, which is still the most influential in Rome, told in their letter of the great service I had rendered to the Jewry of Rome during the persecution after the revolt in Jerusalem. As one of my services, they mentioned the execution of Paul and Cephas, for they knew that the Jews in Jerusalem hated these plague-spreaders as much as they themselves did. The Council was eager for information of what had happened in Rome, for they had not had any definite news for several months, save for bits received via a few Egyptian pigeons. Titus had tried to stop these too, with trained hawks, and others had had their necks wrung by the starving populace of Jerusalem before they reached the pigeon loft in the temple with their messages.
For safety’s sake I did not reveal that I was a Roman senator, saying that I was an influential knight so that the Jews should not be too tempted. Naturally I assured them that as a new convert, which they could see from my scars, I wished to do everything I could for Jerusalem and the Holy Temple. Thus I had joined Vespasian and his troops as a tribune and let him believe that I could acquire information for him from Jerusalem. The arrow in my heel was sheer bad luck, and the patrol’s attempt to catch me was a cunning feigned attack to bluff the Jews.
My openness made such an impression on the Council that they believed me, as far as is possible in conditions of war. I was allowed to move freely in the city, protected by bearded guards with burning eyes, of whom I was, in fact, more afraid than of the starving inhabitants of the city. I was allowed in the temple, too, as I had been circumcised. So I am one of the last people to have seen the temple of Jerusalem from inside in all its incredible splendor.
With my own eyes I could assure myself that the seven-branched gold candlesticks, the golden vessels and the golden shrewbread were still in their places. They alone were worth an immense fortune, but no one seemed to give a thought to hiding them away. To such an extent did these insane fanatics trust in the sanctity of the temple and their Almighty God. However unbelievable it may sound to a sensible person they had not dared use more than a faction of the immense treasures of the temple to purchase arms and fortifications. The Jews preferred to work themselves to the bone without pay rather than touch the temple treasures, which lay hidden in the middle of the mountain behind armored doors. The whole of the temple mountain is like a hollowed-out honeycomb with its myriad quarters for pilgrims and numerous underground passages. But no one can hide anything so well that no one can find it, provided that more than one man does the hiding and that the hiding place is known to many.
I found this out later when I ferreted out Tigellinus’ secret archives. I thought it important that they should be destroyed for the sake of the authority of the Senate, for in them the political views and personal habits of many members of our oldest families were revealed in a strange light, foolish men who were able to get the people to demand that Tigellinus should be thrown to the wild animals. He would have been incomparably more dangerous dead than alive if his records had fallen into the hands of an unscrupulous person.
Naturally I handed over Tigellinus’ treasure to Vespasian, keeping only a few souvenirs for myself, but I said nothing about the secret papers nor did Vespasian ask about them since he is both wiser and more cunning than his crude exterior indicates. I must admit I handed over the treasure with a heavy heart, for it included the two million sesterces of full-weight gold pieces I had given Tigellinus before leaving Rome as he had been the only man who might have doubted my good intentions and prevented my going. I well remember his distrustful remarks.