by Paul L Maier
“That, gentlemen, is a final item we must discuss,” Pilate interposed. “According to our estimates, the aqueduct will cost 750 talents up to the point where it pierces the south wall of the city. Building an appropriate reservoir system for it in Jerusalem would be extra, of course.”
The sum gave his two guests pause.
“And this is assuming we use bargain labor,” Pilate added.
“But how will you raise the money?” inquired Helcias.
“I could do it by doubling the tribute for several years…”
“No! Not that,” blurted Helcias. “Or…pardon me, Excellency, it’s not for me to instruct the prefect of Judea, but—”
“That’s all right, Rabbi.” Pilate smiled. “The fact is, I agree with you. It would be wrong to increase taxes. I think you Judeans are taxed enough.”
Caiaphas and Helcias exchanged glances of relieved surprise, though the high priest sagaciously sensed that Pilate might be leading up to something.
“Therefore, I propose that the temple treasury defray the cost of the aqueduct.”
The rabbis were thunderstruck. For some moments not a sound was heard.
“Our treasury?” Helcias finally exclaimed. “You would touch the Sacred Treasury of the temple?”
“Not I. You would…as temple treasurer.”
“But why this source, Prefect?” Caiaphas challenged.
“A matter of ethics, which you, as high priest, should particularly appreciate. Now tell me, for what purpose is the temple treasury used?”
“For the support of the temple, of course; to pay for the sacrifices, priests’ and guards’ salaries, upkeep, repairs, and the like. Therefore it’s called the Corban, which means sacrifice.”
“All right. But don’t you have a large surplus of unexpended funds each year in the Corban, Rabbi Helcias?”
“Well, there is some surplus, but—”
“Come, come, Rabbi. I’m informed that adult male Jews all over the world provide a compulsory half-shekel tribute to the temple treasury, not just the citizens of Jerusalem. Add to that the votive offerings and gifts of gold which are lavished on the temple, and you have—I’m reliably advised—an annual income that approaches eight hundred talents.”
“It isn’t that much,” Helcias protested.
“Whatever it is, by now you’ve many times that amount accumulated in a vast store of wealth lying in your temple coffers and doing no one any good, least of all the Jerusalem which badly needs water.”
“Sacred money shouldn’t be used for such a purpose,” Caiaphas objected.
“Can you think of a better purpose, after the primary obligations of this treasury have been met? In this way, no one need pay higher taxes.”
“Couldn’t Rome underwrite such an expense?” Caiaphas suggested. “After all, she has our tribute money, and can you think of a better purpose for which the tribute might be used?”
“The tribute is spent for the protection given you by our military and for the normal costs of government.”
“Ah, but don’t you have a surplus after you’ve met the primary obligations of the tribute?” Caiaphas countered, argument for argument.
“No. All surplus in the provinces goes to the emperor, who uses it for government. Running the Empire is enormously expensive.”
“Well, the sacred money can’t be used in this manner,” Helcias insisted.
“But if the offerings are given for the maintenance of the temple, this must certainly include provision for an adequate water supply.”
“Providing water is a secular, not a religious matter,” Caiaphas argued. “It is the concern of the civil and political authorities, not the priests. Therefore the Corban may not be used for this purpose.”
“But the temple is the largest user of this ‘secular water,’ if you will, in the city of Jerusalem. Stones and mortar may be secular construction materials, but they built your very religious temple. Your sharp distinction between temple and state suggests a refuge from fiscal responsibility.”
Caiaphas glared at Pilate. “If you don’t respect my opinions in this matter, respect the people’s, then. The people would not permit the Corban to be used for this purpose.”
“The people will be grateful for a copious water supply. Probably only the ultra-orthodox would object to such an application of the treasury, and then only if they learned about it. You see, you need not publicly announce that the temple treasury will underwrite the aqueduct.”
“I doubt if the Sanhedrin would allow it.”
“That’s your affair, Pontiff Caiaphas. But do point out to the Sanhedrin an interesting group of traditional laws taught by your sages concerning the use of shekalim. They may have some bearing on this question.”
Pilate was smiling. He had played his trump, and he knew it ended the discussion. Astonished that a Roman prefect even knew of the existence of the halakoth or Jewish traditional laws, Caiaphas and Helcias excused themselves, promising to bring the matter before the governing council of the Sanhedrin.
His adviser on Hebrew affairs had alerted Pilate to the traditions concerning the use of shekalim, the half-shekel temple dues, and these approved using any surplus from the temple offerings for the upkeep of “the city wall and the towers thereof, and all the city’s needs.” And foremost among the needs of any metropolis was adequate water supply. In fact, maintaining the temple water channel was one of the items specifically sanctioned as proper expenditures of the temple treasury.
Two days later, Caiaphas and Helcias informed Pilate that the Corban would help defray the cost of the aqueduct, but only under the following conditions:
1. The temple authorities agreed to the arrangement only under protest.
2. Since this was a private agreement between the prefect and the temple authorities, the financing of the aqueduct was to be kept in confidence by both parties.
3. If the public learned that the sacred treasury was subsidizing the aqueduct, the temple authorities would state that their hands had been forced in the matter.
4. Instead of supplying some new reservoir in Jerusalem, the aqueduct was to lead directly into the system of underground cisterns already in existence under the temple. These basins, enlarged to receive the new flow, would, in turn, supply the rest of the city.
The last item surprised Pilate, since he had imagined that there was nothing but rock under the temple. His engineers surveyed the ancient cisterns cut into the temple mount and reported that some were of great capacity, fifty to sixty feet deep. One of the larger basins, called The Great Sea by the priests, had an estimated two-million-gallon capacity, though it was nearly bone-dry at the time. The cisterns could easily be expanded without weakening the temple foundations, and the enlarged capacity would receive anything the proposed aqueduct could provide. And since the temple mount was higher than much of Jerusalem, the cisterns could supply continuous water pressure to the city conduits.
Now it was merely a matter of haggling between Pilate and Caiaphas on final terms of their agreement. Caiaphas understandably insisted on an absolute upper limit to the amount of the Corban’s contribution, whereas Pilate would have preferred submitting a final statement reflecting actual expenditure. They finally compromised on a formula whereby the temple treasury would underwrite the full cost of extending the underground cisterns, but only three-quarters of the estimated expense for the rest of the aqueduct. Pilate reasoned that his Jerusalem cohort could provide the extra labor which would enable him to make up the difference. Now he could slake Jerusalem’s thirst without upsetting his ledgers in Caesarea.
Pilate and Procula left Jerusalem with the satisfaction of seeing preliminary construction crews already at work. The populace was delighted with the prospect of a better water supply—it was rumored that new public fountains would be installed—and, as happens so often in civic ventures, no one bothered to ask who was footing the bill.
Chapter 9
The prestige of the prefect of Judea was
now more than salvaged. His subjects were starting to forget the quarrel over the military standards, since Pilate had kept his part of the agreement: no more offending medallions were brought into Jerusalem. On the contrary, and unlike previous governors of Judea, this Roman was apparently interested in public welfare; the new water system under construction in Jerusalem attested to that. The Jews were prepared to forgive.
Inevitably, Pilate was more popular with his gentile subjects. During the winter of 27–28, Caesarea’s Tiberiéum was completed, although artistic embellishments would be added to the structure for the next decade. But it was now open to the citizenry, and at the formal dedication a letter from the emperor himself was read, dispatched directly from Capri. There was no question that Tiberius had authored it. Who else would thank the Caesareans for not having honored him with a temple, and then suggest that even the Tiberiéum might be excessive? Who, but the same person who would regard it as an insult if the structure had not been named in his honor! The letter concluded with an accolade for Pilate, which, of course, had been one of the desirable side effects of the entire project.
The following spring, Pilate took Procula north to Antioch, the Syrian capital, on a business-and-pleasure visit. He had administrative matters to discuss with Pacuvius, the legate and acting governor in place of the absentee Aelius Lamia.
Pacuvius, Pilate discovered, was an epicure who had one of the strangest habits imaginable in an era of bizarre conduct: he regularly held mock funerals for himself. In the midst of the feasting and drinking at his own wake, he would have himself carried to the bedroom while his eunuchs sang, “He has lived his life! He has lived his life!” He explained it to Pilate thus: “This way I get to enjoy my own funeral, and each new day is a bonus for one fully prepared to die.” Pilate did not try to plumb Pacuvius’s logic.
Procula, meanwhile, went sightseeing in Antioch. She found the city corrupt, confusing, crowded, but a richly cultured and altogether fascinating place. To the unskilled observer it seemed another Alexandria, but this was no center of learning, as the Egyptian capital. Antioch was rather given over to trade and pleasure, with emphasis on the latter. Daphne, one of its suburbs, was known throughout the Mediterranean as a hedonist’s paradise, a Levantine center for sacred prostitution.
One afternoon while her husband was busy with Pacuvius, Procula paid a cautious visit to Daphne and was enthralled with the natural beauty of the sprawling park. Lushly wooded with thick groves of laurel and cypress, the delightful pleasure resort was gushing with brooks, rapids, and waterfalls. At the center of it all stood the great shrine to Apollo, which conferred the right of asylum on the entire preserve and, incidentally, attracted to the park a variety of society’s outcasts.
“Please, pretty maiden, in the name of Apollo and Aphrodite I implore your favors.” Procula whipped about and saw a handsome young Syrian barely beyond his teens. “Let me show you a beautiful grove yonder,” the youth continued.
“No!” Procula hurried away in alarm. Several other men also accosted her, only more brazenly. Quickly wrapping a shawl over her lower face, Procula ran away from the park in terror. The men laughed, but did not try to run after her because there were so many other girls about. Only later did Procula learn that unescorted women went to Daphne for only one purpose…No, she would not tell Pilate about Daphne.
The next day, she shopped zealously to replace her dwindling supply of necessities, which Pilate thought better called luxuries. For their palace at Caesarea she purchased rich tapestries, bas-reliefs, urns, statuettes, ivories, an inlaid table, Damascene silver, and other magnificently wrought furnishings. Pilate had to hire an extra wagon just to cart it all back to Judea.
His larger interests that spring were in Jerusalem. When he returned to the city at the Passover, Pilate spent most of his time on the hills with the construction crews. The aqueduct was taking shape. Herod’s segment had been repaired and was now channeling water into the pools near Bethlehem. The lengthy conduit from the pools to Jerusalem was nearly completed, and the Hinnom water bridge was rising from the valley. However, the tunnel under Bethlehem had been plagued by cave-ins, and disagreements between priests and workmen were delaying modification of the temple cisterns.
However, most of the engineering problems had been surmounted, and Pilate noted, with the consummate satisfaction only administrators can generate, that project costs were not exceeding estimates by too vast a margin. His architects promised him that water would be flowing into Jerusalem the following spring.
And the schedule held true. For the inauguration of his water system, Pilate paid an official visit to Jerusalem late in May of 29. A slender aqueduct of Romanesque arches now bridged the Hinnom Valley, the largest visible change wrought by the project. At the point where the flume penetrated the south wall of Jerusalem, sluice gates had been constructed, and it was here that Pilate and his aides assembled with the temple authorities for the ceremonial opening of the water system.
At high noon, a polished, sun-reflecting shield had signaled a relay station halfway to the pools, which, in turn, flashed that reservoir to open its valves into the aqueduct. It had taken more than an hour for the water to reach the Hinnom bridge and finally the sluice gates, where it was now overflowing and spilling down the sides of the city wall.
Pilate knew better than to give a long public address on that muggy afternoon. The people wanted to hear the gurgle of water, not the grandiloquence of a governor. After a few remarks on the rather obvious theme, “Judea-Roman Friendship,” Pilate signaled the men of the Antonia cohort, who snapped to attention in ranks along the south wall. Trumpeters blasted out a brassy fanfare, which was answered by the flapping of terrified doves taking to the air. Solemnly relishing his grand moment, the prefect of Judea lifted open the valve and the waters gushed into Jerusalem.
Pilate was highly pleased with the success of his project, though disappointed that more townspeople had not turned out for the opening ceremonies. But a tour of the city’s new fountains the next day showed that the water was being used and appreciated. Children merrily splashed each other in the surrounding pools while their mothers filled waterpots. And it even seemed as if the sheep population of Jerusalem was bleating less plaintively.
Toward nightfall, a servant of the high priest named Malchus appeared at the Herodian palace with an urgent message for Pilate.
“Pardon my disturbing you, Excellency,” he said with Oriental obsequiousness, “but my Lord Joseph Caiaphas regrets to inform you that despite his best efforts, word is out about the temple treasury’s being used to finance the aqueduct. The populace is very angry.”
“Who told them?” asked Pilate, struggling to keep his temper under control.
“If I may venture an opinion, sir, many in the Sanhedrin knew of the arrangement, and Rabbi Helcias will certainly have had to account for the expended funds, so it would have been difficult to suppress the information in any case.”
“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Pilate snapped. “It’s clear that the confidence was well kept until today. Who told the people?”
Malchus hesitated a moment, then replied, “It was late this afternoon…in the outer court of the temple. A zealous young orator of the Herodian party—they’re pro-Romans, as you know—well, this man was praising you, the aqueduct, and Rome itself. He got carried away and started taunting those who oppose Roman administration of Judea. ‘Rome built an aqueduct, but what have they done for the city?’ he cried. Just then, someone from the crowd shouted, ‘Rome didn’t pay for the aqueduct! The Corban did!’”
“Who called out?”
“We don’t know, Excellency. We really don’t know.”
“Then what happened?”
“Chaos broke out. They started yelling for Helcias, the temple treasurer. In tears he told the crowd that the Jewish authorities had been forced in this matter. But finally he regained control of himself and told the people that, after all, the aqueduct was necessary, and that they
should go home and not make trouble.”
“What will happen now?”
“My Lord Caiaphas hopes the matter will pass, but he fears the worst. This is why he sent me to forewarn you, so that you could take the necessary precautions.”
“Decent of him.” It was said in a marginal tone, indicating either mockery or sincerity. “That will be all, Malchus.”
Pilate summoned several aides and dispatched them into the city to check on Malchus’s story and sound out the mood of the citizenry. They returned to report a gathering storm. Ironically, each fountain at the various crossroads of Jerusalem was serving as a rallying point for excited clusters of people. Young extremist orators, members of the violently anti-Roman Zealot party, were moving in to capitalize on the situation, and Jerusalemites were being summoned to a mass rally at the temple early the next morning.
Another high priest’s messenger brought word that a raiding party had smashed the sluice gates of the aqueduct, but that Caiaphas had dispatched some of his temple guard to protect the Jerusalem segment of the water system. He suggested that Pilate send auxiliaries to defend the Hinnom bridge.
Pilate alerted the tribune at the Antonia, who dispatched the necessary troops. Later that night they held a strategy session. That there would be a mass demonstration the next morning was beyond all doubt. The only point at issue was how to control it. Pilate gave much thought to this problem, well aware that he could not afford another defeat such as he had been forced to accept on the matter of the standards. The tribune at the Antonia urged him to saturate the city with well-armed troops, arguing that the mere visibility of such power would stop any trouble well before it began.
Pilate, however, remembering how the throng had behaved at sword-point in Caesarea, was reluctant to display his troops unless it were absolutely necessary. He was convinced that the people, seeing themselves surrounded by troops, might react with peculiar frenzy, forcing a slaughter that might otherwise be avoided. But Pilate had no intention of losing control of the populace. After much deliberation, he devised an unorthodox plan. Somewhat skeptical of its success, the tribune accepted his orders and left the palace to prepare his troops for the following day.
