Pontius Pilate: A Novel

by Paul L Maier

  Pilate digested these lines with double satisfaction. Not only was his own star rising in the cluttered skies of Roman politics, but there was this second success: even Procula, that partisan of Agrippina, now had kind words for Sejanus!

  “Herod Antipas is definitely on the defensive,” Cornelius reported to Pilate on his return. “He’s not panicking, but he’ll do anything to conciliate his subjects. The people haven’t forgiven him for beheading the Baptizer, though it hasn’t come to open rebellion.”

  “What about King Aretas?”

  “Still seething. The commandant at Legio has it from the tribune at Jericho that Aretas is building up his army for an attack on the Transjordan.”

  “What about the Zealots?”

  “Nothing much going on. It may be the calm before the storm, or it may not. They just aren’t out agitating.”

  “Doesn’t make sense, Cornelius,” Pilate replied, apparently piqued at not getting the information he had expected. “We’ve received definite reports of some kind of turmoil going on up there—crowds, hill meetings…”

  “I was just coming to that. You’re right. Something is afoot. A prophet up there seems to be attracting quite a following. He teaches the people by various means, usually unorthodox, I understand. The merchants reported that he’s preached in many of the synagogues of Galilee, and when these are denied him he takes to the open air…in the fields, on the hills. Once he even launched out onto the Sea of Tiberias and preached to the crowds from a boat. But there’s always a multitude around him, wherever he goes.”

  “What’s his message?”

  “Repentance. Prepare for—what was it?—the approaching ‘kingdom of God.’”

  “That was the Baptizer’s message.”

  “This prophet’s, too, though he also teaches a whole program for the new era which he claims has dawned on earth. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the priestly clan in Jerusalem are doing a poor job of leading the people in this new time, he contends.”

  “Does he preach revolution?”

  Cornelius thought for a moment, then replied, “No, not that I’ve heard so far. A spiritual revolution, perhaps, but no call to arms. The changes are to take place inside people, and then society will improve. People are to love, not hate…help, not hurt. A rather different message, what?”

  “What do the Jewish authorities think of this prophet?”

  “They’re divided. A few support him enthusiastically, but most are wary. The Pharisees hate him for his stinging attacks, and the Sadducees think he’s upsetting the status quo. But they haven’t bothered him yet.”

  “I wonder why…”

  “Because of the people. The man seems to wield enormous authority over the people. And small wonder! After each of his discourses, he supposedly starts healing them, curing their diseases…”

  “That’s not very unusual, Cornelius,” remarked Pilate, a little condescendingly. “The eastern Mediterranean is full of faith healers. Some of them even get as far as Rome. I remember once when I was young—”

  “I can too, Prefect. But here’s the difference: all reports agreed that the people actually were cured.”

  “Of course they’re cured!”—Pilate grinned—“else how could the faith healer stay in business? The ‘cures,’ of course, are done in people who never had anything wrong with them in the first place, aside from their minds or overwrought imaginations. Sometimes they’re part of the charlatan’s entourage. The thing is staged. The ‘cripples’ have been hired to hobble by on crutches, which are then thrown away. Or, in cases of real disease, the fever was about to break anyway…coincidence.”

  “Yes,” laughed Cornelius. “Wouldn’t you love to expose the fakers by bringing them someone genuinely ill, no, handicapped—say, a person blind from birth—and then see if they could be cured?”

  “Yes, that would be a good test.”

  Cornelius was silent a moment. Then, slowly, he replied, “Well, this is exactly the kind of thing being done by this prophet: people blind, paralyzed, deaf, dumb—from birth—being given sight, hearing, speech, the use of their limbs.”

  Pilate frowned at Cornelius. “I don’t believe it,” he said coolly.

  “Well, those are the reports, anyway.” The centurion shrugged. “And there are others.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This prophet does more than heal, the people say. He also performs other ‘signs,’ as they call them. One report has it that wine was running low at a wedding, and he transformed one hundred gallons of water into wine. And not just everyday, run-of-the-press vintage, but aged choice Judean Red!”

  “Aha! A prophet with taste.”

  “There’re other stories. For instance, during a storm on—”

  “Enough, Cornelius! All this is simply the old thaumaturge phenomenon. Every religious culture I’ve come across has its wonder workers, its magicians, and the Jewish tradition is more religious than most.”

  “I suppose you’re right. But you can see why he has such a hold on the people.”

  “Of course.” Pilate closed the conversation and was about to dismiss the centurion when he had an afterthought. “Wait, Cornelius. Just who is this prophet? Did you learn anything about the man himself?”

  “Some people think he’s the Baptizer, returned from the dead. Herod Antipas is supposedly terrified at the thought.”

  “He must be losing his mind to believe that.”

  “Others claim he’s none other than Elijah, the most famous of past Hebrew prophets.”

  “Equally ridiculous! Come, come, man, couldn’t you get a better identification than that?”

  “Yes. I did. The prophet’s name is Joshua. He comes from Nazareth in Galilee.”

  “Hmmmm. Joshua, eh?”

  “Yes, Joshua or Yeshua. In our language it would be Jesus.”

  Chapter 13

  When the blow fell, Pilate felt his career cracking under it. The shattering happened at Rome, but the fissures radiated across the Mediterranean world. This was more than a passing crisis, for it threatened the very life of the prefect of Judea, and hundreds like him. Pilate would never be able to shake off the searing memory of what happened when Procula returned, unexpectedly, after an overland trip from Rome in the winter of A.D. 31–32.

  Overtired, distraught from the cruel journey—Romans never traveled in winter except for emergencies—Procula could only report the horror in Rome and collapse from exhaustion. Pilate spent a night of agonized despair, trying to sort the fragments of fact into some mosaic of reason until Procula could explain it all the next day.

  She was composed enough the following morning to furnish the details about October 18, 784,* a date which changed their lives, and which marked probably the most dramatic event in the long cavalcade of Rome’s past. Procula told the story slowly, fully, deliberately, consulting a long scroll of notations she had made of the entire episode, knowing that Pilate would have to have precise information. Much of the detail was supplied by a cousin of Procula who was a senator and an eyewitness.

  Tiberius had not written the Senate for some time, she said, but now the praetorian commander at Capri, Sertorius Macro, was delivering to the Senate a lengthy and important document from the emperor. Sejanus, of course, wanted to know the contents of that communiqué, for rumors swept the city that here, at last, was the conferral of tribunician power which would make him joint emperor.

  Early on the brisk and beautiful morning of the eighteenth, Procula continued, Sejanus led his crack first cohort of the Praetorian Guard to the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine, where the Senate would sit that day. The site was thronged with cheering Romans. Anyone who hoped to rank in Sejanus’s favor wanted to be on hand when the great man was rendered even greater. At the door of the temple, Macro, who had Tiberius’s letter in hand, encountered Sejanus.

  “Why the fretting, Sejanus?” he wondered good-naturedly.

  “The princeps hasn’t written in some time. Naturally I’m conc
erned.”

  “Shall I break the seals on this and let you have a look ahead of time?”

  Sejanus merely smiled at the pleasantry, for it would have been treason to open the letter before it was presented to the Senate.

  “Come here, friend.” Macro smiled. “I’ve something confidential to tell you.”

  Bystanders and arriving senators saw Macro whisper something to Sejanus. They could not know what, but when Sejanus’s frown melted into a smile of satisfaction, they could guess what Macro had in fact confided: the tribunician power was his! The news immediately flashed through the crowd and a volley of cheers arose.

  Elated, Sejanus hurried inside the Senate chamber, receiving felicitations from every side. His partisans were jubilant, applauding him openly, and even his enemies now had to wear a counterfeit mask of joy, Sejanus noted with double satisfaction.

  The conscript fathers took their places as a lictor signaled with his fasces and all excited talk in the chamber died instantly. The presiding consul, Memmius Regulus, led a file of magistrates to curule chairs in front of the chamber, and then solemnly threw several pinches of incense over coals glowing on Apollo’s altar. Next he offered hallowed grain to a coop of sacred chickens, while a venerable senator, clutching a spiral-headed crosier, watched them closely. The excited cackle of the hens signaled the senators that the omens were favorable even before the augur could announce, “There is no evil sight nor sound.” A relieved murmur filled the chamber. Business could now begin.

  After disposing of preliminary matters, Regulus, one of the consules suffecti, or substitute consuls for the year, rose to read Tiberius’s letter.

  There were no surprises in the opening paragraphs, though it did seem to many that they had never heard the emperor quite so verbose. His words seemed to compete with each other, rather than serving to support a uniform train of thought.

  Sejanus waited anxiously for the prolix ramblings to reach their theme, but Tiberius, at his discursive best, was first taking the senators on a tour of the Empire’s problems. He shambled on over a gamut of topics ranging from wheat production in Sardinia to the offensive garlic breath of the masses at public games.

  “He’s obviously getting senile,” one senator in the front row whispered to another.

  The princeps’ first reference to Sejanus finally came, a bit of criticism over his fiscal policies. This raised a few brows, but the letter next digressed to the need for public restrooms in the Forum. Then, just as abruptly, Tiberius returned to Sejanus for a slighting reference to the prefect’s ambitions, but quickly the lines skimmed over to another topic.

  “What do you make of it?” the consul Trio asked Sejanus, after he had sidled over to him.

  “Typically Tiberius. He wants to keep me humble, and he also loves to shock. Watch. First he shoots his barbs. Then, just when the Senate is ready to write me off, comes the emperor’s surprise: the tribunician power. Sejanus is closer than a son after all, even if he does need a little discipline.”

  “It’s an old man’s game.”

  “Quite.” Sejanus noted the concerned glances from some of his partisans and smiled to reassure them. After all, he knew how the letter would end.

  But many in the Senate were beginning to doubt that the message would ever end. Regulus droned on and on and on.

  Sejanus grew impatient. This was to be his moment of glory, but the princeps was injecting a massive dose of tedium into the occasion. He looked around for Macro, but could not find him.

  Then he heard something which brought him up short. Regulus raised his voice at this passage:

  …Finally, Conscript Fathers, I regret to inform you that our trusted minister and prefect, Lucius Aelius Sejanus, is a traitor. He has endangered the state, indeed, the princeps himself, by his fanatic persecution of Agrippina and the House of Germanicus, his lawsuits against members of the Julian party, his overwhelming personal ambition, and the conspiracy he has undertaken against Rome. Sejanus is another Catiline. I ask you now to show your loyalty by immediately arresting the prefect Sejanus and keeping him under close guard until I come to Rome. And since I am an old man, in the very peril of his life, I ask that you send a guard to Capri under the command of the consul Regulus to escort me to Rome. Farewell.

  Silence blanketed the chamber. A few senators quietly got up from their benches to move away from Sejanus. The first sound was a crescendo of muttering, then a full discordant chorus of condemnation from the very mouths which had cheered the prefect an hour earlier.

  Thunderstruck, Sejanus flashed about to summon his praetorians. But they had vanished. The entire cohort had been replaced by guards of the night watch, who were now filing into the Senate chamber. Their commander, Graecinius Laco, stood between Sejanus and the nearest exit. A knot of tribunes and lictors was encircling him.

  “Sejanus, come here.”

  Paralyzed by icy disbelief, he did not respond.

  “Sejanus, come here!” the consul Regulus called a second time, now pointing his finger at the accused. “Here! Now!”

  “Me? You are calling me?” Dazed, unaccustomed to receiving orders, Sejanus slowly stood up and faced the Senate, while Regulus repeated the final paragraph of Tiberius’s letter, now as a formal bill of indictment. The face of the prefect looked white as a waxen death mask.

  When he finished reading, the consul called on a single, reliable senator for an opinion, asking, “Should Sejanus not be imprisoned?” He dared not submit the matter to general debate, since the Sejanian faction in the Senate might recover to defend their man.

  “He should be imprisoned,” came the reply.

  Regulus then adjourned the Senate, while Laco and the night watch surrounded Sejanus, bound his hands, and then led him out of the Temple of Apollo. The news blazed through downtown Rome so quickly that swarms of people were already converging along the Via Sacra to witness the incredible sight: the second man in the Empire, a halter about his neck, being led like a donkey westward across the length of the Forum to the Tullianum dungeon.

  Pilate begged Procula to stop temporarily, while he rose to adjust his nerves. Perspiring profusely, a sickly knot of anxiety churning his stomach, he ordered a flagon of strong wine and then paced back and forth with rippled brow, his hands wrestling with each other. When the wine was brought he gulped a goblet in one draft and refilled it. Finally he sat down in a slump and asked his wife to continue.

  The Roman populace hailed the fall of Sejanus with a wild rampage of joy, Procula resumed, toppling his statues and desecrating his memorials. Partisans of Agrippina led the demonstrations, of course, but followers of Sejanus were desperately eager to change sides and now outdid themselves in trying to show that they had always hated the man.

  But where were the praetorians? Sejanus, languishing in prison, had one powerful hope: that nine thousand praetorian guardsmen, marching across Rome, would tear open the Tullianum, rescue him, cut down his enemies. But there was no stirring from the Castra Praetoria.

  The reaction of the citizenry combined with the inaction of the praetorians now firmed the Senate in its resolve. Reconvening later the same day, it listened to angry fusillades of oratory denouncing Sejanus. Then, just before supper, Consul Regulus called for a vote. There was little need to count the waving thicket of human arms. Regulus announced, “The Senate and the Roman People sentence Lucius Aelius Sejanus to death for high treason!”

  Roman law required that nine days elapse between sentence and execution, but Rome was in no mood to wait so long. That very night, a committee of consuls and praetors visited the Tullianum, and gave orders to the executioners. Under the flickering glow of torches, Sejanus was pulled out of his cell and led to the black-walled death chamber.

  “No!” he cried. “This is a violation of Roman law! The praetorians!” he roared. “Get the praetorians!” But a rag was stuffed in his mouth and poked down his throat. Then a long strap of leather was wound around his neck, and the free ends were pulled by guards on ea
ch side of him. Sejanus tried to struggle free, but his hands were tied behind his back. The pressure around his neck only increased. Now the lack of air was torturing, excruciating, but the strap kept tightening. The man who had begun the day as virtual co-emperor of Rome was strangled to death at its close.

  His body was pitched down the Stairs of Mourning, yet it failed to reach the Tiber. The rabble had to play with it first. For three days and nights the corpse was made to preside over mock ceremonials, then abused and dragged by hooks through waterfront streets until mercifully dumped into the Tiber. Or was it? According to another rumor Procula heard, the mob tore Sejanus’s body into pieces so small the executioner could not find one big enough to expose on the Stairs of Mourning.

  In the week following the death of Sejanus, Rome rocked in a chaos of disorder and rioting. The rabid, unforgiving riffraff went after the well-known associates of Sejanus and lynched them in what became a general massacre. Meanwhile, the praetorians, furious at being thought less loyal to Tiberius than the night watch, vented their ire in burning and plunder instead of policing the mobs.

  The record of the Senate in that crisis was not much better. Obsequious to the point of nausea, senators scrambled to introduce these measures, all of which passed with acclamation:

  1. A statue of liberty was to be erected in the Forum.

  2. October 18 would henceforth be an annual holiday, to be celebrated by games and spectacles.

  3. In the future, no excessive honors would be granted anyone, except the princeps.

  4. Henceforth, Tiberius would be known as “Father of his Country,” and his birthday was to be observed by ten horse races and a banquet.

  5. Macro and Laco would receive splendid honors for their roles in felling Sejanus.

  The Roman people had sampled blood; they now seemed to develop something of a taste for the scarlet beverage. In another stormy session of the Senate, one old patrician observed darkly, “The blood of Sejanus still pulses in his offspring, the kind of blood which conspires against the state!” Concurring in this masterpiece of logic, the conscript fathers, conscience of the state that they were, condemned Sejanus’s children to death. The eldest was executed six days after his father, another later, and finally the turn came for the youngest brother and sister.