The Kingdom of the Wicked

by Anthony Burgess

  What can one say of this Rome except that it was in great need of moral redemption and that it had missed its chance? And what can one say of the corruption of the present writer, who admits to a gross fascination in the recording of bloody misrule and a certain reluctance to return to the lives of small people who sweep, bake bread, make decent marital love, perform their humble duties to the community but raise yawns more than admiration when they become matter for a book? God, if he exists and does not recognise Petronius, may think differently, but you are not God.

  Marcus Julius Tranquillus and his wife and daughter left Rome at an opportune time. Julius’s uncle, who was ageing and lonely, made them welcome in his villa in Pompeii, which lay not far from the fertile slopes of Mons Summanus, a mountain which had erupted recently and would not, so the astrologers decreed, erupt again for at least a century. Julius, a retired soldier, took to what many veterans did for health and pleasure in those days: he cultivated a garden. But he tended his uncle’s grounds, which had been neglected, for profit also. He added to the garden two acres of unused paddock: the soil was so rich here with the past effusions of the volcano that it cried aloud to be planted and harvested. So Julius grew salad greens, cucumbers, melons and marrows, plucked plums and cherries, and tended vines which produced wine so miraculous that it was called the tears of the gods; the few quiet Christians around (of whom Julius was no longer one) went further and called it the tears of Christ. When Julius’s uncle died, full of years and still dreaming of the return of the republic, the property went to the nephew. Julius prospered, employing two boys and his own son-in-law in the planting, tending and marketing. Ruth had married the son of a Greek bridging engineer named – like his father – Demetrios, who had migrated hither as a child with his family from western Cyprus. While the Roman Empire was setting to history the worst possible examples of morality and rule, it was also, distractedly as it were, proclaiming the virtues of intermarriage, which I have always held to be one of the hopes of a humanity which has tried to thrive too long on divisiveness.

  Julius was growing old now, iron-grey but not bald, muscular and sunburnt but given to shooting pains in the back and thighs. Sara was less old, but she too was greying and her body, which had been slender as a sword, had rounded to an acceptable matronliness. She retained her old cynicism about the ways of God and empires. The day was enough and whatever the day brought – the kitchen tasks, the laying of the red dust, the feeding of the hens and pigeons, the evening gossip over the tears of the gods, the stroll with her married daughter through a town grown soft in its cultivation of pleasure, well planned however, full of ridiculous statues and refreshing fountains. It was a town of baths and brothels, fantastic fashions in dress and hair for the patrician women, lavish dinner parties for the rich, a general tolerance of Oriental faiths though not of Christianity, games and plays and singing contests, a balmy climate, Mons Summanus recovered from his sickness and puffing slackly and benignly.

  One day Sara’s brother Caleb and his wife Hannah came unexpectedly, leading a grey donkey on which their household gods were bundled and corded. They were travelstained and weary but swiftly revived after a warm sluice and a cup of the divine lacrimation. They unloaded their beast and sent it to graze in the orchard among the plum windfalls.

  ‘How long are you staying?’ Sara asked.

  ‘Myself not at all. Hannah, until I get back. If I ever do.’ Hannah was thin with a grief she could not lose nor seemed to wish to. Caleb was hardy enough but looked older than Julius. His nose seemed more assertive than before, his cheeks had shrunken. They had had no further child; they had settled to an unphilosophical resentment of the death of their son.

  ‘There’s room for her.’

  ‘She’s a good hand with the needle. And her cooking isn’t bad.’

  ‘And you go where?’

  ‘Well, it’s a long story,’ Caleb said to Julius and Sara, as they sat over the cool jug. ‘I’m going back to Jerusalem. I take ship from Puteoli. I’ve waited how many years for this? And it comes when I’m too old, an old married man with no son to promise a future to.’

  ‘What future?’ Julius asked. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You get no news here?’

  ‘News of what?’

  Caleb sighed heavily, sitting on his ornate little chair nursing his cup, his shoulders hunched. ‘The Romans always ran Palestine badly. Our people put up with a lot but there had to be a limit. The procurator Florus has forced this on the people. Robbing the Temple, God help us. What do the Jews do? Sit back and let him do it? They hit, at least the Zealots did. There’ve been some Roman deaths. Florus ordered a massacre and some woman there tried to stop it. Daughter of Caligula’s puppet – I forget her name.’

  ‘Bernice or Berenice,’ Julius said. ‘I saw her in Caesarea. A pretty little woman. No fool.’

  ‘Now she’s gone on to the Roman side,’ Caleb said. ‘Perhaps she can’t be blamed. The Jews burnt down her palace in Jerusalem. The Jews can sometimes be very ungrateful. But the Jews at the moment are mad, and who can blame them?’

  ‘Where did you learn all this?’ Sara asked.

  ‘It’s come through to Rome. There are prayers in the synagogues. It’s the war at last. The Romans brought this on themselves. I’ve got to get out there.’

  ‘To be killed,’ Hannah started to sob. ‘They won’t win, they can’t. It’s going to be butchery.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Caleb admitted. ‘They’ve got the legions coming in from Syria. And we, they, the Zealots, have stones and a few knives and no organisation. No unity, no control. The Sadducees want to keep out of it and the Pharisees aren’t sure. As for the Nazarenes—’ He looked straight at Julius. ‘It’s the end of the Nazarenes.’

  ‘I thought it would be, some day,’ Julius said. ‘God hasn’t been helpful to the Nazarenes. Or to the Jews. I lost faith. I see now it was Paul I had faith in.’

  ‘You’re no longer one of them?’

  ‘No longer. I attached my faith to something else. Something more in keeping with the needs of a retired centurion.’

  ‘He means,’ Sara said with some scorn, ‘he’s been washed in the blood of the white bull. Nonsense like the other thing. But more fanciful nonsense. Mithraism, they call it.’

  ‘In what way,’ Julius asked, ‘is it the end of the Nazarenes?’ He felt a lump like hard cake in his mouth.

  ‘How could the Nazarenes be trusted? They don’t believe in war. They turn the other cheek. They won’t die for the Temple.’

  ‘And quite right too,’ Sara said. ‘Why should anyone want to die for a chunk of stone?’

  ‘He’s ready to die for it,’ Hannah sobbed. ‘Men are fools.’

  ‘Suicidal idiots,’ Sara expanded. Caleb looked sheepish. Julius said:

  ‘What happened to the Nazarenes?’

  ‘Nothing much. They were given a warning. They were asked to show where their loyalties lay. And when their episcopos as they call him had the stones thrown—’ He gulped, remembering Stephen.

  ‘Who?’ Julius asked.

  ‘James. Head of the Nazarenes in Jerusalem. The last of those who saw Jesus Naggar. The Zealots said it wasn’t safe to have him around.’

  ‘I never met him,’ Julius said. ‘But I heard about him. He did well. He kept the balance. I thought the Jews loved him.’

  ‘Oh, they were ready enough to tolerate him before this Florus raided the Temple. Then he talked about forgiveness and the Temple not made by hands. So the high priest Ananus permitted the stoning. He knew what would happen if he didn’t. They killed the high priest Ananias. Cleaning up the Jewish camp before the great war. The pure clean blade of the sword of Israel.’ He began himself to sob like his wife but he soon gave over and then showed proud wet eyes to the company. ‘I know it’s hopeless, but what can I do? Could I live with myself? I take ship from Puteoli.’

  ‘The war will be over by the time you get to Caesarea,’ Julius said.

  ‘It will nev
er be over,’ Caleb said. ‘It will take the Romans for ever and ever to kill all the Jews of the world. The Temple may be destroyed, but the Jews carried the Ark of the Covenant through the desert places and will carry it again.’

  ‘Go,’ his sister said, ‘to the desert places and wait for them. You’re following a bad dream.’

  ‘A good dream. I had it when I was a boy, you remember. I have to be true to my boyhood. It’s as simple as that.’

  Caleb marched to the port on a rainy day, with the cone of the great mountain masked in grey moving mist. He kissed his wife and sister and niece and he wept. Julius shook his hand hopelessly and went to the weekly service at a temple less glorious than Solomon’s. The altar was a simple stone table, and on the wall behind it was a painting in Pompeian blues and russets of the god Mithras as a beautiful youth driving his sword into the neck of a white bull which was, for good measure, being devoured simultaneously by a scorpion, a crab and a dog. He found himself praying to the severed head of Paul for the safety of his brother-in-law, then he shook off the blasphemy. The masked priest stood near a tethered white bullock, knife in hand. Julius too was masked and, like so many of his fellow worshippers, he wore a military uniform worn, too small, somewhat mildewed. There were five young postulants, unmasked. The priest said:

  ‘Worshippers of Mithras, lovers of Mithras, god of the sun, lord of life, hearken well to his story. The god of light was conceived to be our saviour from the god of darkness Ahriman, prince of evil. The struggle continues until the death of time, and we participate in the struggle. Behold the solemnity of his mystery. The swift sword of light saves the force of generation from being devoured by the force of evil. The killing sword is also the sword of rebirth. For from the blood of the slain new life springs. For those postulates assembled today with the initiates, a most solemn moment is at hand. For they shall be bathed in the blood of the slain and be given new life.’ He raised the sacrificial knife and Julius closed his eyes. On the roof of the temple the rain beat. He remembered another bathing on the shore of the island of Melita. Sacrament meant soldier’s oath. Broken, broken. Cowardice. No, realism. Were they not all the same? Isis and Osiris, at whose ceremonies his daughter Ruth wept and rejoiced for the death and rebirth of the god of fertility, taking her new pregnancy to the priestess of Isis to be blessed. All the same under different names. He opened his eyes as the heavy bulk of the bleeding bullock fell to knees, to flank, bellowed in fear, died with blaring eyes. The postulants went forward to the altar to be smeared with the blood of the slain. For at his last supper the Lord spoke and said take ye and eat for this is my body. Take ye and drink for this is my blood. Julius was hearing the wrong words. The priest was saying: ‘Bring low the armies of Ahriman. Saviour, accept our love.’ Rain continued its rebuke, Julius beat his breast.

  Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus, whom we will call simply Vespasian, hale in his fifties, once legatus legionis in Britain, hated by Nero but indispensable to him as an efficient, tireless and incorruptible general, sat with his son, who had the identical name but whom we will call simply Titus, in their military headquarters near the Syrian border. ‘The Tenth Fretensis,’ Titus said. ‘The Twelfth Fulminata. The Fifteenth Apollinaris. The Fifth Macedonian.’ Regimental orders were sealed and stacked for delivery. Vespasian said:

  ‘I leave it to you.’

  ‘But surely there’s no urgency. These Jews come first.’

  ‘Rome comes first.’ Vespasian read once more the dispatches. The Moesian and Pannonian legions had repudiated Vitellius. The legions in Syria and Judaea also. Their allegiance to Vespasian had not been sought and certainly not paid for. Vespasianus Caesar. Titus said:

  ‘If you leave it to me you leave to me also the fulfilling of the Antonian dream.’

  ‘Listen,’ his father said urgently, ‘things never happen twice. The Eastern Empire was an impossibility, and Antony would have seen that if he hadn’t been besotted.’

  ‘Bernice is no Cleopatra. Bernice accepts the pax Romana.’

  ‘Which is administered from Rome. Where, when I die, you will be Emperor. Another thing, Jerusalem is not Alexandria. I know what you have in mind, young as you are.’ Titus was in his middle twenties. ‘It’s a Neronian idea in the sense that it’s an artist’s dream. The fusion of Roman discipline and Oriental glamour. Well, there’s no glamour in the Jews. They don’t have the decadent softness of the Egyptians. I can understand your being bewitched by this Galilean princess of yours, but that’s just a young man succumbing to Asiatic languor. You’ll get over it.’

  ‘I propose marrying her.’

  ‘Ah, no. When your time comes the Romans will never accept a foreign empress. You won’t even have time now to use her as a mistress. You’re in total charge of the Palestinian campaign from now on. It won’t take long. Show no mercy. They deserve no mercy. Pound it to dust and sow salt in the ruins. Spare nobody. Spare nothing. Not even their damned temple.’

  ‘There are certain things not even a conqueror ought to do.’

  ‘Oh, I know – fine architecture, sacred to an ancient people. But batter it, desecrate it, don’t be seduced by the tears of your Galilean mistress. There’s no room for strange gods in the Empire. Cover the body of the Jewish faith with quicklime.’

  ‘And the Christian faith?’

  ‘That’s already finished.’

  I have not much to say about this Jewish campaign: the story has been exhaustively, if sometimes inaccurately, told by a man named Joseph ben Mattias, who turned his coat and, in devotion to the dynasty initiated by Vespasian, renamed himself Josephus Flavius. It was after the massacre at Jotapata in Galilee that he, a rare survivor and a competent captain of infantry, sought Titus in his tent. ‘He comes under a truce flag,’ the centurion Liberalis told his general. ‘He wants to come over to our side, he says. He has valuable information, he says.’

  ‘I don’t like defectors. Why didn’t he die with the rest of the—What’s this place called?’

  ‘Jottapatata or something. Shall I let him in?’

  Titus tiredly nodded. A young man in armour, heavily bearded, came in, his brown eyes sharp as though feverish. He gave his present name and what he trusted might be his future name. ‘The Jewish cause was always hopeless,’ he said. ‘Why have you crucified some and not others?’

  ‘We ran out of wood.’

  Josephus sighed. ‘I fought but saw that fighting was a mode of self slaughter. I wish to join the Roman cause.’

  ‘And what do you hope to gain from the Roman cause?’

  ‘For myself, nothing. Except my life. Rome I know. I pleaded the cause of the Jews there once. The Empress Poppea Sabina was generous enough to say that she was impressed. She proposed joining the Godfearers. No, irrelevant. I’m a writer of histories. As such, I know that no man can fight against history. It is a strong tide and a man must float with it. History lies, for the next few hundred years or so, indubitably and ineluctably with the Roman Empire.’

  ‘And how many of your fellow countrymen feel the same?’

  ‘Not many. We Jews are a stubborn people. When I come to the writing of the history of this war I shall not deny either the stubbornness or the courage or the faith. The way things are going, all that will be left of the Jewish people is what will be in my book. But that must be so with all peoples, even the ones who establish their empires for eternity.’

  ‘I’m a patient man,’ Titus said. ‘I’ve listened. But I’m not greatly interested. Why do you tell me all this?’

  ‘I tell it you because, without realising it yet, you are desperately interested. Every victorious general needs the palms of the poet or the historian. Otherwise he becomes only a garbled tale for children. But I do not come primarily to tell you this. I come to tell you of the rifts in the fortifications of the holy city.’

  Titus showed brief revulsion. ‘You come here to betray your own people?’

  ‘Hardly. I do not wish Jerusalem to suffer a great siege. Let Jerusalem
be taken with the minimum of bloodshed. I will show you the surest way to the citadel. I think you may find me useful in other ways. Your Aramaic hardly exists. Aramaic is my mother tongue.’

  ‘What prevents my treating you as a captive and as a slave?’

  ‘Your good sense. Your victorious generosity. The fact that I am what I am. A man who has the right view of history. As for captivity and slavery – these, of course, I will not accept. I can always fly at your throat with my teeth and then be struck down. All death is captivity. Living, we have a choice.’

  ‘Highly philosophical. You’d better tell me about the rifts in the Jerusalem fortifications.’

  It was not intelligence of any great utility. The battering rams found their own weak places in the city walls. The catapults hurled rocks at the battlements. When Titus’s forces entered they found a wailing population white with dust, arms raised to heaven, women howling over the dead children they still carried tightly in their arms, Jew fighting with Jew. Odd troops of Zealots armed with the slingshot David had found efficacious against Goliath, sworded and daggered too, opened fierce mouths at the invading Romans and rushed on them to no great effect. Those who were caught were nailed in cruciform postures to the city walls. The weak and old had already found refuge in the Temple, which had its protective garrison of young warriors. The Tower of Antonia was in Jewish hands. Arrows and stones rained on the vanguard that Titus himself led to the Temple gates. Titus, marching through the inner courts, saw with interest a notice in the three languages of the province, promising death to the Gentile intruder. That in itself was a challenge. He ordered the rams to be dragged to the massy doors, marvelling at their gold and ivory, fighting a sickness that was a mere transitory disease of his impressionable youth.