by Albert Noyer
“You thought he might be able to tell you more about your parents.”
“That’s part of it, but we don’t really know what Judeans are like. I’ve never had one as a patient.”
“Because they have their own physicians and keep to their own quarter,” Arcadia said. “Bishop Chrysologos blames any hostility toward Judeans as being their fault for rejecting Christ.”
“Ridiculous! The bishop also condemns Arians, or any other sect that disagrees with the Roman Church.”
“Then how do you think Chrysologos would react to the terms of the Secundus Papyrus?”
“That worries me, Arcadia. The will is like a loaded catapult, and it wouldn’t take much to trip the trigger. Can you imagine provincial governors, city councils, quietly handing over authority to Judeans? And this Rabbi Zadok may turn out to be a militant Hebrew who’ll insist on the testament being made public even before its authenticity is determined.”
Getorius fell silent at the prospect. Arcadia gazed off at the stunted trees of a waterlogged scrub forest that was struggling to bracket the highway.
Further on, about halfway to Classis, the road became a raised causeway that was surrounded by a broad swamp and the deposits of sandy soil that were inexorably filling in the port’s once magnificent harbor. Squinting to the left of this marshy lake, Getorius saw the dense evergreens of The Pines as a dark line that mimicked the sea’s flat horizon. Valentinian was hunting there, far from Behan’s abandoned hut, Getorius guessed, which probably now served as an overnight shelter for woodcutters.
The monk’s canvas-shrouded body still bobbed in the stream nearby, a grisly captive inside its wicker prison, while it awaited burial.
Classis
Chapter thirteen
Even before the walls of Classis came into view, Getorius commented to his wife on the acrid smell of bitumen drifting inland from the port’s shipyards. They arrived at the Ravenna Gate by late morning, greeted by more pleasant odors. Vendors were roasting meat and fish over pinewood coals, selling them to passersby.
The walls and gate towers were lower than those in the capital, but well constructed. Sigisvult had talked about Vitruvius Pollio, the architect who helped design the port for Augustus Caesar, and had read from his treatise on the location of towns. The same cluster of vendors’ stalls, idlers and ragged indigents that crowded the entrances to Ravenna were also present here, almost choking off the narrow passage into the city. Getorius strained to guide the carriage through without knocking down a stall, or running a wheel over a beggar’s leg. At best that would delay them; at worse, risk a lawsuit in the local magistrate’s court.
Once the carriage was beyond the gate and inside an open square, Getorius halted the mare to ask someone where the imperial mansio was located. Two men standing drinking at a wineseller’s stall, and armed with swords, looked over, evidently recognizing him as a newcomer. One came over and took hold of the horse’s bit. The other, a scarred, beefy man who might have served in the legions at one time, walked around to squint at Arcadia and Getorius.
“Where y’going?” he asked, peering inside the carriage.
“I have business in Classis,” Getorius told him.
“Where? Who with?”
“Business,” Getorius repeated, not used to being questioned about his movements.
“There’s a visitor’s tax,” the other man added with a snicker. “One gold solidus.”
“Show them Galla Placidia’s signet,” Arcadia muttered under her breath.
“It would mean nothing to these two illiterates, and I’ll be with Hades before I pay extortion money. I’m a surgeon,” he said more loudly to the man, “here on a personal matter.”
“Well, bone-cutter, it’ll cost y’gold for that.”
By now idlers had gathered around to watch the confrontation. Some joked about the couple while they waited for the gold coin to be handed over—strangers were always frightened into paying.
“A solidus,” the man repeated, his face reddening and an edge of anger appearing in his voice.
Getorius ignored him and looked over his head at the nearest vendor to call out, “Where is the imperial mansio?”
The merchant, who saw this scene played out several times a day, grinned and pointed to a villa across the square. “Behind you, Surgeon.”
The ruffian glanced around, and pulled on the mare’s bridle to keep Getorius from turning the animal’s head.
“Let go of my horse,” Getorius ordered, as evenly as he could.
Hearing some of the bystanders laughing, the bully hesitated, realizing that the crowd had begun to side with this stranger, who seemed determined to call his bluff. The man spat nervously, released the bridle, and motioned to his companion. “Aw…let’s go eat.”
After the pair had skulked off into one of the side streets that led to the wharves, Getorius looked at Arcadia. “A bit foolish of me,” he admitted, “making enemies even before dismounting. That inn doesn’t look like much, but I’m not sure I want to go searching for another one with those two on the loose.”
“We’ll make it do,” Arcadia agreed.
Getorius turned the mare toward the deteriorated front of a two-story building that was set back twenty-five paces from the curb, facing a weed-choked front yard. The fountain positioned in its center was dry. Undoubtedly, Valentinian’s inspectors had been bribed to overlook the neglected state of the building.
“You, child,” he called to a boy floating a block of wood in a curbside puddle. “Go and bring the manager of this place to me.”
The boy returned a few moments later, with a heavy-set middle-aged man wearing a greasy leather vest. Blussus thought he was being paid a surprise visit by someone from the aedile’s office in Ravenna until he saw Arcadia. A woman would not be accompanying an inspector.
“You wish lodgings for the night?” he asked, still suspicious. “Or longer perhaps?”
“Protasius at the tax office told us we could stay here.”
“Ah”—Blussus raised an eyebrow—“you are an assessor, then?” There were those in town who would pay to know that in advance.
“No, we’re just visiting Classis.”
The eyebrow curved up again; no one came to the port just to visit. “Your ‘visit’ involves shipping, perhaps?”
“My husband is a surgeon,” Arcadia told him. “We have an authorization from the Emperor’s mother to stay here. Show him, Getorius.”
“No need, Domina,” Blussus fawned, “your word suffices.”
“Can you show us a room?”
“Certainly Domina,” he replied, bowing. “An honor to host friends of the Gothic…of the Empress Mother. I myself, Julius Blussus, will assure your comfort. Evantius, lead the horse around to our stables.”
“Evantius is your son?”
“Both son and ‘sun’ of my life, Domina.”
Blussus chuckled at his pun and led the way to the villa’s entrance, which was on the narrower side of the building, facing a brick drive that went to stables in the rear. Inside, the atrium tile was buckled and cracked. The pool in the center of the atrium was choked with moldering willow leaves, and resembled a mosaic of slim, earth-tone spear shapes. The garden beyond was thick with ragged evergreens that needed pruning and the overgrown stems of dried weeds.
Once beyond the peristyle columns, Arcadia fell back to Getorius’ side. “I hope this doesn’t reflect the condition of his rooms,” she murmured to her husband. “Whatever state stipend Blussus receives obviously doesn’t go into the inn’s maintenance.”
“Don’t make a fuss,” Getorius hissed back. “We don’t need to attract attention to ourselves.”
Mercifully, when Blussus pushed open the door to a room in the east wing, Arcadia was pleasantly surprised. The bed was made with what seemed to be reasonably clean linen, and a pitcher on the table actually held water. Although some of the paint had flaked off a mural on the back wall, she could make out a harbor scene; not Classis, but s
ome imagined arcadia from the past, depicting colonnaded warehouses, a bluish mountain range, and a round Tholos temple set amid grazing cattle. The mountains and part of a ship merged into the right-hand wall, which had obviously been set up a while ago to divide what was originally a much larger space into two bedrooms.
“I can arrange for a room like this,” Blussus offered, sheepishly wiping the chair back with his hand.
“What’s wrong with this one?” Arcadia asked him. “I like it. A good dusting is all it would take to make it livable.”
“Ah, Domina, unfortunately it’s taken. Two merchants have—”
“Then why show it?” she snapped.
“Blussus,” Getorius broke in, “whatever room you set up for us will be fine. Where does one have a meal in Classis?”
“I have simple but ample fare. If you would both honor me by dining here?”
“Good. Have your son bring our things in after he stables the mare. We need to go out for awhile.”
“I begin serving at the fifth hour.”
“We’ll be back here by then.” Getorius took Arcadia’s arm and led her toward the entrance.
“That was the room he shows off,” she complained once they were outside. “Ours had better be at least as well kept.”
Getorius did not reply. He knew from consultations with midwives that women often became irritable when their menstrual flow began each month. What was the connection? His dissection of several cats had proved that the uterus was fixed in place and did not wander around the body in search of moisture, as was commonly believed. Even if it did, when excess blood was being thrown off the organ should be at rest, and logically, the woman, too. He shook his head and looked east along the Via Armini, toward the old forum. There were more important things to do than humor his wife.
The Via Armini in Classis was similar in length to the one in Ravenna, although about three paces narrower. Various shops catered to customers on the ground level, with balconies or awnings above to protect them from sun or rain. At the harbor area, where a pall of black smoke smudged the horizon, the masts of galleys stabbed a sky that was fast becoming overcast with low rain clouds. The hollow, clunking sound of hammers and a strong smell of pitch betrayed the location of the port’s naval shipyards and outfitting docks. Squinting along the road, Getorius recalled that the ruins of the ancient forum were located where the Armini intersected with another broad avenue that led to the waterfront.
“There should be a marble or bronze plaque in the forum with a diagram of Classis,” he said, as he guided Arcadia along the sidewalk. “It will help us find the streets, since I didn’t think to question Protasius about Zadok’s address.”
“Why didn’t you ask the innkeeper?”
“The fewer who know our reason for coming here, the better.” Getorius held her arm to let a cart pass on a cross street. “What’s the name cut into that board on the building across the way?”
“Vicus…Syriorum.”
“Street of the Syrians. Good, let’s keep on.”
The forum had been located on the south side of the Armini, to allow more space for commercial buildings and warehouses in the direction of the harbor. After walking past three blocks of shops and apartments, the couple came upon an area that had been totally cleared, except for two remaining buildings. The nearest was an abandoned temple. Statues of two gods had been brought out from inner shrines and set on the porch, facing the wall.
Arcadia read the inscription’s greenish, bronze letters. “The temple was dedicated to Neptune and Mercurius by Tiberius Caesar,” she informed her husband.
“Guardians of the sea and commerce.” Getorius pointed to an offering of wheat stalks lying on the chipped altar in front. “Pagans still worship here. Whoever is presbyter in Classis hasn’t been able to persuade everyone in his flock to throw the old gods into the harbor. That building across the way is probably the Curia, where the plaque with the map should be.”
They crossed via a path separating harvested gardens that were planted among the ruins of other structures. As Getorius had guessed, a marble slab was mounted to the right of the doorway.
“This is recent,” Getorius noted, after checking the diagram etched on its face. “Valentinian is given credit, but it was put up by Aetius in his second consulship. That was…only two years ago.”
“Does it give street names?”
“Yes. Let’s see…we’re in the forum. That should be the Via Adriatico leading down to the docks.”
“It is,” Arcadia said. “I can see ships at anchor and a glimpse of the sea. Is there a Street of the Judeans, or something similar?”
Getorius read off the streets going east, “Of the Thracians… Dacians…Macedonians. Here, Vicus Judaeorum.”
Arcadia noticed a crude six-pointed star scratched near the street name, two triangles with one reversed and superimposed on the other. “What’s that symbol?”
“I think it’s the emblem of David, the Hebrew king, but this one is meant as a threat. Some Christians see it as a desecration of the Trinity because the inverted triangle cancels out their symbol. That’s not the only disrespect. See that building on the left side?”
Arcadia looked at the diagram labeled ECCLESIA ARIANORVM. “That’s across from the inn. I thought it looked like a church.”
“Yes, but Arian. Someone has scratched Hairetikos over it, ‘Heretics’ in Greek.”
Arcadia shuddered and grasped her husband’s arm. “Let’s find Rabbi Zadok. I don’t think I want to spend much time in Classis.”
After walking past the streets he had named, Getorius found the one leading to the Judean quarter, but looking around, he was puzzled. The area was empty of people, with shops shuttered as if no one lived there, and yet the smell of hot food indicated there were inhabitants. He wondered if the place was under a quarantine imposed by port authorities. Seaborne diseases were common where galleys came in from distant countries.
“Wait here,” he told Arcadia, then crossed the Armini to ask a lone woman filling a jug at a fountain about the lack of activity. When he came back, he explained, “she says it’s the Hebrews’ Sabbath. No one is allowed to work, so nothing is open.”
“Will the rabbi see us?”
“She said that the synagogue is three blocks down the Judaeorum. Look for a building on the right that resembles a temple.”
The place of worship was easy to pick out from among the apartments. Situated near the south wall, the synagogue was set back from the street, with an entrance facing southeast, toward Jerusalem. The front resembled that of a Roman temple, with steps that led to a shallow colonnaded porch whose entablature was interrupted by a central semi-circular arch. The building was faced with Tibertine marble, and streaked by black weather stains. A walled, paved fore-court separated the structure from the street.
Several bearded men sat on the synagogue steps. They wore turban-like hats and fringed shawls thrown over dark, skirted jackets that half-covered baggy trousers tucked into felt boots. The group had been engaged in a lively discussion, but fell silent when they noticed the couple walking toward them. It was obvious from their dress that they were not Judeans.
Getorius motioned for Arcadia to stay back, and approached the men through an ironwork gate. “My pardon for interrupting you,” he called out. “I was told I could find David ben Zadok here.”
No one replied until one man who looked to be the oldest in the group stood up. “I am Mordecai ben Asher,” he said. “Rav Zadok is preparing for the afternoon service. Why do you wish to see him? Who are you?”
“Getorius Asterius, a surgeon from Ravenna. That’s my wife back there. She trains with me to be a medica. My…my father knew the rabbi.” He unfolded his pass. “I have an authorization from the Augustus.”
Mordecai came and studied the parchment without touching it. “This has the signet of his mother. What is your business with the Rav?”
“Confidential, sir, and urgent,” he replied. “I didn’t rea
lize it was your holy day.”
“Is this a matter of life and death?” one of the men called out.
“You could say so,” Getorius replied. “Yes, definitely.”
He heard the men discuss his reply in a guttural language he assumed was Hebrew.
Mordecai joined in briefly then turned. “The mother of the Augustus would not have given her blessing to you unless the matter was important. I will take you to Rav Zadok. He has a little time before prayers.”
Mordecai led the way to an apartment across the narrow street. After Getorius rapped on the door with a bronze knocker in the shape of a lion’s head, a youth opened the portal.
Mordecai spoke to him in Greek, but Getorius understood enough to know the servant was told who he was, and that his business was urgent enough for ben Zadok to see a Gentile on the Sabbath.
The building’s vestibule was paved in a mosaic design that depicted a candelabrum with seven branches, and other figures Getorius did not recognize. After he and Arcadia were shown into a reception room, Mordecai disappeared down the corridor.
The smell of fish being cooked nearby wafted into the anteroom, but the odor was not strong enough to completely overpower a pleasant scent of incense. While he waited, Getorius thought about his parents. If his father had been about Zadok’s age, then the rabbi would be over sixty years old, and a link with a past he had thought forever broken upon Nicias’ death. As a friend, Zadok must have known Treverius and Blandina more intimately than Nicias, and might be able to fill in details that the old surgeon had not heard, or had forgotten.
Getorius was beginning to become impatient when the Greek youth entered and motioned him and Arcadia to an office down the hallway.
David ben Zadok stood when the couple entered, but said nothing. Getorius saw a white-bearded, ruddy face that was etched with furrows, like the eroded slopes near Caesena. Watching the rabbi as he studied him for a few moments, Getorius was sure he saw tears glistening in the old man’s brown eyes.
“Yes, you…you are his son,” Zadok finally said, in a gentle voice that trembled with emotion. “Barukh k’vod Adonai mi-m’komo.”
