György Spiró - Captivity

Tija shook his head:

“Historians are skilled at portraying everything that has happened as being a matter of necessity, as if nothing else could possibly have happened. They are captive to events, and as a result their brains have shriveled up. Those of us who are alive right now find ourselves amongst a multiplicity of equal chances. I cannot exclude the possibility that a senile Tiberius has gone off his rocker and given credence to a lie by some zealous, exaggerating informer, but for that very reason I can’t rule out that this was not what happened but rather exactly the opposite. Agrippa has been imprisoned by the emperor, that’s what the news says, and let us assume that because it has come from more than one source that the news is true. And yet why should Tiberius have had him imprisoned, given that up till now Agrippa has been so careful and never had a bad word to say about the emperor? If Tiberius really had been angry at him, all he would have had to is nod, and Agrippa would have been stabbed to death. Who would be upset by the death of a man like that? He’s only a Jew. He has no wealth: having run through his money long ago he scrapes by on loans; the emperor will not be made a penny richer through his death. Is the death of a peabrain like him going to bring the Roman Empire to its knees? Don’t make me laugh! It still leaves plenty of Herod the Great’s descendants. But then if Agrippa has been imprisoned, he is alive, so Tiberius has no intention of getting rid of him, though there are individuals in his circle him who can be held to account for any number of murders. The very fact Agrippa was not slain right away but locked up in prison is suspicious. Prison on Capri, where there is no such thing? Or was one set up specially for him?”

Uri admitted that Tija’s reasoning was logical.

“A prison is not necessarily a place of punishment,” Tija argued. “It is at least as much a place of survival. In the outside world there will be no end of indiscriminate mayhem and murder the moment that news of the emperor’s death is made public — but a prison, guarded by sentries, is precisely the place one can be protected from murderers. So it is worth clapping him in irons to ensure his survival, my dear Gaius. Then once things blow over, the prisoner can be brought out and put on show: Alas! He’s alive. He survived — and few of you who remained free have. Accept him with good grace. Because he too has suffered. I figure it is better to be imprisoned at the beginning of a period of unrest than later on, by which time a person will inevitably have done things detrimental to the interests of many, things that will never be forgotten — and people are quite capable of taking revenge. Have anyone whom you wish to protect, from others or from himself, locked up in good time!”

Uri mused on whether Matthew might not have had him locked up in prison in Jerusalem for similar reasons. He had indeed told him when they had parted — after that awkward supper they had eaten with Pilate — that he had saved Uri’s life, but then again Matthew had said nothing about having him sent to jail with the intention of protecting him.

Uri resolved that one day he would look Matthew up in Ostia and question him directly about it.

Tija’s conclusion was diametrically opposite the notions of Alexander and Philo, who were thrown, frankly, into despair on hearing the news. They summoned their chief advisers to the palace and, behind closed doors, went into lengthy sessions to decide on what was to be done. Marcus, experienced politician that he was, expressed no opinion.

One evening, Aulus Flaccus turned up at the alabarch’s residence, this time with a large escort and bearing no gifts, which meant that he must have received some unexpected piece of news. Uri just happened to be reading in the atrium as the prefect marched past with his men. It was obviously not all the same to Flaccus what might be happening on Capri or in Rome, and he had come to exchange news with the alabarch.

Tija was invited to attend this discussion and sat through it, and later that night he recounted it with dissatisfaction to Uri:

“They talked such tripe, it made me sick! Just imagine: Agrippa is allowed to write letters from prison, and he even has his own servants with him. I believe my father and the rest are just whimpering: they believe Tiberius has been wound up by Agrippa’s ill-wishers, and now Agrippa’s life is in danger. At which point I piped up, saying that if Agrippa’s life really were at risk, then it would have been ended already. But they just went on whimpering, so I shut up. My father doesn’t understand how the empire works. He’s a clever man, skilful too, who has risen to become the richest man in Egypt; he understands the art of bribery, but he is a nonentity, not wily enough. Flaccus is wilier. He was not whimpering anywhere near as much, although his life truly is in danger. Whatever happens, my father will remain the alabarch, so I don’t know what he is scared of. But when Tiberius dies, whoever his successor, Flaccus will have to be slick in his maneuvering to hold onto his post as prefect.”

“Even Pontius Pilate could not manage that,” said Uri.

“Pilate was a fool! The moment he learned that Agrippa and Vitellius were plotting against him, he should have agreed with his enemies to resign rather than trying to stand against them. He would then have been able to live out his days in Rome, modestly perhaps, but at least safely. But no, that would not do for the new man, homo novus , who had laid hands on a fortune through his wife: he wanted to prove that indeed he was a wily prefect and could hush up any scandal. What became of him? You told me yourself: he was stabbed in the back when he was least expecting it, in Samaria, a place he was quite possibly not even aware fell within his jurisdiction! What was the point of picking a fight with Vitellius, who is perfectly capable of any dirty trick, as he showed when he betrayed his own elder brother in the Sejanus affair ten years ago? Pilate wanted to show the emperor and the Senate that he was an effective prefect as a matter of pride and to keep on getting nice juicy jobs. As though the emperor and Senate cared about anything! The only thing they care about is success, and the only way of achieving that is fraudulently, the same way they did, or at least their forebears had. One has to learn to bend the knee before people who are more powerful: and Flaccus knows how to do that, I think. He bombards Gemellus and Caligula simultaneously with his messengers, even now assuring each of his loyalty. And no doubt he has his men around Macro, with whom he has been on good terms for a long time.”

“And who does your father bombard with messengers?” Uri asked. He immediately regretted his impertinence, but it was too late.

Tija was not annoyed, however.

“Herod Antipas,” he said. “If anything happens to Agrippa, we’re wagering on Antipas. Perhaps not a great choice, as he spoiled his chances by marrying Herodias, to which John the Baptist objected along with us. It’s a bad idea to expose oneself to attack on such a broad front — and unforced at that! But if Agrippa is out of it, then we have no option but to plump for him. It’s a case of it being six of one and half a dozen of the other.”

Uri was unaware what sin Herod Antipas had committed, so Tija sketched the situation quickly: Antipas’s first wife had been Phasaelis, a daughter of King Aretas of Nabatea, but he had repudiated her (which was unseemly, and for that the haughty Arabs would never forgive him — or the Jews in general) in favor of Herodias, the widow of his half-brother Philip. The Galilean preacher John the Baptist, who excoriated incestuous unions and opposed this one in particular, was apprehended for doing so and eventually executed on charges of being a paid agent for Aretas. It hardly mattered whether he had or hadn’t been. Incest was not considered a sin in Alexandria, and in the end Rome did not object, as it could stomach a lot; the problem was the subsequent deterioration in relations with Aretas. Rome did not like it when two of its allies were at loggerheads, unless that was its aim, and in this case it was surely not.