György Spiró - Captivity

Marcus smiled, the Alabarch and Tija laughed, while Philo turned away so that the others would not see the smile of his face; the Jewish leaders also laughed, but Uri did not pay much attention to the expressions on their faces as they were of no interest. It was after the Kahal leaders, the bosses of the guilds, had departed and the alabarch and Philo had turned in that Marcus let Uri in on a secret: they had Caligula by the balls, with Silanus having given his daughter’s hand in marriage, and Macro having forced his wife, Ennia on the emperor about two years ago, and even today Macro’s wife was Caligula’s lover. The father-in-law and the cuckold could tug Caligula whichever way they wanted, and in that way it was they who had control of the empire.

Uri thought of the endless hills and dales that he had walked through, and the endless seas he had sailed across, and he found it hard to believe that the wills of two such degenerates could prevail over such a huge expanse. Nor even the will of the emperor, whose new coins had already reached Alexandria: the emperor portrayed in profile, a crown on his head from which emanated rays as from a Sun. Isis and Serapis were usually depicted this way on Egyptian money. He had a feeling that if he had coins like that minted, then Caligula must want something from Egypt, though he was not coming out with what it might be, as he never let his own voice be heard in political discussion.

Flaccus was reportedly drinking with his soldiers, being carted back senseless every morning from the houses of wealthy Greeks, but there was no sign of Macro;s arrival, though it was high time he relieved that demented Flaccus, “our Aulus.”

Uri reluctantly took part in the poetry competition, as Tija had of late gotten out of the habit of visiting taverns and Apollos failed to appear every now and then. Though Lysias continued to serve him with good humor, Uri nevertheless had the feeling that the cordiality was forced. Sotades would choke back the odd sentence if he noticed that Uri was present. It was not that he had ever said anything offensive about Jews, but lately his sentences struck Uri’s keen ear as being unusually clipped. Uri abandoned going out for drinks and focused instead on studying and physical training. He did not meet the new gymnasiarch, merely saw him from a distance. On one occasion he saw Abdaraxus strolling with a tall, well-built man in the Square Stoa; he happened to be sauntering toward the dormitory with Apollos after a sprint when he spotted the two men, and Apollos halted.

“That crook is Dionysius,” he said. “He’s an evil rabble-rouser, always winding up the crowds against us down in the harbor.”

“Why, what sort of things does he say?”

“That we pollute the canals with the plague, and that’s why the water stinks so badly,” said Apollos. “And anyone who touches a Jew will contract trachoma within the fortnight.”

“Who believes that?”

“Well you might ask,” Apollos admitted. “People still just laugh it off, but there must be some who see fit to get a hired goon to spout that kind of stuff.”

“But who? Apion?”

“I think it’s the people who pick up the tab for Apion.”

Apion was a historian who had completed the Gymnasium at Alexandria and subsequently moved to Rome; in his most recent works he had recycled Manetho’s fables, according to which Moses was expelled from Egypt at the head of a horde of lepers.

Uri shook his head.

“Why spend money on that?” he queried. “Who profits from that? Hardly the masses: they’ll still be slaving away at humping stuff around and won’t get a penny richer, however hard they applaud.”

Apollos sighed.

“If even Isidoros was on their side, they must want something really badly.”

“Isidoros on Apion’s side?”

Uri could not imagine that a highly cultured man like Isidoros could join forces with such garbage however much he might despise Jews, and in any case the old gymnasiarch did not despise all Jews: he didn’t despise Apollos, and he’s quite fond of me.

Apollos lowered his voice to say that apparently Isidoros and Lampo had a meeting with Flaccus in the Serapeion, and in secret they had handed over five gold talents.

Five gold talents! That was 120,000 drachmas, or two years’ pay for the prefect!

Uri shook his head:

“Who saw that?” he asked. “Who had this information if it was all done in secret?”

Apollos nodded:

“Pure hearsay, of course,” he said. “Maybe not one word of it is true, but still: that’s what the gossip is. Gossip reveals a lot even when it is untrue.”

“Says who?” Uri exclaimed. “There is no way that Isidoros and Flaccus would team up!”

“Unless Lampo was one of Flaccus’s drinking pals, and he is that. That’s not just idle gossip: plenty of people have seen them together in the Elephant. Hedylos was present on two occasions when Flaccus had a drink with Lampo! Antimachus told the same story: he saw them too!”

It was on the tip of Uri’s tongue to mention that he would pump Hedylos for details when it occurred to him that he wouldn’t: half a year ago Hedylos would have answered any question he asked, but now? Antimachus was a short, weedy, timid young man, who Uri had never exchanged words with, so it would look odd if he were now to start asking questions.

He shuddered. What was happening in Alexandria?

Apollos said one day to Uri:

“Come along.”

There was running that day, which everyone found a bore, and only at the end of the day would there be rhetoric.

Apollos took Uri to an amphitheater.

“I’ve seen this before,” he said, “but I’d like you too to see it and confirm that my eyes are not deceiving me.”

It was the second of the three plays that was in question. The author reeled off the story of Dionysus, and when it got to the bit where Dionysus’s body was cut into pieces, for which, as in every production, copious amounts of artificial blood were used and the musicians banged the drums with a deafening cacophony, Uri leaned forward, placed his hands in front of his face and peered through the slits between his fingers so he could see better. The actors who were murdering Dionysus on stage wore masks that made them look like Jews — exactly the sort of grotesque figures he’d seen scrawled on the walls of houses. The Jews hated Dionysus, the favorite god of the Alexandrian Greeks. The audience whistled shrilly in the way it did at the Circus when their favorite, the green chariot, did not win a race.

Uri looked at Apollos: Apollos’s eyes had not deceived him: they were wide with fear.

“Your eyes are not deceiving you,” Uri reassured him.

They did not watch the third play but took a walk in the harbor as Apollos agitatedly, almost stuttering, kept on saying how intolerable it was, it could not be ignored, this was loathsome, vile propaganda against Jews, and someone somewhere should make a speech in which an eminent person, preferably Greek rather than Jew, informed the rabble that in ancient times, when Dionysus is supposed to have lived, there were not yet any Jews anywhere in the world.

“You’ll never find any person of that kind,” pronounced Uri, who was likewise displeased by the phenomenon but was not as distraught as Apollos; he was frankly amused to see how much artificial blood had been used, and how maladroitly the actor who had played Dionysus had collected his severed legs and arms, taking the view that the miserable drama was a parody of itself, though he was bound to admit that the public had not seen it that way.

In the middle of the autumn Abdaraxus assembled the students and in a lengthy address warned them against getting mixed up in anything. They were standing in the broad, covered peristyle that connected the dormitories with the library, far from the crowds sauntering in the park area. The students should not be duped by the provocations of enemies; they should not let themselves be drawn into brawls because anyone caught taking an active part would be expelled; anyone caught scribbling on walls would be expelled. All of them should confine themselves to studying and keeping physically fit, nothing else. Students were prohibited from entering taverns. Students were also prohibited from going to the baths: the Gymnasium had its own baths, so they should use those. In marketplaces they were to comport themselves with dignity; they should give crowds embroiled in politics a wide berth; anyone asking for their opinion was to be fended off. Anyone on whom any kind of handbill was found would be punished. Everyone would be subject to inspection at all times.