György Spiró - Captivity

The mourning went on; the walls were covered with crudely scrawled depictions of big-nosed, crooked-backed figures. That summer was stifling hotUri moped forlornly in his room. Philo did not retreat to his summer residence but stayed in the palace and, taking over a part of the alabarch’s load, received the aggrieved Jewish dignitaries and did what he could to reassure them. Tija likewise went nowhere and was entrusted with control of the palace security. Marcus traveled along the banks of the Nile with his father and a strong escort.

Something was brewing.

Nothing was heard of Isidoros for a long time, but now — it was the talk of the taverns — he had resurfaced in the Gymnasium park, delivering a speech against Flaccus. Exactly what he was accusing the prefect of was unclear, but it had to do with grand theft and fraud. And with the Jews.

The next morning Uri went out into the Gymnasium’s grounds.

An expectant crowd was waiting, along with a group of soldiers.

He would have liked to see and hear Isidoros, though he was surely not going to come: the soldiers could not tolerate accusations against Flaccus.

But Isidoros put in an appearance after all, around noon, with a crowd around him like a team of bodyguards. At the Square Stoa, he was offered a platform, thrown together with timber, and Isidoros stepped up onto it.

In shrill tones, he accused Flaccus of having delivered a substantial chunk of Alexandria’s trade into Jewish hands. He had stolen the donation that the emperor had sent from Rome for irrigation in Egypt. Flaccus was the reason, Isidoros cried, that interest rates had gone up in Alexandria, though Tiberius’s banking reforms had brought rates down throughout the empire. The prefect had a personal stake in all the Jewish banks, and it was with his assistance that Jews had bought out Greek bankrupts and it was they who now dictated terms.

The crowd whooped.

It’s your money on which the Jews get fat!

For shame!

You get poorer, they get richer!

Let ’em beat it!

At a signal from their commander, the soldiers of one of the squads tried to push closer to the rostrum, but at that the assembled Greeks produced cudgels. There were a lot of Greeks; the soldiers halted.

Isidoros stepped down from the platform — it wasn’t as if his safety were in jeopardy, but he looked anxious to avoid an altercation. He disappeared among his bodyguards.

The Greeks were left in lively discussions about what had been said.

Uri felt it was best if he just went home.

“Is what Isidoros was claiming true?” he asked Tija that evening.

Tija hemmed and hawed.

“So it’s true,” Uri concluded. “Then why doesn’t the prefect intervene?”

“Because he’s on the take.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s been paid by the Greeks.”

“Is that what the five gold talents were?”

Tija looked at Uri in amazement.

“How do you know that?”

“It’s one of the things that are being said.”

“Well, yes…”

“But apparently Isidoros himself handed it over, despite the fact that he’s the one baring his teeth against the prefect!”

“Yes, because he asked for something in return, but Flaccus did not live up to his side of the deal.”

“What did he ask for?”

“What do you think? He asked for what he could. That the capital of the Jewish banks be consolidated into that of the Greek banks.”

“And how is that done?”

“By decree.”

Uri cogitated.

“Then why didn’t he do that if he took their money?”

“Because we gave him even more!” Tija cried out. “Even more! If it goes on like this, we’ll end up in poverty!”

He’s not stupid, this Flaccus, thought Uri. Relieved of his office by the emperor, yet still in place. Back against he wall, he still manages to amass for himself in just a few months at least five years’ worth of his salary as prefect in just a few months, and still everyone is on his side — Greeks, Jews, legions! How is the emperor going to untangle that?

When, for the third day running, a large crowd gathered on the Gymnasium’s grounds, Isidoros did not put in an appearance. But the soldiers did. They brought along several rostrums, and a series of unknown, loud-voiced Greek speakers yelled out from atop them. An ever-growing number of soldiers arrived and finally, to Uri’s astonishment, Flaccus himself showed up, carried on an ornate chariot.

The soldiers cleared a way for him through the crowd, which then closed around him. There must have been at least four cohorts gathered together there, along with a crowd of some twenty thousand people.

Flaccus stepped onto the platform beside the Square Stoa. Four soldiers with shields clambered up beside him, along with a centurion: “Castus! Castus!” was the chant that went up from crowd.

Flaccus bellowed a query as to what their problem was. Not that he was drunk; the crowd fell silent. A Greek orator was hauled out in front of the platform and tugged up onto it.

“Who was it who taught you to slander me?” bellowed Flaccus.

“Isidoros…”

“Louder!”

“Isidoros!”

“Away with him!”

The next speaker was called up.

“Who taught you to spread lies about me?”

“Isidoros…”

They stopped at the fifth speaker. Flaccus declared that not one word of the slander was true: let that be the end of it. Isidoros was being exiled; never again would he be allowed to enter Alexandria. He was also banning assembly on the grounds of the Gymnasium. The crowd should be happy to have been let off that lightly.

Centurion Castus gestured, the soldiers cleared a way through the crowd, and Flaccus’s chariot was towed behind, drawn by six horses with an entire cavalry division leading, flanking, and bringing up the rear.

That must have cost the alabarch a pretty penny, Uri supposed.

“It’s by no means sure that Isidoros slipped away,” Marcus ventured that evening. “He may be hiding somewhere.”

Philo shared that view: Shrine leagues, many of which had Isidoros as president, had become conspicuously active, but Flaccus was doing nothing to move against them. Tija explained to Uri that these were groups whose members ate and drank free, for sacrificial purposes, out the money offered by believers. The main thing was that any shrine was also a sacrosanct place of refuge; soldiers were not allowed to enter them — at least hitherto that was unprecedented — and even Flaccus could not contravene the rule because all of Alexandria would be up in arms.

“I don’t believe Flaccus will make any effort to capture Isidoros,” Marcus commented. “If he were to bring him to trial, Isidoros would spill the beans. It’s better that he is not captured…”

Not long after, it was rumored that a substantial shipment of arms had arrived. Bassus was the centurion who was organizing the unloading; on Flaccus’s orders, he had collected the arms from all over Egypt, and now the spears, short swords, slingshots, and shields were being packed onto asses and camels, innumerable asses and innumerable camels, and carried from the harbor on Lake Mareotis to the arsenal of the prefect’s palace. The harbor was some ten stadia from the palace, and the beasts of burden were touching one another. There were no elephants among them.

Philo asked Uri to take a look to see if the rumor was true. Up till now they had keenly followed Uri’s spontaneously offered reports as to what was happening in Alexandria. They would be recognized, but Uri was known solely by students at the Gymnasium so he could go about as freely as he pleased. I’ve become an official spy for the alabarch in Alexandria, Uri reflected, and laughed at the absurdity.

That evening he reported back: indeed, masses of arms were being delivered to the arsenal: Greeks by the side of the road were gaping and arguing over whether the weapons were going to be used against them or against Rome.