György Spiró - Captivity

His lower jaw would now be even more receding; he would no longer be recognized. He laughed and carried on happily digesting the food.

Early in the afternoon of Tishri 10, the first day of the Feast of Booths, Uri awoke to the sound of people shuffling past him in a great hurry. He was angry because he had been having a pleasant dream: he was strolling through a marvelous countryside, surrounded by children, his own children, the youngest of whom reminded him of his younger sister, only she did not have a choking cough. The countryside was rather like Campania, with houses of the sort one might find there nestling at the foot of the hills, houses like the one in which he had once been a guest of that jolly family, vociferous in its happiness, not far from Puteoli. He clambered to his feet. He was not even aware that Dikaiarchia and Puteoli were one and the same. The dream was lost, he had been unable to retain it; he greatly regretted that he would not be able to live as a human henceforward. He narrowed his eyes. There was a large gap yawning in the south wall, but that was not the way that people were hurrying. They were headed to the north.

“It’s over! Over! Over!”

A throng of men, women, the remaining children and tough oldsters shuffled, tottered, and dashed their way through the wide-open north gate.

To either side stood a line of soldiers, and behind them a crowd of staring, alarmed Greeks.

Uri shuffled along with the crowd, past the ransacked, rubbish-strewn Basilica, then westward. There inside, on the chariot on which Carabbas had been pulled a few weeks before, stood a huge statue — obviously of Caligula. It crossed Uri’s head that this was double sacrilege: for one thing, of a Jewish synagogue, for a second, of the emperor, but this was more of a vague suspicion, he would not have been able to cast that into words, his brain was exhausted. Those who tumbled to the ground were considerately helped to their feet by morose soldiers; Uri was surprised to notice that he was too. The crowd shuffled and staggered along the main thoroughfare toward the Heptastadion; farther on, well-fed Jews were joining the procession from side streets; they had not lived through the Bane in the Sector. The Greeks were dumbfounded, looking at the procession, to find that any of these people were still alive.

Uri stopped, panting. He had seen Apollos threading his way through the crowd: he looked to be in fine shape, barely deprived of food.

The Jews marched along the Heptastadion, singing. Some exhausted, emaciated individuals fell to the ground and stayed there — dead. The jubilant living plowed on over them.

On reaching the island of Pharos, they waded into the sea, their arms raised to the heavens, and, as loudly as their throats would bear, sang out their prayers of thanks to the Eternal One for having saved His people again.

Uri was amazed. Around two hundred thousand living skeletons were thronging on the beach and in the water. They were praying in self-abandonment, ecstatically, thankfully, happily. He had the feeling that they had already obliterated their memories of all that had happened.

He spotted Demetrius in the crowd. Panting from the effort, Uri smiled at him.

“You scum!” Demetrius spat out. “Pity you didn’t croak!”

“Is your father still alive?” Uri asked in a whisper.

Demetrius gave no answer and disappeared into the crowd.

Uri lay down on the ground and fell asleep.

He awoke to find himself being wrapped in blankets, plied with drink and food. They were Greeks, and did not tell him their names. One begged Uri forgiveness for the horrors that had been committed against his people. Uri grunted: it’s not necessary, he wanted to say, but his lips had stuck together.

He reached the palace at daybreak. The sentries admitted him.

His eyes already red from weeping, Philo, on seeing Uri, cried out: “My son! My son!”, and embraced the bag of bones. Frail and short though he was, Philo was now able to lift him.

He was given tender meat, a soft milk loaf, and water before being laid down; he slept for two days.

He woke up in his own room with a feeling that he knew again what it felt like to be a baby.

Much attention was lavished on his health; he was supplied with drink and stuffed with endless oranges and light flatbreads, which he would vomit up from time to time. Philo spent several hours each day by his bedside, and while constantly urging him not to talk a lot, not to strain, asked him question after another. Any time Uri started to speak, to give an account of something or other, Philo would interrupt and say what he wanted to say.

We found ourselves in a very difficult position, my dear son, a hellishly difficult position.

On the first day, six weeks ago, the alabarch, with his two sons and elder brother, had withdrawn from the city toward Marea with around 250 excisemen, armed to the teeth. They took refuge in a village was near enough to the city to be able to have a significant effect on events. There was no running water, since there was no aqueduct, just a well, so there was no bath either, and there were no writing implements, no books, no beds — virtually nothing, it was awful, but the villagers had proven to be helpful and kept them fed (though it has to be said they also received generous payment). Every day, the alabarch sent spies into the city to keep an eye on what was happening. There was reason to fear an attack from the legion stationed in Marea, so a watch awas organized, even Marcus had stood guard, so, laudably, had Tija, the boys had dauntlessly held the line. Fortunately, Flaccus had not sent in the III Cyrenaica legion, maybe fearing that Caligula would send warships into the Western Harbor, so he had held them in camp for that eventuality.

We managed to send off couriers to the emperor, my son, thanks to which Caligula has been kept informed about everything since ten days after the Bane got underway. It was not easy for the emperor, truly not, as he was in no position to start a war, but in the end he advocated for the best — the only — option: Caligula sent a crack squad to Alexandria, with the intention of capturing Flaccus. These twelve men were led by Bassus, the centurion under whom Flaccus had all the weapons throughout Egypt collected a while back and who went over to the emperor’s side at the right time. Bassus was a magnificent choice due to his local knowledge, and once his boat arrived at the Eastern Harbor he and his men, as Agrippa had beforehand, disembarked undetected; the guards whom Bassus quizzed about Flaccus’s whereabouts did recognize him but were not suspicious because the prefect, wisely from his own point of view, had not spread news of Bassus’s desertion. At the time, Flaccus happened to be whooping it up with his friends in the house of a man called Stephanion, a freedman of the present emperor — who perhaps was also in on the plan and was sent to Alexandria for that very reason, though there’s no way of knowing that for sure. In any event, ten of Bassus’s men stood guard outside, waiting for the signal, another two dressed as servants and that was how they got into the room just as Flaccus was getting ready to toast his friends with a drink. At that moment Bassus entered; Flaccus took one look and froze, because he knew immediately that he was finished; and at that moment the signal was given and in rushed the crack troops, bound Flaccus, who showed not the slightest resistance, As the soldiers were made to pledge allegiance to Bassus, the prefect was taken to the Akra, in whose dungeon he has been languishing ever since. The Jewish elders who were being held there — at least those who were left alive — were all released. Bassus called together his bodyguards and gave them a declaration of amnesty to pass along to both legions, an extremely shrewd move on his part because it forestalled any possible revolt. Bassus will stay on as commander in chief of the two legions until the new prefect arrives — Hallelujah!