György Spiró - Captivity

The next day he hurried over to his Greek partner and ordered another one hundred amphorae.

A few days later he towed ten empty amphorae on a handcart to Gaius Lucius’s house, one of them bearing a small-scale clay medallion of the famous Colossus of Rhodes, which had been toppled several centuries before by an earthquake. He had not needed to empty all the amphorae by himself as the customs men had seen to a few of them, and fortunately only two were broken. In front of Gaius Lucius’s house he had asked the guards to take care of them, and made his way to the atrium. Gaius Lucius’s eyes darkened on seeing him.

“Your gift has just arrived from Alexandria,” said Uri. “Ten amphorae from Rhodes; they are sitting out in front of the house. It pains me that they did not arrive in time.”

“Amphorae from Rhodes?” exclaimed Gaius Lucius, and hurried out in front of the house, a few clients toddling in his wake.

Gaius Lucius rapped and smelled at the amphorae, his eyes sparkling. He caressed the diminutive Colossus at particular length.

“Amphorae from Rhodes! Procure more of them! Lots! I’ll give fifty sesterces for each one!”

“Your wish is my command, beloved Gaius Lucius,” said Uri. “But please accept these as a gift.”

Uri had not brought a sportula with him, and as soon as the amphorae had been taken into the house he set off back with his empty handcart. He’s given up on running me down all over the place, mused Uri, but he is going to give all his friends amphorae from Rhodes for the next few months, so from his point of view it’s worth it.

A big flurry of excitement broke out in Far Side when word went around that Herod Antipas, together with his wife, Herodias, had arrived in Rome from Galilee. He did not move into quarters in Far Side, but Rome proper. Uri heard about it from Sarah, and his mother was all for Uri paying the ruler a visit and asking for money from him. Uri was flabbergasted:

“Why would he give anything to someone like me of all people?”

“Because your father gave him a loan.”

Uri broke out into a laugh.

“That wasn’t Antipas, but Agrippa!”

“That makes no difference — they’re both kings!”

“Well, he’s not king, only a tetrarch! He was granted only a quarter of the kingdom of Herod the Great…”

Sarah was not one to be satisfied.

“All right,” said Uri just to shut his mother up. “I’ll pay a visit later.”

Sarah then asked every day if he had seen the king yet. At first Uri replied that he had not had time, then later on that yes, he had tried but was not admitted. He did not think that one evening Sarah would confront him with the news that she had arranged it: Antipas would see him. Uri thought she must be getting soft in the head, but it transpired that she had kept on pestering Honoratus, having forced her way in to see him; the only thing he could do to get rid of her was to tell Sarah where her son could find Antipas.

“He’s staying on Palatine Hill,” said Sarah confidently. “You’re going there tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll go,” Uri agreed.

“I’ll go with you,” Sarah announced.

“Me too,” said Hagar, who by now was heavily pregnant.

“Your younger sister as well,” said Sarah.

Uri had a million other things on his mind and decided to leave it be: let them see that the tetrarch would have him kicked out, then at least they wouldn’t keep after him about it.

Sarah, excited and wearing clean clothes, woke him up at daybreak.

In front of the house, he sprinkled himself with water, made a short prayer, and breathed in deeply. Hagar was by then also standing in the doorway, and behind her the female apparition of Hermia, hair neatly combed and looking bewildered.

His mother pressed a clean tunic into his hands and insisted on his wearing his better pair of sandals.

They walked over the Jewish Bridge, the women in hushed silence.

At the far side of the Ponte Fabricius Hagar kneeled and, turning to the east, said a prayer. Uri could not understand why she had done this; he and the others stood waiting until she had finished.

“I’ve never gone to Rome before,” Hagar whispered. “I was giving my thanks to the Eternal One for allowing me to do so…”

Uri was amazed. His mother and sister did not leave Far Side all that often, but it never entered his head to think that his wife had never seen Rome proper.

Tears were rolling down Hagar’s face, which was no longer flat but plumped, swollen, marred by a tiny snub of a nose in its middle, a sight that moved Uri to pity.

“I’ll show you around Rome,” he said almost lovingly.

He chose to go by a very roundabout route to Palatine Hill to show them both the privation and wealth that existed in Rome: he set off north from the riverbank, near the theater of Marcellus, showed them the outside of the theater of Balbus, then they proceeded toward the Campus Martius. The women were unaffected by the sights of destitution, which they were familiar with in Far Side, but stood gazing for a long time at the massive edifices, as Uri told them which was which and what went on inside them. At the Diribitorium, the public voting hall on the Campus Martius, they were astounded to learn that the vast building had a single continuous roof. They dared not enter the rectangular Pantheon, being content to view it from outside, with Uri detailing how many statues of divinities it contained, those of Mars and Venus among many others, and that the vaulted ceiling was fashioned in imitation of the firmament. Inside the Pantheon was a statue of Caesar, and in the vestibule statues of Augustus and Agrippa. They listened incredulously; Sarah, looking suspiciously at her son, asked him how he happened to know so much.

“I’ve read about them,” Uri replied evasively.

Sarah was proud that a statue of the king of the Jews should be there amid the rest, and Uri was of two minds as to whether to point out that this Agrippa was not the king of the Jews but a good friend of Augustus’s. He decided it would be better to hold his tongue.

It emerged that none of the women had seen any of the forums, so to start with they went along the Forum of Augustus all the way to the Via Sacra; he did not show them the busy quarter of Subura, which was not fit for women’s eyes, and instead doubled back westward with his small female band to the old Forum. There the women marveled at how many colonnaded buildings from different eras were squeezed in next to one other; it was hard to fit between them. They shuddered at the Carcer on hearing that this was where condemned criminals were locked up. The Rostra was of no interest to them, even though Uri explained proudly that this had been enlarged not long ago, nor did the Curia impress them, and Uri found it impossible to distill into a few words what judges and lawyers occupied themselves with. He also showed them the gilded zero milestone, on the base of which the distances to the major imperial cities from Rome were graven, as measured in miles, which is to say units of eight-and-a-half stadia. The womenfolk wondered how far Jerusalem was, and though he bent down closer he could not find that figure inscribed. The women were horrified and felt affronted. Uri recounted that there was a similar stone in the marketplace in Athens which had been set up five centuries ago, but they were unmoved.

Uri then guided them to the stone-girt marker at the site where Julius Caesar had been assassinated. The place had been covered up with the stones of the Temple of Caesar by the Emperor Augustus, Caesar’s adopted son, so that no human should set eyes again on that shameful spot.

“So, it was here,” said Sarah portentously, and it was evident that she wanted to be moved.