György Spiró - Captivity

“Who was he?” Hagar asked.

“The first emperor of Rome.”

“And he was assassinated?”

“Yes, murdered.”

“That’s not nice, is it? Who would do such a thing?”

Hagar was utterly bewildered.

“He would have died anyway in the time since then,” Uri tried to reassure her. “It happened a long time ago, about eighty years back.”

“Still!”

Uri mused whether to take them up with him onto Capitoline Hill, or show them the Temple of Jupiter and the Tarpeian Rock, over which those condemned to die were shoved, under it the one hundred Steps of Tears along which executioners would drag the corpses by meathook to be thrown into the Tiber, but then he decided that would only scare them stiff. If they had not yet woken up to the sort of city they were living in, then far be it from him to teach them.

Hagar made her way up Palatine Hill with considerable difficulty, panting as she clambered up, stopping frequently and using her forearm to mop the sweat off her face. Sarah, for her part, was angry, sure there was a gentler path up; why did they not go that way? She was unwilling to accept Uri’s explanation that along the easier route lay the gardens of the wealthy, one could not simply go across that way.

“Look, we’ll be at the top very soon,” said Uri. “There’s no need to hurry.”

He pointed out the Temple of Apollo and suggested they take a look inside, but they were afraid that Jews were not permitted to enter. Uri told them that this was where Augustus had held a celebrated assembly to which the ambassadors from Judaea and all the adult Jews then living in Rome, some eight thousand strong, had been invited; they had all gone into the temple. That was, of course, the occasion on which Augustus had divided up the empire of Herod the Great.

“Why wasn’t your father invited?” Sarah said indignantly.

“That was a long time ago, when my grandfather was still a slave and my father not even born, and since then assemblies were banned by Tiberius.”

Even so the women did not dare enter the Temple of Apollo.

It then occurred to Sarah to ask what they would do if the king — that was what she persisted in calling Antipas — had already left his home.

Uri was quite sure that he was still at home; he was a bit of a voluptuary, and people like him slept until noon.

“How do you know that?” Sarah asked.

“I dined with him once,” Uri said abstractedly.

He shouldn’t have said that; Sarah’s anger flared up.

“You dined with him and didn’t look him up immediately! How discourteous can you get! You had dinner with him, a king, and we’re still living in poverty! You had dinner with him, and the king doesn’t send a litter around for us! Your father would curse you if he were still alive!”

Hermia asked about the details of the supper and what they had eaten, so Uri wisely mentioned matzos and greens, which his meat-eating sister was not very fond of.

At the top of Palatine Hill they wandered among shrines and villas; Sarah had not been given a more exact address. Uri made up his mind to ask a sentinel.

“They were taken away yesterday,” the man replied with satisfaction. He had a bush of fine bristles covering his face; his ancestors had most likely come from somewhere in the East.

“Where did they go?”

“I have no idea, but it was the emperor who exiled them.”

Sarah started weeping, Hagar was still catching her breath, and Hermia was standing in a half-witted pose.

Uri nodded and sighed.

They went back down, Hagar waddling with even more difficulty than she had been on the way up.

“You messed up there, that’s for sure!” hissed Sarah. “If you’d come just two days earlier, you could have carried away bags of money! Just two days!”

The news spread later in Far Side that the emperor had exiled Antipas to Gaul for, as his spies reported, conspiring with the Parthians to launch an attack on Rome; a huge arsenal of weapons had been found in his palace, and he had himself confessed to owning them, though not to preparing to use them against Rome. His wife, Herodias, the good-looking witch of easy virtue, had gone with him (wonders never cease!) to Lugdunum, which was not the worst place on earth to be exiled to, and there was even a chance of returning.

Agrippa had every right to be pleased because now Galilee would fall into his lap! Mind you, he worked for it by spilling the beans that Antipas was hoarding a huge cache of weapons. It’s obvious that it had to be him. Antipas could not have been ready for that, this mud-slinging; of course he had no intention of conspiring with the Parthians, though, come to think of it, that wouldn’t be such a bad idea. If the Jews were to take sides with the Parthians, then it would all be over for Rome: two million Jews among the Parthians, another two and a half million in the empire! Not a chance! The Jews always had been divided — even back in the time of Moses, since then it’s only gotten worse…

It was really something for a Roman emperor to exile a Jewish tetrarch — that was something on which the Jews in Rome proper found themselves being questioned, and they could give their own accounts for it, appraise the situation at length, and while they were the center of attention, they were at last able to feel that they were full-blown, self-respecting Roman citizens, and not just by law.

Uri again went to see Hilarus to ask for an appointment to speak with Julius in person. Hilarus promised to do what he could, but unfortunately Julius had gone away to the countryside and there was no knowing when he would be back. Uri then asked Hilarus if he could pass on a message. Most certainly, said Hilarus obligingly. Uri had just sat down and started to write when Julius made an appearance from the street. Uri glanced at Hilarus, but he did not return the look.

Julius was ready to see Uri straightaway.

Uri outlined the situation: it was quite obvious that he would only be able to make payments for another month or two before his money ran out, however hard he worked and juggled things. Was there no way that the original loan of two hundred thousand sesterces, which after all had been taken on for Agrippa, could be paid back by his majesty now that he had risen to royal status? No doubt he had the wherewithal. That would leave him — Uri that is — to pay only the interest.

Julius shook his head.

“Agrippa never pays back debts,” he declared.

“He didn’t before now, but he’s got money now; after all, he’s a king…”

“He doesn’t pay now either.”

“To the best of my knowledge, he also owes money to a number of senators. You mean he doesn’t pay them back either?”

“Not even them,” said Julius.

Uri nodded. Agrippa was not completely stupid; he was expecting his creditors to supplement his minute kingdom. Only when he had been granted the whole territory of Herod the Great’s realm would he pay out.

“Right you are!” said Uri. “By the summer I shall be insolvent for sure. What are you going to do, then?”

“We’ll take your house away.”

“I got married not long ago. We’re expecting a first child.”

“We never told you to start a family.”

“Yes, and then what?” said Uri.

“We shall have you banned from the Jewish community.”

“Yes, and then what?”

“We’ll spread the word that you are not credit-worthy. We offered you credit that you could pay back your father’s debt and the interest on it. You were granted certain concessions. I don’t know if you noticed but we did not calculate with compound interest, and that is proof of the exceptional lenience we have shown you. I dare say they taught you in Alexandria what compound interest is.”