György Spiró - Captivity

Marcus proposed that whichever pagan god the emperor was clothed as, he had presumably expected the Jewish delegation to fall to its knees, even prostrate themselves in adoration, knowing full well that Jews were forbidden to do this — maybe that had been the entire significance of the costume, nothing to do with whatever god he was dressed up as.

“Yes, of course,” Philo growled, “of course, but you saw for yourselves that he did not take it amiss that we did not prostrate ourselves before him!”

Uri had a feeling that Philo did not entirely regret that his younger brother had been placed under lock and key.

“His periwig was putrid,” Philo remarked detachedly. “He’s got carbuncles on his scalp that no medicament can cure.”

“If he left us to go free,” Tija mused, nibbling a fig, resting his head on the palm of one hand as he reclined, apparently relieved, “and as I see it that’s the case, he must have some aim for us… Nothing would have been easier than to have us all locked up on Palatine Hill or killed… He chose not to… We got off, and we need to work out why he spared our lives.”

Uri paid Tija unspoken tribute: beforehand he had not looked like someone who sensed his life was in danger. All the same it troubled him that Tija was displaying such total indifference toward his father.

“Our odds against the Greeks are not completely unfavorable,” Philo concluded. “Perhaps he wants to keep them under control through the Jews…”

Tija laughed.

“You’ll soon see,” he said merrily, “how many people immediately turn away from us… Before long the Jewish bankers will be around to revise the mutual loan contracts.” Tija burbled with laughter. “At least we owe them nothing…”

Uri thought it was the right moment to raise the question of whether he might remain in the family’s service, and whether his own debt would be repaid by them over that period.

Tija gazed at him, his stare remote, glazed.

“You know too much about us,” he remarked laconically. “We can’t cut you loose: you’re an accessory — that’s the word for it.”

“Don’t worry, my dear son,” said Philo affectionately. “We have never yet done away with anybody.”

That was a great relief, then, and nobody was proposing that they ought to do anything at all regarding the matter of gaining the alabarch’s release.

If that was all the freedom of a powerful alabarch — the world’s richest Jew — was worth, then what was the value of the life of an ordinary Jew? Uri wondered, sensing a dreadful taste in his mouth and a spasm in the middle of his chest.

That very evening Julius and Honoratus turned up at Agrippa’s residence. They deeply deplored what had happened and expressed their hope that the just Eternal One would intervene, but with all due respect they wished to modify the contracts that the alabarch had signed. Marcus negotiated with them, with Philo and Tija holding their tongues. Not without malice, Marcus referred them to the alabarch: Alexander had signed the contracts and he should also sign any modifications. Julius had a sense of humor and smiled; Honoratus, on the other hand, took a more tragic approach to the suggestion: they were hardly in a position to pay a visit to Alexander in prison, so the firstborn son was beholden to sign instead. Marcus asked what, in fact, the bankers were after. Honoratus replied that from now on they would be unable to provide credit on the same terms as before: instead of issuing banker’s drafts they wanted to be given ready money. Marcus instantly agreed with that.

What Kainis had asserted about Greek and Jewish thieves colluding with each other was proving to be true. Uri reflected that Marcus really ought to have been a trifle tougher before going along with it.

The bankers left somewhat dazed; even Julius was taken aback at how easily the task had been accomplished, and in taking leave he exchanged looks with Uri, who bowed respectfully.

“Are you sure there’s not going be any bother out of this?” Uri asked.

Tija tittered and Marcus smiled, whereas Philo shook his head.

“You know, my dear son,” said Philo, “to a person on whom the Eternal One bestows a fortune He normally also gives a particle of sober common sense as well.”

He said nothing more, so Uri again spoke up:

“What about my debt?”

After a brief pause, Philo said:

“We’ll pay off six months in advance. Does that satisfy you?”

Uri’s throat grew dry and he nodded.

It was late by then. Uri settled down in one corner of the atrium as usual, but he found it difficult to get to sleep.

He had seen a real, live emperor who, like a dramatist, had planned a whole scene in advance and had taken part in it as an actor. He had seen a delegation whose de facto head had been hauled off to jail and, who, so far as he could tell, might well be murdered. And the elder brother and sons of the man who had gotten himself in such hot water — and had amassed the family’s wealth in the first place — were not at all concerned about his fate.

They had money: they had swiped one-half of Flaccus’s fortune, and he himself, the person whose debt they would repay for a further half-year in one go, would be involved in that theft. And yet he had to accept it, otherwise his family would starve. Tija, as ever, had put it very precisely: he was an accessory.

He entreated the Eternal One that his own children would not become such callous, ungrateful rogues.

Not that night, but the next afternoon, they adopted beaming faces and went across to Claudius’s house.

The customary throng was milling about and showed no more or less interest in them than before. Uri was not clear whether or not they knew about the alabarch’s arrest, but he did not feel it incumbent on him to investigate.

Nevertheless, it did seem that they must know something, because Narcissus told him a story about the wealthy Pastor, who a year earlier had been invited to dinner by Caligula, along with a lot of others. Pastor, at the far end of the table, all of a sudden noticed that his son was lying dead, but he had been obliged to sit through the dinner, not daring to ask why his son had been killed — a wise choice because he has another son.

“So why was he killed?” Uri asked.

“Because he was considered too handsome.”

Most of the crowd was prattling about an obelisk, or rather the ship that the emperor had ordered to built to transport the obelisk from Egypt to Rome. The massive column was to be found somewhere in the interior of Egypt, and although none of those present knew who had originally commissioned it, or for whom, they all found it in themselves to burst into rapturous odes about the incomparably immense craft that would carry it.

In the atrium Uri spied a familiar figure among the people jostling for food — a burly, elderly, gray-haired man. Uri could not recollect where they had met, until Narcissus identified the man as Lucius Vitellius, the former imperial legate and prefect of Syria, the man who had arrested Pilate at Herod’s palace in Jerusalem.

He had initially fallen out of favor under Caligula, Narcissus recounted, but nonetheless had managed to worm his way back into the emperor’s graces, and while Caligula had been absent in Germania, had at every session of the Senate had prostrated himself before the empty imperial throne until gradually the whole Senate adopted this newfangled custom, for which the Caesar liked him more than anyone else, and Vitellius even had received some of the shellfish that the armies brought from the sea. That Uri did not follow, so Narcissus explained that on the shores of Gaul Caligula had commanded a military campaign against Britain by drawing his troops up in battle formation facing the English Channel and indicating the target Britannia with a sweep of the hand, at which the soldiers had stormed the water. Because there was no enemy to be seen, they had gone on a hunt for mussel-shells, which the emperor then brought back to Rome as spoils of war.