György Spiró - Captivity

“You’re nuts,” Isidoros blurted out. “I didn’t hear that, and don’t ever say it to anyone!”

Isidoros went away. Uri’s head was splitting and his stomach heaving; he was sweating and felt dizzy.

It spelled trouble, very big trouble.

Uri was unable to pass on the news to Philo until after supper, once the bodyguards had carried off an already paralytic Agrippa to bed. He had drunk himself into insensibility so that his body was even more burdensome than usual and three of them could barely manage it.

Philo began to tremble and motioned silently toward the room occupied by the alabarch’s two sons. Uri went in and, paying no heed to Tija’s protests, ordered them out into Philo’s room. Philo was still speechless, so Uri himself stated what Isidoros had told him.

“That can’t be true!” Marcus whispered.

Tija glowered mutely.

Uri poured some water and took it over to Philo.

There was a deadly hush.

A warm breeze was drifting into the stuffy room; outside, cicadas stridulated furiously in the pleasant Campanian countryside.

How many times over the last two millennia had Jewish leaders had to confer about such an unexpected grave peril on a glorious summer evening like this?

“He won’t dare do it,” Marcus said hoarsely.

“Care to bet?” said Tija.

“It makes no sense!” Marcus cried out. “It would result in hundreds of thousands of people dying! No Jew is going to stand for that!”

Philo drank; his teeth were chattering.

“Agrippa is here,” he said. “He needs to decide what we should do…”

“He’s wasted,” Tija noted.

They all held their peace. The cicadas shrilled frantically; what mankind might get up to was a matter of indifference to Nature.

Uri cleared his throat. They looked at him.

“If you wish, I’ll tell him in the morning…”

“Don’t even consider it!” stormed Philo.

Uri did not understand that.

“He might panic, poor thing,” Tija said maliciously. “He would set off for home right away.”

Marcus gave a grunt but then said nothing to defend his future father-in-law.

Philo declared that it was all very well this business of Agrippa not wishing to go out on a limb for Alexander, but in this case he was bound to do something, however yellow-bellied he might be. He had to be persuaded to pay a visit to the emperor, but he must not be told anything in advance. Let the emperor cast aspersions straight into his father’s friend’s face, then let Agrippa do what he liked.

It was a wise proposal; that even Uri could admit.

Tija poured everyone a drink of wine and they all quickly got inebriated enough to get to sleep.

Philo threw himself into his work, hiding away in his room with Uri as if nothing had happened to labor over the tenth volume of a major history of Etruria that Claudius had generously entrusted to him. Marcus and Tija endeavored to persuade Agrippa to make at least a minimal effort on behalf of their father, because they had their fill of hunting. Tija reasoned that autocrats loved it when people begged them to be merciful, and it was startling how often, in reality, they did exercise clemency, because this way they felt much more at the zenith of their power than if they simply killed indiscriminately. Agrippa listened grumpily.

“It’s time you asked to be given Judaea,” Marcus said, “before others do.”

That was a better tack than the previous one.

“Why would I?” the king was offended. “He banished Antipas and Herodias!”

“It’s not as if you don’t have enough relatives,” Marcus taunted him. “Why do you tolerate his propping up of Marullus? Caligula will believe you have enough on your plate with Galilee!”

A while ago, Vitellius had proposed Marullus as prefect of Judaea, but Tiberius had been unable to give that decision the stamp of approval before he died, leaving the matter of the appointment to Caligula.

Agrippa growled something. He was plainly afraid of the emperor, having heard terrible stories about him over the past half a year, tales of the once taciturn, modest, polite, and helpful Gaius transformed into Caligula, who dressed up as divinities and surrounded himself with actors. What if the emperor were to toss the head of a tiny Jewish kingdom into a dungeon? It would not even be noticed.

Agrippa struggled with himself for a whole day before giving an order that the emperor should be tracked down.

Three days later they found themselves in the garden of a seaside villa. Only the alabarch’s sons and Philo went with Agrippa, Uri with Philo; they left Iustus with the bodyguards in a nearby house. Uri tried to get Iustus included but Philo shook his head.

Iustus had never liked me as it was; now he’ll loathe me virulently, Uri thought.

Agrippa did not bring any servants along, maybe so that there was no chance of them seeing their master in a humiliating position.

Uri took a scroll of the completed work Philo had written against Flaccus in a linen bag tucked under his arm; he was quite sure that the emperor would not read it.

Uri was at least as tense as Philo or Marcus or Tija. They shouldn’t have mentioned this to Agrippa; they were in trouble.

On this occasion they found Caligula in the costume of a tragic actor; a similarly garbed effeminate figure stood next to him, gesticulating. This might be Apelles, who, when he had started, had supported himself as a child prostitute and spoke frankly about it.

Surrounding them was a considerable number of muscular men, charioteers and gladiators, loafing around; Isidoros was there too, standing with Lampo. It looks as if the emperor does not much like being on his own, Uri thought; he has a constant need to be adored.

A tall, intelligent-looking, balding man with a well-kempt beard was the first to come forward; Helicon, presumably.

Agrippa separated from their group and approached the emperor.

Caligula took one look, left Apelles, and set off toward Agrippa with open arms.

In a sharp tone, Helicon cried out:

“The king of the Jews, ho-ho-ho!”

All could see how warmly the emperor embraced the king.

Agrippa looked around as if glorified.

Philo gripped Uri’s arm.

The emperor smiled.

Marcus and Tija then stepped closer, with Uri following Philo.

“Hail, my soul’s better half!” Caligula called out, clapping his hands. “Hail, hefty king!”

The muscular young men muttered their ovation; Helicon smiled.

“Did you hear the great news, Agrippa?” the emperor asked.

“Since I left Rome I have heard a lot of good news about you,” Agrippa replied diplomatically. “Which one specifically did you have in mind?”

“I have become a god! What do you think of that?”

Agrippa became flustered.

“I’ve become a god,” Caligula reiterated, “and everyone recognizes me as a god, only you Jews don’t. What would be the reason for that?”

Agrippa remained silent for a while but then found his feet.

“We make as many sacrificial offerings to you as the Latini… Your name has been inscribed on ornamental tablets in all our houses of prayer…”

“But not my statue!”

“That is forbidden by our religion… But we made sacrifices to you for months on end! There is not a Jewish house of prayer in the world in which your name is not inscribed.”

Caligula nodded.

“Other nations sacrificed to me as a god,” he said. “You on the other hand, made sacrificial offerings to your god for me… Sacrificing for me or to me — that’s a fundamental difference, you have to admit.”

There was a silence as Agrippa searched for words.

“Never mind,” said the emperor mirthfully. “I’ve already sent instructions to Petronius to march into Jerusalem and set up my statue in the Temple… It’s a statue of Zeus, but I’m him as well! The Holy of Holies of your Temple will be known hereafter as ‘the sanctum of Gaius embodied as the new Zeus!’”