György Spiró - Captivity

The question might be raised, he added, why they would not be traveling by sea from Ostia to Caesarea, since that would be the simplest route and even quicker than he had outlined, if the wind was favorable, and in the spring it did tend to be favorable indeed. Well, the thing was that the boats that plied directly between Ostia and Judaea were overloaded with produce and were not really in a position to carry passengers as well, or else they were only willing to do so at sky-high prices, despite being well aware of the importance of this delegation, such that it wasn’t worth it to the Roman community. From Ostia it was possible to travel with a Greek or Latin boat to Alexandria, and from there by a Jewish ship to Judaea, but then there was a bigger risk of something untoward happening to them, and that way excise would have to be paid at Alexandria, an extortionate amount, and even then there was no guarantee that they would not be held up in the harbor for days or possibly weeks.

Finally, he expressed his conviction that it would be a good trip, and he gave his thanks to the Creator for being able to travel with such excellent companions, whom the Elders had plainly selected for this exalted task not without good reason.

Uri blushed.

Now that Matthew had finished his introduction, the others livened up and plied him with many questions.

First, a thickset man inquired as to whether Jews also frequented the public privy. On receiving an affirmative response, he became indignant at the sacrilege: only the Creator had the right to see his elect naked or in a shameful position, and a Jew shitting was absolutely no concern of non-Jews. Neither Matthew nor the others saw fit to respond to these qualms. The thickset man shook his head and growled a profanity. Uri could not even begin to imagine what his occupation might be.

Many of the questions pertained to the harbor at Ostia, with the strong, black-bearded man showing the most interest in it. Matthew said that the harbor, at the mouth of the Tiber, lay in an unfortunate position, exposed to the prevailing western winds, and the shore was not suitable to allow the bigger boats to take shelter during storms. That was a problem that had not existed in previous centuries, when boats were smaller and shallower, but nowadays they were so big that the port’s sole advantage was its proximity to Rome, no more than twenty miles. Deep-drafted craft were no longer able to pass up the Tiber; everything had to be shipped onto small vessels, which were tossed around dangerously by the waves, so that a great many accidents occurred as a result of smaller boats smashing against the sides of the big ships. The southward orientation of Puteoli’s harbor, in a gulf protected from the winds, was undoubtedly more fortunate, but he was quite certain that Ostia, once its harbor was rebuilt, would best Puteoli simply because it was much closer to Rome.

He had seen plans for how the harbor ought to be rebuilt, how the sea bottom should be excavated, what kinds of breakwaters should be constructed and where they should be located in the coastal waters, but these would be very costly operations and, in his view, the emperor, to whom the plans had been shown, was unlikely to commit himself to them. Private entrepreneurs would not finance that sort of work, as the payoff was too long-term — one or two generations, some had calculated — so the Roman state would have to put up the money. The plans would come to nothing until the day a very big storm broke up the entire fleet that were anchored off the harbor entrance, and they went down, together with their cargoes of grain, bringing Rome to the brink of starvation. Then they would get serious about rebuilding the harbor, in his view, but only then. True, he added with a laugh, it was in his interest that the harbor was not modernized, because there would be a call for experienced pilots only; he made his living from the deficiencies of Ostia’s harbor.

The black-bearded man asked if those reconstruction plans were accessible somewhere. Matthew said that he had seen them in the home of a Latin acquaintance of his, who had them on loan from the local public records office.

A soft question was then raised as to whether the wagoner was deaf, at which Matthew laughed before replying: No way! A deaf cart-driver cost a lot, with the wealthy paying as much as twenty thousand sesterces for one, but since drivers had to be relieved along the way, it would be quite impossible to engage that many deaf cart-drivers. But they should feel free to talk aloud in his presence, and that of those who would follow, because the cart-drivers were hardly in a position to pass on whatever information they had gleaned to the relieving cart-driver as they did not have enough time: they had to turn back immediately.

The conversation was conducted in Greek, and the delegation had every reason to suppose that the wagoner knew at least a smattering of Greek, but he did not react to this exchange in any way and instead dozed on the box.

It did occur to Uri that maybe it was not they who were carrying the sacrificial money but another group, and by another route, less conspicuous than them; they were nothing more than bait. Because it was written all over them that they were Jews — not so much their clothing but because they were not permitted to shave, unlike Romans, who since the end of the republic had forsaken beards so that hordes of plebeians and slaves made a living out of barbering.

Another question was raised as to whether the leader was carrying any object that qualified as a weapon. Matthew shook his head no. Experience had shown that it was more hazardous to travel with a weapon than without. “Those that take the sword shall perish with the sword,” Matthew quoted the proverb, adding that anyone who traveled with an armed escort was unnecessarily inviting attention from evil-minded parties.

By that point they had covered a good few miles along the Appian Way, on which military sentries were posted every three miles — not that there was any need for them, as there had been no war on Italian soil since the time of Hannibal, but it did no harm if everybody saw that in Rome a military dictatorship held sway. Pedestrians, soldiers, and carters showed up on the road every now and then, but they did not give so much as a glance at a wagon loaded with Jews. Uri marveled at how well the road was built; considering that they were plodding along on a wagon drawn by oxen, he might even have been able to read, had he brought any scrolls with him. He regretted that he had not thought of that in the excitement, but then he realized that the others would take it the wrong way if he were to immerse himself in reading; they might well suppose that he held them in contempt and sought conversation only with a person who was cleverer than they were — the author.

He had never been outside Rome before, and the endless strip of the Appian Way fascinated him. The others must have been feeling much the same, because one of them — Iustus was his name, he had introduced himself — remarked that his father, when he had been in slavery as a youngster, had worked in road gangs and never tired of declaring what painstaking work they had carried out. Uri squinted at him through narrowed eyes, and it struck him that this was someone he already knew by sight: he belonged to the same congregation. He was a small, weedy, quarrelsome person, uneducated and limited. One did not need much culture to be a road-maker; it was the sort of trade that strapping young guys went in for, but plainly Iustus had been driven to it because he was stupid. Maybe he was employed as a gang leader or purchasing agent. I’m at least as fit for the journey as him, Uri thought to himself with relief. Then he was struck by the unpleasant thought that Iustus might very well be acquainted with Joseph and, should the occasion arise over the coming days, might take the chance to spread gossip about him to the others.