György Spiró - Captivity

Theo had owned an inflatable ball made from a cow’s rumen — even that was stolen. Uri promised to buy him a new one, though Theo was glad that the old ball would now belong to a poor child, and even took the view that his next ball also ought to be given to another poor child. A wooden doll with flexible limbs which had belonged to Marcellus also went missing, but he was not yet able to articulate any opinion on this. The womenfolk complained endlessly, moving Uri at first to replace missing pots and pans, carpets and blankets.

He did wonder, though, whether he had seen any of the intruders before in Delta, but of course his eyesight had already been poor then and it had not improved since.

In the autumn the whole matter was passed up to Claudius, who, for simplicity’s sake, passed an outright ban on Jews assembling anywhere at all. The night watch was charged with checking that the decree was adhered to.

That was a harsh decision. Jews were not allowed to assemble even in synagogues on the Sabbath or for other feasts. The Jews of Rome had never experienced a blow as severe as this, for even the very first slaves had managed to win for themselves the right to free practice of their religion, and no one since had thrown any doubt on this. The sentinels of the night watch guarded the synagogues, both within and outside Far Side; since no more than three Jews were allowed to enter the building at the same time, there was no longer the possibility of conducting collective public prayers, as at least ten males were required for that. Even at a funeral, in principle, only three family members could be present.

The elders made the rounds of the civic authorities and made appeals to the legal warranty that all Roman citizens were guaranteed freedom to practice their religion, which the officials acknowledged — though at the same time they referred to an obscure ancient law which applied to associations of craftsmen, under which both the Jews and Egyptian faiths were classed. The Jews strenuously protested that their faith was not a craft, but the officials were unmoved.

It was not possible that the Jews of Rome should be left unable to pray to the Lord when they had been praying to Him for two millennia wherever they might be living. The elders then had no choice but to order that the refugees immediately withdraw from Rome, and, because they had no means for enforcing the decision, they asked the civic authorities, those turned to the night watch, and the night watch in turn sought help from the guardsmen.

Carrying Marcellus in his arms, Uri stood at the door of their house, a frightened Theo clinging to his legs, with Sarah, Hermia, and pregnant Hagar shifting from leg to leg in front of them. They saw a long line of Alexandrian refugees, carrying small bundles of possessions on their heads or backs and under an escort of night watch and soldiers, approach the Far Side gate. Marching along were old people, children, women, men, Jews with eyes downcast, fixed on the ground. The Roman Jews stood by, mute and inactive, whether they watched indifferently, or with hostility, or even sympathetically.

“We won’t be driven out, will we?” Theo whispered.

“No, not us,” Uri replied.

“Not ever?”

“Never.”

The refugees filed by in a long row; the civic authorities had promised that they would be escorted to the border not just of Far Side but Rome, and they would not be permitted to return. No one asked what would become of them in Italia: let them make do as best they could.

“If our house were able to swell,” Theo whispered, “and it could grow as big as, or even bigger than, Far Side, we would let them stay, wouldn’t we?”

“Yes, we would,” said Uri.

“Then I’m going to pray that our house should swell,” announced Theo determinedly.

Uri held back his tears: his firstborn son was barely three years old yet was already saying things like that. A marvel, he was. He could already count up to sixty and do addition and multiplication, and he had grasped in an instant the principle of squares and within a further five seconds that of deriving a square root. Barely three years old — and he still had a heart!

The elders had reaped a major victory: the public disorder ceased and the Jews of Rome were able to celebrate Rosh Hashanah peacefully in their synagogues.

Philo breathed his last four years after the delegation’s arrival in Rome. Life departed unnoticed from his slight body: he shivered slightly and then it was all over. Uri and a servant were with him. Uri called physicians to the bedside and they stuffed herbal remedies into him. Philo was rational to the end and was unwilling to discuss neither illness nor death; he would only talk about how Greek philosophy, for the sake of the poor Greeks, had to be filled with the spirit of the only Everlasting One.

Months before, Uri had written letters to Caesarea and Alexandria, but he got no answer from either Marcus or Tija. By then the alabarch had expired, his health broken by the spell in prison. Then news arrived that Marcus had died unexpectedly and without child. Tija did not reply to his letter but Uri was informed that he was alive. News of the death of his younger brother had reached Philo, but Uri had no wish to add to his sorrows with the news of Marcus’s demise.

The young widow, Berenice, did not wait out a year of mourning before marrying her uncle, Agrippa’s elder brother, Herod, Claudius’s friend, who was vested rule of the kingdom of Chalcis, north of Judaea, that he too have his minute royal territory.

When the seal on Philo’s last will and testament was broken, Uri was flabbergasted to learn that Philo had bequeathed him two hundred thousand sesterces; even when he had been sick he had still remembered the size of the debt being carried by his amanuensis. The payments made to date had only covered the interest; now Uri would not only be able to pay back the whole amount of the loan, he would even have a few thousand sesterces left.

Philo loved me like a son, Uri reflected, and he was assailed by remorse. It was true he had taken faithful care of him and had been by his side until he died; he had in fact even been rather fond of him, but he could not say he had loved him. He had recited a blessing for him and made a tear in his own garments, but he had no felt no emotion except pity.

The library that Philo had brought with him and had added to since, together with his manuscripts, Philo willed to Rome’s Jewish community. Uri was annoyed that everything would go missing but he did not have the nerve not to carry out Philo’s last wish. Nevertheless he made copies of all the works Philo had written in Rome, partly out of respect but also because he had written out the original drafts, and it was only after making the copies that he handed over the library to Honoratus, who was only interested in the statue of Germanicus that had been standing in his house since the fire.

Philo was laid to rest with great pomp, at the expense of the community, by the Appian Way, with many speeches being made during the procession and at the entrance to the catacomb, with nobody failing to sprinkle their eulogy with quotations from Philo. Uri himself was asked whether he wished to speak, but he declined.

Given that Philo had no relatives living in Rome, Uri arranged a funeral banquet in the house that had been built for the delegation, and in which Philo had died. The house was bought by bankers, the banquet paid for out of the selling price, and what remained was paid in to the community aparchai . Admittedly, it would have been proper for him also to observe a week of mourning but because he was not a relative this was not expected of him. Uri asked Iustus to put together a list of VIPs, and some fifty prominent members of Rome’s Jewish community mourned the great philosopher’s passing by eating and drinking an excellent meal.