György Spiró - Captivity

For the right money it was even possible, word went around, to buy a prefecture or monopoly from Messalina and her freedmen.

Uri was amused when advertisements for “Latin teaching” started going up in Far Side. Some Jews, seriously worried that they might lose their citizenship, began to bone up on their Latin, but then they dropped it once the whole thing fell apart.

Terror gradually began to take hold again, and the price of basic consumer goods rose as if a war was on the horizon, with Claudius being compelled, ultimately, to fix prices in the Field of Mars, with men reading out the cost of goods for hours on end and traders listening with woeful faces at the prospect of going to the wall.

Nothing happened, however; it remained a time of peace, and only a few aristocrats were touched by the cleanup. Augustus, in the early days of his reign, had conducted an almost annual cleanup, and that was what it had been called at the time, except that was a long time ago.

The rumors gave way to outright fantasy. It was said that Messalina was encouraging decent women of rank to commit adultery, compelling their husbands to watch them coupling with charioteers and actors. Claudius was unaware of this, it was added charitably, but then others retorted that it was only because he did not wish to be aware of it: Messalina just sent him over one servant girl after another to sleep with.

For one thing, it was true — as anybody could check — that Messalina had bronze statues made of Mnester, the actor. She was enamored with him, it was whispered. She was supposed to have cajoled her husband to order Mnester to do whatever she asked; up until then Mnester had been disinclined to have any dalliance with her, but if the emperor had so ordered, then he had no choice.

Uri did not believe all he was told, but even he was forced to see that the carpentum —the two-wheeled carriage, the use of which was only allowed for matrons, the Vestal Virgins, and priests within the territory of Rome on extraordinary occasions such as feasts — was used to transport Messalina all over the city on a daily basis. She herself, in her black wig and almost overflowing from the carriage, waved to the masses as if she were their emperor.

Supposedly it was Messalina who got rid of Catonius Justus, the commander of the Praetorian Guard; the new commander — her favorite, Rufrius Pollio — was, exceptionally, granted a seat and image in the Senate. It was said that Laco, prefect of the night watch, was so incensed by this that in the end he too was granted the same mark of esteem.

Some word of this must have filtered through to Claudius because he raised the number of chariot races to twenty-four per day and thereby regained a measure of popularity.

After that Claudius had Asiaticus and Magnus executed; Asiaticus had too much property, and Magnus was the emperor’s son-in-law and a good friend. After his death the emperor gave away for a second time his daughter Antonia to Cornelius Sulla Faustus, who by pure chance happened to be Messalina’s elder brother.

In no way could that be regarded any more as just an unfounded rumor.

An end was also put to the life of Silanus, Claudius’s other son-in-law, who had kept so conspicuously quiet when his father was butchered.

Also disposed of was his secretary, the freedman Polybius, who was said to have been a lover of Messalina’s, only he had quarreled with her.

Messalina was not going to last long at this rate, Uri figured, and he went on doing his deals at the Forum.

He came to realize that he felt sorry for the emperor.

The unfortunate man had wanted to do so much good, and indeed still did: he removed the prefect of one of Rome’s provinces on account of the money the man had been extorting; he forbade any prefects who returned to Rome from appointment from accepting a prefecture in another province within the space of five years; he distributed to the Rome’s populace a dole of three hundred sesterces per head (which came in handy for Uri, as he was able to put it aside). People still complained that previous emperors had always distributed votive monies in a ceremony lasting for several days, with some two hundred thousand plebeians being granted the favor on each occasion, while Claudius did not even appear in person. Uri, though, was glad of that, as he would not have liked to look Claudius in the eye.

Claudius still wanted to do good: he had it announced that a solar eclipse was expected to take place on his birthday, and he had stargazers explain to the people in advance the way in which the moon covered up the sun instead of using the occasion to gain the acceptance of the superstitious rabble for some unfavorable law.

Slaves were forbidden from giving evidence against any former master, because in recent times it had become fashionable for interrogators to force people to sell their slaves as a way of getting them to testify against their existing master, which had already been deemed unlawful.

Claudius had not wished to become emperor; how strenuously he had resisted when Caligula’s dead body had been still warm and yet he had been elected all the same.

Strange are the ways of fate: Agrippa, who had put Claudius in power, repaying the three hundred thousand sesterces that Antonia had once given him, was now dead.

After a reign of three years, he had stuffed himself to death, and Herod the Great’s kingdom once again became a Roman province. Over that three years the king had acquired a personal fortune of twelve million dinars, paying back everything he had owed, with the interest, to all those who were still alive; obviously Tija had gotten back any money that his father and Marcus had even lent. Uri was the only one who had received nothing, but then that was not part of the agreement he had made with Joseph.

Agrippa the Younger was only seventeen years old, so he had been sent to Rome to complete his education, and Judaea was once again governed by a prefect. Initially Cuspius Fadus was appointed to the position, but Claudius replaced him a year later, because he had begun embezzling the day after he arrived. News of that only reached Rome slowly, but once it did Tija, by now a renegade, was appointed prefect of Judaea.

Tiberius Julius Alexander became the first Jew to govern Judaea, Galilee, and Samaria as a Roman prefect.

He ought to move to Judaea.

Uri sounded out the plan on the womenfolk, who would on no account entertain the idea.

Uri spelled out that he was worried that Eulogia, the younger of his daughters, often had a cough, and he had no wish to see her meet the same end as his own little sister; Rome’s air was burdensome and the ground swampy, there were lots of mosquitoes. But Sarah was unwilling to leave the house, which Uri had remodeled, adding two small rooms on the roof, one for his mother and the other for himself; these could be reached by two separate outside ladders and had no door between them.

“People also get coughs in Judaea,” Sarah declared.

It was useless for Uri to explain that the climate was better there, and people as a rule did not get persistent fevers for no apparent reason, because the way Sarah had heard it the climate was just the same as in Rome.

Uri told them that the present prefect of Judaea, Tiberius Julius Alexander, was a close acquaintance, more or less a friend, and he was sure of being able to get an important post from him.

“And what would that be?” Hagar asked.

Uri took a deep breath:

“It’s possible I could be the strategos,” he announced.

He did not assume Tija would have any recollection of this passing notion, but he would undoubtedly offer him some lucrative post, at least in the early days of his prefecture as he was still finding his feet, though later on he would be bound to manage — he was clever enough.