György Spiró - Captivity

The word had been pronounced but there was no reaction.

“What’s a strategos?” Hagar asked.

“A commander-in-chief.”

Hagar did not believe him.

The womenfolk had their vengeance in refusing anything he desired and in desiring anything he refused.

Uri gave up on the idea of Judaea.

Two weeks later he was invited over by Honoratus.

“Our prefect has sent for you,” he said to Uri with a friendly smile on his face. “Tiberius Julius Alexander has requested that you travel out to Caesarea and offer him your services. We, for our part, are willing to give you any support you require. If you wish to take your family, we’ll provide an escort seeing that you also have children to think of.”

Uri went pale and then blushed.

Honoratus went on to chat about this and that, and even embraced him before taking his leave.

Uri went home and made another attempt — futile — to bring the womenfolk around.

He could not say that he was starting to get itchy feet in Rome: if they had failed to grasp that before, they would grasp it even less now. Nor was it advisable to let on to the gossipy women anything he knew about the imperial family’s internal affairs because they would start spreading it around and it would all be over.

God in Heaven! Why did you not give me Kainis?

Hagar was opposed to the matter because they spoke Aramaic there.

“Everyone speaks Greek there!” Uri protested.

Hagar did not believe that, but the offer of an “escort” must have hit some nail in her silly head. What would that mean?

Uri went into enthusiastic detail about how they would have armed guards accompanying them just like the richest, most eminent Jews had! Even the delegation that delivered the ritual dues to Jerusalem did not get that! And they would have servants in Judaea, lots of them, they would do everything: cook, sew, weave, wash, shop, and they would take their orders from Hagar.

She went pink with delight.

Hermia also warmed to the idea. Only Sarah proved intransigent.

“The Creator led us to Rome,” she declared, “and it’s our duty to fulfill his wish.”

“It could be that now he is leading us to Judaea!” Uri shouted. “I got a call from the prefect, who is just like a king!”

“Only he’s not Jewish,” Sarah argued.

“But he is! He’s the first Jewish prefect that Rome has had in Judaea! He’s a Jewish king, only he’s not called that!”

“There’s only one king,” Sarah said with total conviction.

“But he died!”

“He’s been banished and will return.”

“That was Herod Antipas, not Agrippa!”

Uri was slowly forced to realize that Sarah was frightened of any change; she did not dare move out of Far Side on her own. She was old, and now her mind was simply not up to seeing the world from another angle.

Uri was tempted to leave the women to their own devices, his other children too, and just take Theo to Judaea, but then he had to concede that he was not free to do that. Theo loved his younger brother and sisters, and Hagar was his mother.

They are all entrusted to me, and perhaps the Creator gave me Theo that I might able to carry the others on my back.

But if he were to reject an offer like this, what could he count on in Far Side from now on?

Honoratus was flabbergasted to hear Uri’s excuses.

“That’s a serious mistake you’re making,” he said. “I’ll send the message to Judaea.”

He did not embrace Uri when he left.

Emperor Claudius had his wife, Messalina, dispatched along with her lover, Gaius Silius, whose father, Publius Silius, had been slain on the orders of Tiberius, and he also had the actor Mnester put to death.

The tale went around that Narcissus had run in haste to Ostia, where Claudius had gone to inspect the grain supply, and sought to persuade the emperor to return quickly to Rome because Messalina, despite being wed to the emperor, was celebrating her marriage to Silius. Incredulous though he was, Claudius went back with Narcissus and caught them in the act; Messalina fled and retreated into the gardens of Asiaticus, who had been executed on her account. She was hauled out and cut to shreds, or that was how rumor had it. Uri did not put any credence in the story because not long after Claudius married his niece Agrippina, Caligula’s still good-looking elder sister, and he adopted her son Domitius, in whom flowed the blood of Marcus Agrippa and, through Antonia the Elder, of Mark Antony.

Poor Britannicus, Claudius’s son by Messalina!

Claudius had wearied of Messalina becoming so powerful.

Now Agrippina would get to become powerful.

It had been prohibited to marry one’s niece in Rome from the very start, ab urbe condita . Vitellius delivered a big speech in the Senate, proclaiming that it was a matter of public interest that the emperor should be able to marry his niece, and the Senate unanimously changed the law.

“I’d marry my niece as well, if only I had one!” traders joked on greeting one another in the Forum.

“It won’t be long before one’s allowed to marry one’s nephew!”

“Not just allowed but obligated!”

Agrippina made a start by putting to death Lollia Paulina, who had been Caligula’s wife, because she had been flirting with the newly married Claudius. Lollia Paulina’s head was so mangled, it was said, that Agrippina herself only recognized it after prying open the mouth with her own hands and inspecting the teeth. Lollia had teeth like a horse; Uri recollected them well.

From then onward, Agrippina used the carpentum.

Otherwise life, as ever, went on in the Forum.

Then strange news began to come in from Judaea: a famine had broken out. Queen Helena of Adiabene had shipments of grain transported there from Egypt, but evidently not enough because a rebellion broke out under the leadership of a certain Judas the Galilean when Quirinius, the prefect of Syria, sought to tax them. The rebels were called Zealots, just like their predecessors of a number of generations before, and Tija, so the news went, had crucified their leaders Jacob and Simon, the sons of said Judas.

Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that we stayed in Rome, Uri thought.

Those who reigned over Adiabene still sought to become Jewish rulers. He was reminded of the palace that was being built in Jerusalem for the queen and her son Izates. Agrippa I’s son was still small, as fate would have it, Helena, the Jewish convert, might still be made queen of Judaea.

Of course, Tija would take steps to see that did not happen. Maybe what he did was justified, but Uri was none too happy about the chosen method of execution: it was not right for a Jew to crucify another Jew, even if he were a rebel. Have him burned at the stake, stoned to death, throttled, or beheaded, but not crucified. It then crossed his mind that if he had happened to be strategos, then he would have been an accomplice in this crime. He shuddered. Maybe the Lord really had designated Rome as the place in which he was to live.

Julius invited Uri to see him.

The banker had a grim look on his face, and also present were an anxious-looking Iustus, the secretary to Honoratus, and an older, somewhat flabby gentleman, whom Uri had difficulty in recognizing as Fortunatus, Agrippa’s confidant. Evidently he had returned to Rome after the king had died; maybe he was serving the younger Agrippa, it ran through Uri’s head, and with his eyes narrowed he took a glance at him. He was still ginger-haired, freckled, and snub-nosed, but somehow more resolute than he had been when they were waiting for Caligula to be killed: his forehead seemed wider, his eyebrows bushier, and his eyes more deeply set. Uri felt uncomfortable.

“Tell us what you know about the Nazarenes,” Julius requested.