György Spiró - Captivity

Uri informed him with a certain glee:

“You’ll have to get circumcised, my dear boy, which will be pretty painful. A fair chunk may be cut out of your prick, at least I hope so. That’s the price for my paying up.”

The prospective son-in-law slyly held his tongue in assent.

I had a water-carrier as a lover, Uri reflected, and my daughter’s husband will be a water-carrier. Pure poetic justice on the part of the Eternal One.

What had to be done came to pass, and the former slave took the name Isaac. Hagar pretended to be happy, baking and cooking for the wedding feast though there were not many present.

Irene had imagined a more glittering affair and upbraided her father for being stingy even though obtaining her husband’s release had not cost all that much.

“Maybe not,” Uri agreed, “but obtaining Roman citizenship for my grandson will cost an arm and a leg.”

Irene did not understand: if the father was a freedman, and he himself had been born free, why would their son not be free?

Uri sighed before launching into an explanation that he wouldn’t be because Pallas — Claudius’s slave, the younger brother of Marcus Antonius Felix, who was prefect of Judaea and Samaria — had deviously conceived an amendment to the law whereby if a free woman married a slave she too would acquire the status of a slave. That had been ratified during Claudius’s reign and was still in force.

“But Isaac is a freedman now!” Irene protested.

“And so you too only have freedman status, and your child too! Only his or her child, your grandchild, will be able to gain citizenship rights and a tessera.”

Irene burst out sobbing; she had not been aware of that; if she had known beforehand, if anyone had drawn her attention to that, if her father had told her in advance, if her father had instructed her — no way would she have gotten mixed up with someone like that…

Uri got tired of this.

“He’ll be a citizen, don’t get so upset! It’s just that it will cost a fortune!” he shouted. “The law was passed so that exceptions could be made to its provisions — at a price! It was driven through the Senate, and Pallas received a reward of five million sesterces from Claudius for doing it. The bastard knew very well that it would be very remunerative! That is why it has remained in force under Nero — because they also get a cut! The exceptions are the essence of any law — that’s where the money is to be made! That’s the only reason any law gets passed!”

Irene kept on sobbing; she could not follow this basic principle of political science. Uri left her and set off to find out exactly who had to be paid because even though Pallas had not been put to death like Narcissus, and had even been left with his many hundreds of millions, he had nevertheless been booted out of office.

Uri could not stand the sight of the shifty look on Isaac’s face, once he had moved in with them, and the man’s body odor made him ill, so he purchased for them a shanty on the edge of Far Side, where it was unlikely any tenement buildings would be envisaged, and that was where Uri’s first grandchild was born, a boy of unprepossessing appearance but healthy. It cost a lot to get him the rights of citizenship, but that was arranged.

Uri looked now to Eulogia, the younger of his two daughters, who was no more attractive; she was barely past twelve when she made her own catch, a numbskull lunk of a Jewish boy from Far Side. It turned out that this ordinary boy was related to Siculus Sabinus, that wealthy imbecile of a smith who had also traveled to Jerusalem, in fact he was a nephew of his, and was employed in his uncle’s workshop. Once the wedding had been solemnized, Eulogia moved to Far Side, wanting to be rid of her unbearable parents just as soon as she could. Uri bestowed a decent dowry, glad that they were not going to leech off of him.

He was left with no money and had to ask for a loan, so he took on even more work.

Marcellus finally slunk off with his congregation, moving into the house of one of the faithful brethren, where they were going to wait the return of the Anointed.

“Just wait, son! Hang on tight!”

Him he gave no money.

Uri was left with Hagar in the peasant cottage on the Via Nomentana. He bought it outright for what was, in fact, a rock-bottom price, but the peasant was happy to move out. It was a mud brick house, prone to damp and to mold, and no money was left for renovations. But it would be good for as long as it lasted before falling about their ears.

Uri let his wife know that he wouldn’t mind her moving in with one of their daughters on Far Side, but Hagar chose to commute: twice a week she would walk over to Far Side, cook for Eulogia, then walk back to Via Nomentana. On these days Irene would go over to Eulogia’s place to pick up half of the food. The lazy old bag, thought Uri. Hagar is working more for her daughters than she ever did for me. There was no need to cook for Uri as servants brought lunch for those employed on the construction site at a fairly cheap price; it may not have been ritually pure, but then neither was painting men and beasts on walls in accord with Mosaic law.

Looking at Hagar’s dim, ugly, lackluster features, Uri was amazed. How much the two of them had been through at each other’s sides and yet not together. If Uri said something, Hagar did not understand, and even if she did happen to, she pretended not to. For sure the Lord had not created them for each other, so it was a miracle that they had children nonetheless. How could that be?

These were years of peace, with the world governed by Burrus, the one-armed Praetorian prefect, and the wise Seneca, with people just nodding when Britannicus, the natural-born son of Claudius, was killed: that was the price of tranquility. Seneca had allegedly warned Nero against killing by cautioning: “However many people you slaughter you cannot kill your successor.” In his wise letters of a Stoic to Marcia, the daughter of Cordus, Seneca preached poverty and humility, meanwhile amassing three hundred million sesterces for himself in four years; people nodded and read his book with that in mind.

There was a flurry of excitement when Nero divorced Octavia, Claudius’s daughter, whom he had wed when he was sixteen, and married Poppaea Sabina, who had been the lover and wife of his friend Otho. Otho was sent to be prefect of Lusitania; it was a miracle he was not killed. Nero then took Octavia back, but had second thoughts and chose instead to have her dispatched; Claudius’s ugly daughter was just twenty, yet she had to die. Tales went around that Nero even made love to his mother in the closed carriage, the stains were there to be seen in the coach and on their garments, and after that Nero deprived her of all her bodyguards and had her board a boat with a collapsible cabin, designed to fall in on top of her and sink at Bauli. The ceiling of her cabin did indeed collapse, but she managed to swim free; only her lady-in-waiting, Acerronia Polla, perished, wounded in the wreck and stabbed to death by the oarsmen. The emperor finally managed to have his mother slaughtered, with Agrippina commanding Herculeius, the ship’s captain who was her assassin: “Strike it in my womb!” When he viewed her undraped corpse Nero was said to have remarked: “I had so beautiful a mother!” and went on to organize a big funeral for her.

Otherwise nothing noteworthy happened; business went on. Wars with the Brits and Germani proceeded, but those events were far afield; Nero negotiated a spectacular détente with the Parthians, greeting their king and ambassadors with kisses and games. In the Forum there was excited discussion about how the emperor had ordered that henceforth it would be necessary to pay to lodge an appeal with the Senate, in effect a new form of tax.