György Spiró - Captivity

He went on:

“It’s a recipe for another Jamnia.”

Salutius gave him an inquisitive look, but Uri waved it aside: it was of no importance.

Salutius related that Iustus and the other Jewish leaders had forbidden the Jews of Rome from taking sides on Judaean matters; they should leave all that to Agrippa II, who shuttled between Caesarea and Rome as a kind of honorary king even if in reality it was the prefects who saw to things. And indeed no one in Far Side did take up positions; everyone was lying low. There was neither hide nor hair of any Nazarenes: either they had all been put to death, or they were in hiding. The big wheel next to Iustus was a shoemaker by the name of Annius; planted among the elders by the impoverished leatherworkers and dockers, he was a forceful, impatient man who was intent on having any remaining Nazarenes unmasked and banished from Italia — that was what he blared out in every forum.

“ Ceterum censeo ? A Jewish Cato?”

“Something like that,” Salutius laughed.

Uri pondered.

“People like that usually have a skeleton in the cupboard. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had been a Nazarene himself earlier on.”

“Your son-in-law Isaac is on good terms with him.”

“He was converted not so long ago, so he’s a bit zealous.”

“I get the impression your son is working as a secretary for Iustus these days,” Salutius remarked.

“Marcellus?”

“That’s his name.”

Uri held his tongue then went on:

“Take care with him. I rather think he’s been caught.”

They turned to speaking about scrolls.

Salutius had gotten the text on the stele in Alexandria copied and also many important scrolls in Caesarea, where there was no Jewish library but a considerable number of private collectors. Among these were Essene texts, including some in Aramaic from Jerusalem, Qumran, and Masada, as well as scores from the unwritten law books; none of them was complete and in some cases there were startling differences in their assessments of comparable states of affairs. Salutius had read them with great interest and made marginal notes. He had acquired from Naples stacks of copies of the rolls that Uri had considered were of interest. Among these were a whole lot of treaties between states from times prior to Alexander the Great, along with a cache of private documents and a pre-Septuagint Greek fragment from the Torah. He had arranged for a copy to be made in Syracusa of a Greek text of the Book of Enoch. Uri took a glance at it: it was not exactly the same as the version he had read out in Beth Zechariah, but it was a fine, comprehensive text. One thing that had come to light in Far Side was a lengthy Aramaic text about the life and deeds of the Nazarenes’ Jesus; there had been no need to copy that as the owner had been glad to be rid of it for a rock-bottom price.

“It’s a pity I know no Aramaic,” said Salutius. “Would you take a look?”

Uri sighed.

“I have a lot of work,” he said. “Some day, when I find the time for it.”

Out of his own money Salutius had acquired all forty-two volumes of the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, who had felt obliged to take his own life not long before, at much the same time as Lucanus and Seneca. Since they had died the prices of their works had shot up, and they could be expected to go even higher. Lucanus’s epic poems and Seneca’s letters and plays were already present in Salutius’s library; he had taken a great deal of enjoyment from the Satyricon and warmly recommended it, but Uri waved that too aside — some day, when he found the time.

“He writes about us, you should know,” said Salutius. “We’re referred to as Gauls in general, but the Roman Jews specifically as Gauls of Massilia to give us no grounds for complaint! The Nazarenes also get short shrift… It refers to the ‘Anointed One’ as ‘Sacra’ and invents all sorts of weird and wonderful things about him… He ends with a conflagration which covers the entire world, going into such exquisite details as how all the species die, especially man, and how the cockroaches and rats flee into the Flood, soon to become human and carry on where they left off.”

“Yes, okay! Some day, when I find the time,” said Uri. “That business with the Flood sounds not a bad idea. I’m going to paint that.”

He did not have time for painting either, because he was entrusted with guiding the construction work on half a dozen or more buildings at any one time: he contracted the painters, he stipulated the where, what, and how of the painting, and he made very good money, but he himself did no painting. He had an extensible ladder carried around after him so that he could inspect from close range pictures painted high up on walls or on the ceiling. He was held in high regard by the painters, but if they praised him to his face in the hope of getting further commissions, he was in the habit of saying:

“I know a thing or two, but if I could see properly!”

That was taken to be a joke, so they would guffaw obsequiously.

He was even entrusted with decorating ceilings in the imperial palace. Uri protested that he had no skills: that was waved aside. People knew he had attended the Gymnasium in Alexandria, they were told by Helius himself, who bore the responsibility for the palace being finished by the time Nero returned from the Greek islands.

It was ticklish, but he had to accept. His name had come to the ears of Helius, and it had struck a chord with Helius, the former chief steward in Claudius’s household and now master of Rome.

Uri cursed himself. Helius had most likely heard by pure chance on a single occasion in Claudius’s house that he could boast of having attended the Gymnasium in Alexandria; the only person he could have bragged to about it was Kainis, whom he had adored. Better not to have done that either.

He conceived a plan to use for the vast ceiling contiguous hexagonal panels of gilded ivory; an elaborate contraption worked with a pulley system would be able to slip these aside simultaneously in such a way that pipes running across the ceiling could sprinkle down scented spray — not merely one variety but three, delivered by parallel sets of pipes.

Once that was ready and the spraying was working impressively, he was then assigned to work on three fountains beside the lake in the imperial garden, the requirement being that it should be unique in the world. Uri asked Salutius to get hold of any works dealing with mechanics and hydraulics, tipping him off with the titles of a few which he had examined in Alexandria, and he succeeded in hunting down a few of these.

Uri did not go home for weeks on end, spending his nights in the palace as it was being completed, sketching, designing, and calculating sizes by torchlight on wax tablets and papyrus scrolls. He was lavishly remunerated and handed it all over to Salutius to expand the library. After a while he thought it best to rent a room on the Via Sacra near the site on which the palace was under construction. After his very first night there, Uri came to the realization that this was the same room that Isidoros had once lived in, with the same jeweler still working in the other half of the house. Now how many years ago had Isidoros passed away? At least thirteen.

It was good being alone in that room in that tiny, old house, one of a few of which were still standing in that area; it was good not to have to see Hagar’s misshapen, baggy face, varicose legs, and unhinged expression, not to hear her incoherent muttering. Hagar would upbraid him for grievances from ten or fifteen years back; for example, in Puteoli she had pleaded in vain for them to move to Capua, where cabbages were cheaper, or that he had not smeared his feet with that fat the wise-woman had recommended when they had been covered in sores from fulling. She would insist that she used to meet Theo, who had gotten married, had fathered several sons, and now lived in Far Side. Uri would make an occasional attempt to intervene, but he was unable to halt her insane monologues. Hagar’s breath smelled of wine, and it was quite common for her to nod off to sleep in the middle of a confused and interminable sentence; she was sober only when she set off to see her daughters in Far Side. Uri was quite sure from certain signs that she was also in the habit of meeting Marcellus, though she never said a word about him, but every now and again she would spout something about the Anointed who would one day, when he returned, be the judge of the quick and the dead and until then the sparks would preserve themselves as one day a column of fire would arise from them.