György Spiró - Captivity

“It must have been fun,” Uri acknowledged.

“But then of course when he raised the taxes, the people switched soon enough to detesting him… They found it hard to swallow the tax of one drachma per capita… but what they took to worst was that he sold them the imperial properties in Egypt — that was also Tija’s wheeze — which meant that they were made to pay a staggering amount — forty million sesterces Titus squeezed out of them, but they didn’t dare resist: if Tija is capable of having fifty thousand Jews slain, then he can put easily dispatch five times as many Greeks… They weren’t calling him ‘Healer’ then, but ‘Salted Fish Vendor.’”

“We had a lot of laughs,” said Kainis dispassionately. “We were still in Egypt and we got news that Domitianus was behaving excessively like an emperor in Rome, so Titus wrote him a very polite letter which was full of sentences like: ‘Many thanks, son, for not dethroning me yet!’”

Uri laughed out loud.

“Tiberius also had a wit,” he said. “There was the time a Greek delegation that was visiting him about a year after his mother’s death expressed condolences, to which he responded by expressing condolences to them on the death of Helena.”

All three of them chuckled.

Posides clambered to his feet.

“Would you like anything to eat or drink, my dear Gaius?”

Uri gestured that he didn’t. Posides shook his head to indicate that he would very much prefer to leave them to their own devices but squatted back down at Kainis’s feet, with her patting the crown of his head.

“What do you need my help with?” Kainis asked.

Uri kept silent for a while before sighing:

“Originally I wanted to ask for money for the Jewish captives,” he said, “but something has come up in the meantime… I’ve had my library sold off behind my back… It was an extensive library with a great many books of rare Judaica…”

Kainis’s eyes grew darker; she remained still before saying:

“What do you need the library for?”

“I want to write an account of what happened, and also why it happened.”

“We already have a Jewish historian,” said Kainis. “He’s from a family of high priests and was also a military leader; he came across to our side at the right time… What he is writing is the official account.”

“You mean no one else may write one?”

“One of them is plenty.”

There was a pause.

“But who checks that he has dressed it up in the right language? Who carries out the role of censor? The emperor in person?”

“My dear Titus hasn’t read a thing in a long while,” Kainis brushed that aside. “I run through everything.”

She chuckled.

“Just imagine, most recently I read that our legions were besieging Jotapata, and what should I see in it but that Titus — my Titus’s son Titus — was the very first to scale the walls!”

Posides giggled with her.

In the textbook literature there did not exist a commander who did not direct a siege from the rear. Uri joined in the laughter.

“Do you scratch out anything like that?” he asked.

“No way do I scratch it out,” Kainis chortled. “Readers like adventure-story twists. I even showed it to young Titus. He was delighted to be portrayed as such a big hero!”

Posides snickered.

“Kainis showed me the passage where this Jewish leader of priestly descent writes about how he hid himself in a certain deep pit, adjoining a large den, along with the remaining defenders after the castle has been occupied. He wanted to defect, but his Jews wouldn’t let him, so he hit upon the idea of drawing lots to determine who should kill the others. This proposal prevailed, so they drew lots, but by the providence of the Jewish god each time this priestly leader drew a lot to be left alive to the very last… Now, Kainis calculated the probability of that happening…”

“Yes,” said Kainis, “because earlier on he had written that sixty persons of eminence remained alive, so doing it that way, the probability of his remaining alive would have been so near zero that I told him at least to leave out the numbers…”

They all laughed.

“And have the casualties been added up?” Uri asked.

“Most certainly!” Kainis replied. “Two million Jews died — that was the number I agreed with the author in advance, but the funny thing is that there must have been roughly that number in reality. It does not lie in Rome’s interest to decrease the number of victims. On the contrary.”

Other nations would quake even more. Smart thinking.

“And what is the emperor doing?” Uri asked.

“Everything. He can do whatever he wants, but it’s me who gives the orders.”

Uri looked at the fragile old lady, mistress of the empire of the world, and was amazed.

“Ask for anything else,” Kainis crooned softly. “Anything you want you’ll get — though not me, of course.”

Posides giggled.

“Ask for some monopoly!” he prompted in a loud whisper. “That’s the best! An absolutely safe bet! You can’t imagine how much people are prepared to pay us for a good monopoly! We’ll give you one for free!”

Uri held his tongue.

“That’s what Kainis dreamed up for you,” said Posides, “because she’s extremely bright, brighter than even me — giving you a monopoly on the importation of Jewish oil.”

Uri was dizzy.

Importing ritually pure oil from Judaea for a Jewish Roman population that had grown to two hundred thousand! A huge business! It ran through his head that an amphora of oil cost one drachma in Judaea, and in Rome it sold for eight or nine times that price. About half of that would go to procurement and transport costs, but the rest was clear profit. Many millions of sesterces per year. In the first year one would have to invest it all, but any banker would willingly provide a loan.

Uri held his tongue, just sighing.

“Who had the rights up till now?” he asked.

Kainis chuckled. Uri startled: it was the first time she had laughed sincerely.

“What did I tell you!” she spoke triumphantly to Posides, who growled like a dog.

“He’ll still want it!” he growled. “You’ll see!”

“Who holds the rights now?” Uri repeated the question.

“What do you care?” barked Posides. “I have on me solicitations from Jews for that very thing — three of them. They’ve shelled out to us in advance a total of forty million sesterces!”

“If I’m granted it, then I’ll have to pay them back, won’t I?”

“No way!” exclaimed Posides. “I’m not talking about loans! Not even backhanders! The money was given as a pure token of devotion; they know very well that if they are not granted that monopoly specifically they’ll get another one instead and purely because by sheer chance their names come to our mind…”

“You won’t harm anyone,” said Kainis. “Anyone who has money can invest it in something anyway.”

Uri remained quiet. The blood was starting to rush to his head.

“I don’t want any monopoly from you,” he said. “I didn’t fall in love with you so that one day you would make me a millionaire.”

There was a silence.

“I have an invention,” he went on. “It’s a lifting device. There are drawings, but they’re in my library, somewhere in the possession of your people… I could sketch it if you give me a pen and papyrus… It could replace the work of hundreds. I didn’t come here on that account but if you would buy it, that would make me very happy.”

Kainis nudged Posides on the head, and he scrambled to his feet and rolled out of the room.

There was silence.

“Was this wonder palace worth the death of two million people?” Uri asked with a nod of his head all around them to indicate what he was referring to.