György Spiró - Captivity

The Judaean boat was anchored some two to three hundred feet from the shore, and the huge logs the boat had carried were hauled aloft by an enormous 100- to 120-foot-high pulley rig and lowered onto the smaller craft that had been sculled out to unload the cargo. Matthew said that the reason the boat did not come closer to the shore was so that slaves should not throw themselves into the water and swim off — not that there was much chance of that, seeing as they were chained together, but it did no harm to be careful.

Uri had been struck by the fact that only slaves were working on the boats and on the shore, albeit under the supervision of a few slave drivers, and he even said as much.

Iustus, who had been keeping watch with Valerius, laughed.

“Pity you didn’t see the sailors jumping ashore,” he said, “and the hurry they were in! Racing to be sure that the Sabbath should fall with them in a safe place.”

Matthew also laughed, though he had not even seen them.

“They will be celebrating next door to us,” he said.

Half an hour before the onset of the Sabbath, they arrived at the sawmill to which Matthew led them.

Right up till the sun set, the slaves — whole families: fathers, mothers, and children — ceaselessly rotated, around and around, a huge ribbed wheel, to which a second wheel with a horizontal axis was transversely engaged; a strap attached to the thickened far end of its axle turned a massive circular saw. Others were sawing logs from the new consignment into rectangular planks: a trunk would be tugged onto a table with a slot cut into one end, and at the halfway point the saw would then bite into the wood with a buzzing and howl and split off the surplus bits, which a further detachment of slaves were occupied with chopping up. Uri had seen horses going around in circles in mills and was rather surprised not to see even one such beast here until Hilarus tipped him off that it was cheaper to keep slaves fed than it was to buy fodder for horses.

The logs were seasoned in Judaea because the climate was favorable there; it was not worth trying to work wood that was still wet because later on it would warp and buckle, and not just the builder but also the supplier would be sued on that account if it led to the collapse of a multistory building, an almost weekly occurrence in Rome, as Plotius explained. Besides being able to sell at a higher price when the timber had been processed, cutting it into planks also had the advantage that it was possible to stack more of them together on the next ship that was heading northward, continued Aaron, the sawmill’s owner who had invited them.

“That would be a nice trick,” quipped Matthew, “if trees grew naturally with rectangular trunks.”

“I wouldn’t be too thrilled,” Aaron retorted, “because then I would have to look for a less lucrative trade for myself.”

Uri was amazed that even the sawdust was collected in sacks, but Matthew explained that this was also transported to Rome, where it was scattered on the mud in front of the houses of the rich. Uri was amazed at that as well: did that too come from Judaea? He had often seen sawdust being scattered on the mud in Rome but never imagined that a day would come when he had something to do with it.

Sawdust was not much cheaper than wooden beams, Matthew noted; every last scrap of the forests felled in Judaea was turned to profitable use. He himself had transported a huge amount of timber in his own work. When they got to Judaea he would point out the locations of the forests that had been felled in recent decades; due to the dearth of trees the soil was being blown away by the wind and rocks were now jutting out of the ground. On the other hand, what is one supposed to do if there is no demand for much else in the way of exports from Judaea?

“Dates, for example,” Uri stated.

“Up till now it was possible,” said Matthew, “but in recent times they have also been planting them in Italia, unfortunately.”

The slaves left off work at sunset on the dot to resume at first light on Sunday. They withdrew to a large barn-like building a bit like a stables in which they all lived and where they too celebrated their own Sabbath. They were not chained, but their ears were pierced, and, judging by the stone wall of at least ten feet in height, Uri had not the slightest doubt that they were not able to escape. At the sole gate two sentries, shield and spear in hand, stood on guard; they were not Jews and therefore allowed to do duty on the Sabbath.

Uri brooded on why he felt such twinges of conscience over a Jewish mill-owner keeping Jewish slaves. In Rome the Jews had all been liberated, and they had not been replaced by new slaves from Palestine; peace had reigned for decades. How come these Jews had become slaves despite that?

He questioned Plotius.

“They were unable to pay their debts,” said Plotius, “so they sold themselves, along with their families.”

Uri shuddered.

“Their thinking is,” Plotius went on, “it is better if the family stays together, and also that they will be better off in a Jewish establishment. That is not always the case.”

Uri imagined having to trundle, with his father and sisters, a ribbed wheel around and around for hours at a time, and he felt dizzy. But it was not every day that a shipment of timber arrived at Syracusa; maybe it was not only on the Sabbath that they had a chance to rest.

He felt badly that he had also failed to greet the slaves, even though they too belonged to the household. There was always tomorrow evening, of course.

Aaron owned a true Italian house — huge and with all the trimmings: an atrium, kitchen, bedrooms, and two big pools in the garden, one for ritual bathing (they too were free to take a dip in it, each of them being given a clean loincloth to cover his genitals), whereas in the second swam gorgeous fish of various shapes and sizes. Non-Jewish slaves (there were also some of them) took care of them throughout the night, as the Sabbath restrictions did not apply to them. The house was plumbed for sewage disposal, with the privies, as in richer Roman villas, built to allow for flushing with water. Uri spent three longish spells perched on the oval pottery seats there over the course of the evening, examining the walls of the latrines, tiled to the ceiling as they were with Solomon’s seals — Stars of David, some called them — the bare soles of his feet pleasantly warmed by the floor tiles — under-floor heating by hypocaust had been installed in all the rooms.

Aaron was a middle-aged man of nondescript appearance, more than content with his lot in life. Two sons of his also spent the Sabbath there; as young adults they already had their own houses and were engaged in other trades even though they were not yet married. Uri had the feeling that they looked down on the delegation’s members: they were a long way from Rome, and they had precious little to do with it; they were successful businessmen from a good Syracusan family, and the Roman Jewish community was of no significance for them. Uri would not be surprised to find that they had never read a single scroll in their life, and if they had been present in the amphitheater they would certainly have been unaware that the orator was declaiming works by others. They looked happy.

Aaron proposed that they cast lots to be “king of the wine,” or toastmaster — a suggestion to which the company enthusiastically assented, though Uri had no idea what that office might entail.

They threw a pair of dice, which, as an implement of a game of chance, was forbidden to Jews not only on a Sabbath but at any time. However, seeing that it was only being used to draw lots, no prohibition applied. After several rounds, Valerius emerged as the winner. The hyperetes was so elated at his luck that he leapt around and clapped his hands ecstatically like a child. Uri could only watch in wonder.