The Redemption of Pontius Pilate (28 page)

After supper, the servants were dismissed and Pilate and his wife were alone at last. She came to his arms and he covered her face with kisses.

“I have missed you, husband,” she said.

“It grieves me that you have been uprooted from all you know and love, and been sent into exile with me,” he replied. “I wish I could have left you safely in Rome.”

She held him close and returned his kisses. “I am glad to be where you are, Pilate,” she said. “Wherever that may be. After all we have lost, I am just happy that we have never lost each other.”

“So tell me,” he said as they moved toward their bed, “were our previous efforts to conceive successful?”

“Sadly, no,” she said.

“Well, then,” he said, lifting her in his arms, “we shall just have to try again.”

And so they did. More than once, this time, for good measure.

The next morning Pilate reviewed his troops and was pleased with what he saw. The scraggly bunch of failures and rejects he had met some eight weeks before still wore the same faces, but now they looked and acted like Roman legionaries. He was pleased to see the hulking form of Brutus Appius, cuirass gleaming in the sun, standing ramrod straight at the head of his century. The big man was a natural leader, it seemed, needing only discipline and direction to help him discover his talent for command.

Pilate spoke to them for a few moments, congratulating them on their military bearing, and praising the men who had accompanied him on his inspection tour of the province. The other legionaries regarded them with good-natured envy, jealous that they had been given the opportunity to strike at the hated Zealots. Pilate dismissed the men and met briefly with the centurions, outlining their assignments over the next week. When he was done, Longinus lingered behind for a private word.

“With your permission, Prefect, I should like to return to Capernaum for a short visit with my family,” he said.

“By all means!” said Pilate. “But make it a month or so, no more—I will want you with me when I go to Jerusalem for the first time this winter, and there may be other duties to get out of the way before we depart.”

“The Feast of Booths is a good time to see the city,” said Longinus. “It is one of the more joyful Jewish festivals. I shall make sure I return in plenty of time. I do think that you taught the Zealots a lesson, though! I imagine the roads will be safer than they were earlier this year.”

Pilate nodded. “That was my intent,” he said. “I will not have it be said that Romans are not safe in my province while I am governor!”

Longinus regarded him quizzically. “If I may be so bold, sir—” he began.

“By all means, Centurion, go on,” said Pilate.

“I noticed that when we broke up the ambush, and we put those Zealots to death, that you—well, you seemed to enjoy the process, for lack of a better word,” said Longinus.

Pilate's defenses went up. Truth be told, he had enjoyed watching those men scream and squirm on the crosses a great deal. The thing within him that enjoyed inflicting suffering on others was not something he liked to acknowledge, however. Particularly not to a subordinate.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he said. “I did my duty as a Prefect and an officer of Rome, no more. I enjoy combat, like many soldiers—crossing blades with an enemy is the ultimate way to prove one's mettle and skill. But putting condemned men to death? It is a necessity, a duty; but not one that I particularly relish.”

Longinus looked at him sharply, but simply said, “Well, I guess I misunderstood what I saw then. Thank you for your leave, sir, and I look forward to our next mission together.”

At this point Pilate returned to his offices. He found a line of people had formed, all anxious to meet with the governor now that he had returned from his inspection tour. He donned his formal toga and seated himself in the curule chair, ordered his lictors to show them in, and waited for them to state their business.

Pilate always prided himself on being courteous and efficient when it came to seeing clients, but he had learned during his time in Spain that the people who called on provincial governors were not the same sort of clientele that Roman Senators normally dealt with. Tax farmers, merchants, speculators, and local citizens or hopeful citizens, each with their own complaints and grievances—all eager to bend the governor's ear and win his favor. It did not take long for the cumulative satisfaction of his victory over the Zealots and successful inspection tour to dissipate into impatience and frustration.

First came two Roman citizens, merchants of the Third Class, each claiming the other had interfered in their business contracts with local winegrowers. Behind them followed a gaggle of Jewish locals, each one claiming the two merchants had threatened them with death and enslavement if they were not awarded exclusive contracts. Pilate listened to their complaints and accusations until he could stand it no more.

“Enough!” he snapped. “I did not come here from Rome to watch as the worst of her citizens plundered a country too poor and fearful to take legal recourse against you!” He looked at the Jews. There were ten of them, all gazing at him with fear, suspicion, and no small amount of loathing. “Each of you tell me how many acres your vineyards cover,” he said.

“Forty acres, Your Excellency!” said the first in barely understandable Greek.

“Twenty, sir!” said the next.

Pilate listened to them as they each proclaimed the acreage they owned, and then nodded when they were done.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” he said. “Now you, you, you, you, and you—stand behind Licinius here.” He indicated the older merchant, a red-faced, gray-haired Roman from Arpinium. “The rest of you, go stand by Cato Quirinius.” He gestured at the other merchant, who hailed from the Suburba district of Rome. The puzzled Jews took up their position.

“Now then,
Quirites,
” he said, addressing the two citizens by their formal titles, “each of you has five clients whose total acreage is roughly equal. You should each be able to count on an equal harvest of grapes and equal wine production every year. It will be up to you to make your product more competitive than your competition's. “

“Prefect, this is unheard of!” snapped Licinius. “I had contracts with seven of these men, not five!”

“And I had contracts with six!” said Cato.

“AND I SAY YOU HAVE FIVE EACH!!” roared Pilate. “Now get out of my office, and do NOT let me hear you complain about each other again, or I will void all your contracts and set you on the first ship back to Rome!” He glared at each of the men intensely, and they scurried out of his office quickly, each followed by their new clients.

Whether it was his voice carrying through the walls, or the frightened expressions of Licinius and Cato, the next few clients finished their business quickly and without bickering. Several of them were the local
publicani
, come to deposit the taxes and tributes they had collected for the Senate with Rome's official representative. Pilate called in his accountant, Silvanus, whom he had barely had time to meet before setting out on his tour of the province, to make sure that their accounts were in order. It appeared that they were, so he ordered Silvanus to deposit the money in the local treasury to be transported to Rome at the end of the month. Next came two of his soldiers, looking hangdog and apologetic, explaining that they had borrowed money from one of the local lenders, who turned out to be charging a much higher interest rate than advertised. The moneylender had trailed them in, shouting that they had entered the contract in good faith and must pay to the last mite. Pilate ordered each soldier to receive ten lashes, and docked their pay by ten denarii a month until the debt was cleared. Then he ordered the moneylender given twenty lashes for extorting from the Emperor's men, and forbade him from loaning money to legionaries again.

So it went for the rest of the day, as the official representative of the Senate and People of Rome heard the complaints and requests of an unending stream of citizens and subjects. Pilate listened, nodded, sympathized, or chastised as the occasion called for. This was the dreariest part of the governor's job, but also one of the most profitable, both financially and politically. At least, it would have been profitable in a decent province, where there was money to spare. After hearing the financial state of both the Roman citizens and the native subjects of the province, he began to understand better why Valerius Gratus had let himself be bribed by the priests in Jerusalem. In a poor, agrarian province with no mineral wealth and few marketable resources other than produce and wool, there was simply not much wealth left for the taking, except for two sources.

The Temple was the greatest depository of wealth in the region. Even the poorest among the Jews paid a tithe of their incomes to the support of the Temple every year, and while the priests and acolytes—who were called Levites for some reason Pilate did not yet know—lived pretty well, they did not live extravagantly. No doubt that there was an enormous trove of gold buried there somewhere, from which the priests had brought forth the generous bribes they paid to various members of the Senate annually for the privilege of being allowed to run the province as they saw fit. Even the most venal Roman governor, however, had refused to touch the Temple treasury, knowing of the Jews' fanatical devotion to their religion.

Then there was Herod and his household. The old Herod, known as The Great by his family and retainers, and The Monster by his Jewish subjects, had been richer than Midas and crueler than Lucius Sulla on a bad day. He had put his favorite wife and several of his sons to death before dying of gangrene when Pilate was still a youth, but he had bought the title “King of the Jews” from the Roman Senate, and paid dearly to keep it when his patron Marc Antony was defeated by young Octavian. Herod was survived by four sons, but the Senate had split his empire up between them. The oldest, Herod Antipas, had been denied the authority of “King” although he insisted on using the title. He was entrusted with the tetrarchy of Galilee, which put him in the position of being Pilate's subordinate in the elaborate Roman colonial hierarchy, but as a client of Tiberius, he could still go over Pilate's head to the Senate if the two of them should clash. Rumor had it that Antipas had carefully invested his share of the fortune the old Herod had left him, and had made himself one of the richest men in the region. Pilate had not yet met him, and did not look forward to it particularly, but thought it would be wise to stay in the man's good graces if he could. The last thing Pontius Pilate needed was another enemy!

At the end of the day, Pilate was exhausted. Dealing with petitioners and clients all day was much more tiring than riding on a long patrol or fighting bandits. He left his office behind and headed toward the residence, where Porcia was weaving a tapestry on the loom she had bought a few days before. Unlike many Roman matrons, she enjoyed working with her hands and was quite crafty. She saw the look on his face and came to his side.

“It's a shame we don't have a proper bath here,” she said. “But let me show you something!” She led him past their bedchamber to a small corridor that he had always assumed led down to the kitchen. However, when they followed it downstairs, there were two hallways branching from the landing—one indeed went toward the kitchen, but the other ended in a small doorway to the outside. The door opened onto a lovely beach, hidden from the busy seaport to the north by a long rock jetty and some jagged cliffs. Other than the back wall of the governor's palace, no buildings overlooked it, and the sand and boulders stretched south for miles with not a single sign of human habitation. The sand was dazzling in its whiteness and still quite warm, even though the sun was nearing the horizon in the west. It was hard to believe that the busiest seaport in Judea was just on the other side of the jetty and cliffs!

“Care to swim?” she said.

Pilate shrugged out of his tunic and hit the water running. He had always loved the sea, and the warm waters seemed to soak the fatigue right out of his body. He paddled and dove, amazed at how clear the water was. Porcia joined him, and they swam and played in the surf for nearly an hour. The sun was about to set when they both finally turned to the shore. One of the maids was waiting by the doorway with towels and several buckets of fresh water to rinse the salt from their bodies. They both donned clean tunics, and Porcia wrapped a light mantle over hers—the Prefect's wife could not be immodest! Supper was waiting for them in their chambers, and by the time they had finished dining Pilate was so tired he found himself nodding over his food. He kissed his wife an affectionate good night and fell into a deep and dreamless slumber almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

The next few weeks passed in a similar routine, with the daily demands of the job absorbing much of Pilate's energy. Despite Porcia's best efforts to keep him happy and contented with his home life, he longed to get out of Caesarea and find some sort of task that would get him away from the endless demands of the army of petitioners that crowded his days and haunted his dreams. As the year dragged on toward fall, he began to look forward to traveling to Jerusalem for the festival season.

About eight weeks after he returned from his inspection tour, the military equipment he had ordered from Rome for his legion finally came in. So much of the men's gear was old, worn out, and battered that he had decided to order replacement uniforms and new equipment in an attempt to improve the legion's morale and preparedness. There was also a new set of standards, each equipped with a Roman eagle, a polished bronze shield with a golden profile of Tiberius on it, and the Judean Legion's banner and number, above the traditional “SPQR.” Pilate turned the uniform items over to the legion's quartermasters, and took the legion's old standards and placed them in storage while setting the new ones up in the courtyard.