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Title: The doomed city
Author: John R. Carling
Release date: December 11, 2025 [eBook #77443]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Edward J. Clode, 1910
Credits: Tom Trussel, Tim Lindell, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOOMED CITY ***
THE DOOMED CITY
[Illustration: She drew that charming old-world historian from her
little library and read to him day by day]
The Doomed City
By
JOHN R. CARLING
Author of “The Shadow of the Czar,” “By Neva’s Waters,”
“The Viking’s Skull”
Illustrations by
A. FORESTIER
[Illustration: Publisher’s mark]
New York
Edward J. Clode
Publisher
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
EDWARD J. CLODE
----
Entered at Stationers’ Hall
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A MYSTERIOUS WEDDING 1
II. THE BANQUET OF FLORUS 18
III. THE QUEEN OF BEAUTY 30
IV. THE DREAM OF CRISPUS 48
V. SIMON THE ZEALOT 60
VI. “DELENDA EST HIEROSOLYMA!” 71
VII. THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 83
VIII. WHAT HAPPENED IN THE ROYAL SYNAGOGUE 95
IX. “LET US GO HENCE!” 112
X. THE VENGEANCE OF FLORUS 124
XI. “TO YOUR TENTS, O ISRAEL!” 135
XII. “VÆ VICTIS!” 147
XIII. A GOOD SAMARITAN 160
XIV. “THOU WILT NEVER TAKE THE CITY” 170
XV. THE TRIUMPH OF SIMON 181
XVI. THE AMBITION OF BERENICE 198
XVII. THE MAKING OF AN EMPEROR 210
XVIII. THE PRELIMINARIES OF A GREAT SIEGE 228
XIX. THE FIRST DAY’S FIGHT 241
XX. CIRCUMVALLATION 258
XXI. THE DYING CITY 266
XXII. THE RESCUE OF VASHTI 290
XXIII. CLOSING IN 306
XXIV. “WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?” 325
XXV. “JUDÆA CAPTA!” 341
XXVI. JUSTICE THE AVENGER 354
NOTES
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Τῶν στρατιωτῶν τις ΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΩ ΟΡΜΗ ΤΙΝΙ ΧΡΩΜΕΝΟΣ ἁρπάξει μὲν ἐκ τῆς
φλεγομένης ὕλης, τό δὲ πῦρ ἐνίησι θυρίδι χρυσῇ τοῦ ἱεροῦ.
_A certain soldier_, MOVED BY A DIVINE IMPULSE, _seized a blazing
torch, and set fire to a golden window of the temple_.
_JOSEPHUS. Jewish War_ vi. 4, 5.
THE DOOMED CITY
CHAPTER I
A MYSTERIOUS WEDDING
The purple light of evening had fallen upon the Syrian shore as
Crispus, with a quick, swinging pace, trod the well-paced road that led
southwards to the stately city of Cæsarea, the Roman capital of Judæa.
Evidently he loved the exercise of walking, since, had it pleased
him to do so, he could have ridden, for at a respectable distance
there followed, led by a couple of slaves, his two-horsed rheda, a
traveling-car of sculptured bronze, provided with a leathern hood and
silken awnings, and containing such necessary luggage (aptly named
_impedimenta_ by the Romans) as a man of simple tastes would require on
a long journey.
Crispus, whose age was perhaps twenty-five years, had a powerful yet
graceful figure, eyes of a deep gray, crisp hair of a bronzed hue, and
a handsome face, as clear cut as if sculptured from marble, a face
whose pure complexion spoke of pure living--a rare virtue in that
age!--a face whose keen, ardent look gave promise that its owner was
one born to achieve distinction, if indeed he had not already achieved
it. “An antique Roman,” one would say on seeing him, since he still
adhered to the wearing of the stately toga, which in the first century
was fast becoming superseded by the Grecian tunic; moreover, the ring
on his finger was not of gold, but of iron, in accordance with ancient
usage.
In journeying along he had caught sight, by the wayside, of a stone
pillar engraved with letters which told that the said pillar was
distant from Rome by the space of one thousand five hundred miles. Thus
far, yea, and hundreds of miles farther, did the Roman power extend in
this, the twelfth year of the reign of the Emperor Nero. Crispus’ stern
smile gave the keynote to his character--pride in the Empire founded by
his forefathers, determination to maintain that Empire, though it cost
him limb and life.
And in truth Rome counted few sons more patriotic than young Crispus
Cestius Gallus, distinguished alike by feats of arms and by beauty
of person; by noble birth, and by high office--for he was secretary
to his father, the elder Cestius, who at that time held the dignity
of imperial Legate of Syria, a dignity whose vast power and splendid
emoluments made it a prize coveted of all Roman statesmen.
It was a lovely evening. A faint breeze came from the sea, whose
waves, wine-dark in color, flowed with a sort of velvety ripple upon
the yellow sands. To the east at the distance of a mile or more rose
the Samaritan hills, mysterious and still in the evening light, their
rounded summits clearly defined against the deep violet of the sky.
Now, as Crispus glanced ahead, he saw approaching a solitary figure,
wearing buskins of purple, and a sleeved and embroidered tunic of the
same color, cut to the latest fashion. He walked, his eyes set upon the
ground, with a somewhat slow and pensive step, and would have passed by
unheeding but for the cheery, rousing voice of Crispus.
“Ho, Titus! Is it thus in a strange land that you pass by your oldest
friend?”
He who was thus addressed started, looked up, and, recognizing the
speaker, dropped as if by magic his melancholy air, and advanced with
smiling face and extended hand.
“By the gods, ’tis Crispus,” he cried in a tone of genuine delight.
“Now doth Fortune favor me. To think of meeting you in this barbarian
province, a thousand miles from our Sabine farms! Whither are you
bound? For Cæsarea? Then will I return with you.”
Titus Flavius, destined in course of time to attain the imperial
purple, was the senior of Crispus by one year: keen of eye, and with an
aquiline nose, he looked every inch the soldier that he was, in spite
of his perfumed and fashionable garb. A certain ruddiness of features
showed him to be likewise a sort of “Antony, that revels long o’
nights.”
“What do _you_ in this Jewish land?” asked Crispus.
“Rejoice at my presence here, for ’tis proof that I am restored to
Nero’s favor.”
“I did not know that you had lost it.”
“What? Have you not heard that when Nero--what a delightful buffoon he
is, to be sure!--was singing on the stage at Corinth, my sire Vespasian
was so little appreciative of good music as actually to yawn, and even
to fall asleep and snore, with the result that not only _Pater nocens_
but even _Filius innocens_ was forbidden to appear in the imperial
presence.”
“I marvel that you did not both lose your heads.”
“So do I. Though banished, however, I did not lose heart, but in the
spirit of a true courtier I sacrificed every day to Nero’s heavenly
voice; and, on learning this (for I took good care it should reach his
ears!), he recalled me to court, and marked his approval of my piety by
sending me on a mission to Cæsarea.”
“A mission? Of what nature?”
“Why, you doubtless know that yon fair city of Cæsarea is peopled
both with Greeks and Jews, each claiming precedency of the other. Let
procurator Florus post up an edict beginning, ‘To the Greeks and Jews
of Cæsarea,’ and the Jewish mob will tear it down. Let him word it, ‘To
the Jews and Greeks,’ and the Greeks will not suffer it to remain up.
The Greek high priest of Jupiter demands that on state occasions he
shall sit upon the right hand of the procurator; the high priest of the
Jews, when he comes to Cæsarea, claims the same privilege. The Greeks
wish their language to be used in the law-courts to the exclusion of
our own stately Latin--there’s taste for you! the Jews clamor for their
own tongue. This feud is productive of continual rioting and bloodshed.
Therefore Nero, appealed to by deputies from both factions, hath
pronounced his decree, dispatching it from Greece by my hand.”
“And in whose favor hath Cæsar decided?”
“Nay, I know not. The decree was contained in a sealed letter addressed
to Florus, who hath not yet made it public. As for me, instead of
hastening back to Nero to show him how quickly I can transact his
business, I, like a fool, tarry in the neighborhood of Cæsarea.”
“There being a woman in the case,” smiled Crispus; “otherwise the
usually sensible Titus would not be garbed like a fashionable dandy.
What would your stern republican father say to this perfuming of
yourself?”
“A woman in the case? Say, rather, a goddess. No lovelier face hath
ever been seen since Helen lured the Grecian ships to Troy.”
“Fickle Titus! Last autumn he was vowing eternal fidelity to Lesbia,
the hetæra; it was the Greek dancing-girl Lycoris in winter; this
spring it is--who?”
“Lesbia and Lycoris! Pouf!” said Titus, as if blowing these nymphs away
in air. “Do not mention them, I pray you, in the same breath with this
splendid eastern beauty. I am serious now, if ever I were so. I would
marry her to-morrow, were she willing; nay, more, to win her I would
even repudiate the religion of my ancestors, and worship her Jewish
God.”
“Titus must indeed be smitten! So your fair one is a Jewess?”
“Ay, and in rank far above poor plebeian me,” said Titus, sighing like
a furnace.
“You talk thus! you who are a quæstor, tribune of a legion, and a
messenger of imperial Cæsar?”
“And the son of a man who was once a horse-doctor; forget not that.”
“You were brought up in the imperial household with Britannicus,
enjoying the same luxuries and the same instructors as he.”
“And very nearly drinking of the same fatal cup,” commented Titus,
grimly.
“The gods reserved you for a nobler destiny. But as to your fair
lady--who is she?”
“A princess, beautiful, proud, scornful. Berenice her name, the
daughter of that Agrippa who, some twenty years ago, was King of
Palestine. He left her so much wealth that she is called ‘Golden
Berenice.’ You know her?” added Titus, as he saw an odd look flit for a
moment over the face of Crispus.
“I have seen her.”
“Then you know how beautiful she is.”
“Yes, she is certainly beautiful,” replied Crispus, in a tone as if
grudging the admission.
“You speak coldly. ’Tis clear I shall never have _you_ for a rival.”
“True, O Titus. When I mate it shall be with pure maid. Hath not your
Berenice already had one husband?”
“She was wedded, when quite a girl, to Polemo, King of Pontus, who
divorced her two years afterwards.”
“Polemo?” ejaculated Crispus, in some surprise. “Polemo?--one of my
father’s friends. Why did he divorce her?”
“Nay, ask that of others. He was elderly and serious; she was youthful
and gay: _there_, I suspect, lay the reason.”
“Their separation,” remarked Crispus, “does not appear to have left
much bitterness behind, for, at a banquet given by my father to all
the kings of the East, Polemo and the Princess Berenice sat side by
side, seeming to be on excellent terms with each other. And, what
struck me as strange, their glances were so often cast in my direction
that I could not help wondering whether I were the subject of their
talk. Were there any children born of this marriage?”
“One--a daughter, said to have died in infancy.”
“And you would woo this Herodian princess? Do you frequent this lonely
shore in order to sigh out vows to Venus?” said Crispus, pointing to
love’s planet that sparkled like an eye in the blue depths above.
“I come here hoping to have the pleasure of a few words with her as she
returns to Cæsarea. An hour ago, so I am told, she drove this way in
her chariot.”
“You do right, then, in retracing your steps, for I can certify that no
chariot has passed me.”
“Then she must have turned aside, and gone inland,” said Titus, looking
to the left as if meditating a diversion among the hills in quest of
the fair princess.
With a sigh he resigned the project, and strode onward beside Crispus,
whose frequent questions on all that fell within the sphere of his
vision showed that he was treading the shore of Palestine for the first
time.
“How name you yon house?” he asked, pointing ahead to an edifice
perched upon a crag that overlooked the shore road.
“I am told that it is called ‘Beth-tamar.’”
“And that, being interpreted, meaneth ‘The House of Palms,’” remarked
Crispus, and smiling at Titus’ look of surprise. “O, I know something
of the speech of these barbarians, having learned it in childhood from
one of my father’s favorite slaves, a captive Jew; and so long as the
fellow kept to his language, well and good, but when he tried to make
me a proselyte to his superstition, he was promptly scourged, and put
at a distance from me.”
“Hebrew!” commented Titus. “You have the better of me. Would that I
could speak it, for then it might dispose Berenice to look with a more
favorable eye upon me. As it is, I have to say with Ovid:
‘_Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor ulli._’”
What more he would have said was checked by a command delivered in an
authoritative voice:
“Halt!”
Instinctively the two friends paused, and glanced aloft. Standing upon
a lower spur of the crag above them, and clearly defined against the
star-lit sky, was a tall figure in a flowing robe.
“Who are you that bid two Romans halt?” demanded Titus, haughtily.
“The servant of a king,” was the answer, delivered in the Latin
language, though not with the true Latin accent.
“Your master’s name?” asked Titus, suspiciously.
“Polemo, King of Pontus.”
At this Crispus and Titus looked at each other, deeming it odd to be
brought thus in connection with the monarch about whom they had just
been talking.
“I have a message,” continued the stranger, “for one, Crispus Cestius
Gallus.”
“My name,” said the bearer of it. “What would the king with me?”
“My royal master bids you tarry an hour with him ere journeying on to
Cæsarea.”
“Where is the king to be found?”
“Within the walls of his mansion, Beth-tamar.”
“And should I pass on my way neglectful of the king’s bidding----?”
“Pass on, and miss a high destiny.”
“Haste thee, and tell thy lord that Crispus comes with his friend,
Titus Flavius.”
The man had appeared suddenly; just as suddenly did he now disappear.
Bidding his two slaves await his return, Crispus turned from the
maritime road, and began to climb the rough ascent. His ready
acquiescence with the stranger’s wish was viewed with some uneasiness
by Titus, who was, however, quickly reassured by Crispus.
“Polemo, in this matter,” said he, “acts as his own messenger, for it
was he who spoke with us.”
“The king himself?” said Titus, greatly surprised.
“Even so,” replied Crispus. “We can enter Beth-tamar in perfect safety.
I am not altogether unprepared for this meeting. As I was setting out
from Antioch my father spoke thus to me: ‘On your way to Cæsarea you
may meet with King Polemo, who hath a proposal for you. I leave you
free to accept or decline, but, if you will be guided by me, you will
do his bidding, however strange it may appear.’”
Language such as this moved Titus to wonder, and he became almost as
eager as Crispus for the meeting with the Pontic king.
Arrived upon the platform that formed the summit of the crag, the two
Romans saw before them a rectangular edifice, massive and spacious,
formed like most of the buildings in that region from blocks of
limestone--a bare dull-looking structure; but then the Oriental house
is not to be judged by its outside, for a costly exterior suggests
wealth, and in the East, wealth, then, as now, is a temptation to the
powers that be.
Within the arched entrance stood a slave, who, with a profound salaam,
invited the two friends to follow him. Traversing a stone passage,
they quickly emerged into a spacious court, open to the sky: rooms
with latticed windows looked out upon this court, and to one of these
the slave conducted the visitors, and there left them. The room was
Oriental in character: a cushioned divan ran round the marble walls
that gleamed with gilded arabesques and lapis-lazuli. In the middle of
the tesselated pavement was a fountain, whose waters played with a
golden sparkle in the soft radiance shed by the many lamps pendent from
the fretted roof above.
As the two Romans entered, there came forward to greet them the same
man that had spoken from the crag, a man of grave and stately presence,
whose classic features can still be studied on the extant coins of
the kingdom of Pontus. He had cast off the coarse garb he had worn
without, and appeared now in a majestic robe of royal purple. On his
finger glittered a gold ring, decorated with a cameo sculptured with a
miniature head of Nero, a fact of some significance, since the wearing
of such a ring was permitted to those only who had the high privilege
of free access to the Emperor’s presence.
“Welcome to Beth-tamar!” were the monarch’s first words. “Aware that
you were drawing near to Cæsarea,” he continued, addressing Crispus, “I
have ventured thus to intercept your journey.”
“To what end?”
“Hath not your father told you?”
Crispus answered in the negative. Polemo seemed surprised at this;
he hesitated, and glanced at Titus as if his presence were an
embarrassment. Divining his thoughts, Crispus spoke:
“Titus is my _fidus Achates_. Let not the king take it amiss, but
whatever is said must be said before him.”
“Be it so,” said Polemo, after a brief pause. “You must, however, both
give pledge, that the proposal I am about to make, whether accepted or
declined, shall be kept a secret till such time as I shall choose it to
be known.”
“The character of the noble Polemo,” returned Crispus, “is a sufficient
guarantee that he will require of me nothing dishonorable or nothing
detrimental to the interests of the Roman state.”
“Far be such thoughts from me. My aim is to add to its strength.”
Assured thus, both Crispus and Titus promised to hold sacred whatever
the king were minded to reveal.
“Good! To come at once to the question, for I love not many words, you
are doubtless aware of my misfortune in having no son to succeed me on
the throne. I am,” he added mournfully, “the last of my race. In these
circumstances our lord Nero has graciously conceded to me the favor of
nominating a successor, with the necessary proviso that my choice must
fall on a man loyal to the Empire. Such a one I have found.”
He paused and looked at Crispus, whose head began suddenly to whirl
with a daring hope. Could it be that he himself was----?
“If,” continued Polemo, “if loyalty to Rome be the first qualification
in my successor, who more loyal than a Roman himself? who more likely
to meet with the approval of the Senate than one of the Senatorial
order? For these reasons, then, and because your past deeds have shown
you to be worthy of the dignity, I am minded at a date three years from
now to confer upon you the scepter of Pontus. What say you to this?”
At first Crispus could say nothing for very amazement. Then, recovering
somewhat, he began eagerly to question the king, and found him to all
appearances sincere in making the offer.
Now, although Polemo had made a special point of Crispus’ worthiness,
Crispus himself had nevertheless a secret belief that the king was
actuated by some ulterior motive. He recalled a saying of his father’s:
“There is fire within Polemo for all his cold exterior. To me he seems
a man who, having received a great wrong, is meditating a scheme of
revenge--ay, and devoting his whole life to it. The weapon may take
years in the forging, but when forged it will fall, swiftly, terribly.”
Recalling these words, Crispus began to wonder whether the offer just
made was a part of the king’s scheme of vengeance. Was he, Crispus,
to be elevated to the throne merely to bring gall to some scheming and
ambitious enemy? Crispus had a reasonable objection to be utilized for
such a purpose; but still, what mattered? Here was an opportunity of
gaining a splendid dignity, and it would be foolish to let his scruples
as to the other’s motive interfere with his ambition.
A king!
“All things,” said Porus, “are comprehended in that word.”
What fancies crowded thick and fast upon Crispus’ mind as he tried to
picture the future!
He would be a father to his people; would regulate their finances;
foster their commerce; increase the army; promote the use of the Latin
language and encourage Greek culture. In the glens of the Caucasus,
bordering upon his kingdom, were wild tribes that had never yet
acknowledged a conqueror. He would curb their predatory incursions, and
augment his territory at their expense. Nay, he might even pass that
mighty mountain-barrier, and carry his arms over Scythia, a region that
had defied the attempts of the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman.
Why should he not be in the North what Alexander had been in the East,
and Cæsar in the West? Then, when his kingdom had become enlarged and
Latinized, he would act the patriot, and transfer his dominion to the
Senate, making it a province of mighty Rome.
Dreams, perhaps, but it is in such dreams that empires have sometimes
had their beginning.
“What answer do you make?”
“At present, none,” replied the cautious Crispus. “Is your gift
accompanied by any stipulation?”
“One only. He who chooses the king of Pontus must also choose its
queen.”
“In other words, I must take a wife, a wife to be chosen by you.”
“That is so.”
“And failing to do this--no scepter?”
“Truly said. The gift of the kingdom is dependent upon your marrying
the lady of my choice. The two go together.”
“And what date do you fix for our nuptials?”
“This very night--nay, this very hour.”
“_To-night?_ Ye gods! You hear that, Titus?”
“The lady is at hand, for in the reasonable belief that you would not
refuse a throne I have had her brought here.”
“Her name?”
“Call her Athenaïs, since that is the name she will take as queen.”
“I am not to know her real name! What is her rank?”
“Superior to your own, for she is of royal blood.”
“She is of fair shape, I trust?”
“Zeuxis never delineated a face and form more lovely.”
These words served to whet Crispus’ curiosity. He expressed a wish to
see his prospective bride.
“See her you will not; she will be veiled during the ceremony. Nor will
you hear her voice, for she will not speak. When the rite is over you
will resume your journey to Cæsarea.”
“Without seeing the face of my wife!” gasped Crispus in amazement. Was
there ever so strange a marriage proposal?
“It is my will that you shall not know whom you have married. The lady
is beautiful, high-born, and brings a crown as a dowry. Is not that
enough?”
“And when will my bride be made known to me?”
“On the day when you assume the scepter.”
“And the date of that event?”
“As I have said, at the end of three years.”
“The word of Polemo is his bond,” said Crispus, “but seeing
that--_absit omen!_--you may be dead ere the three years be past, what
warranty shall I then have of the due execution of this, your promise?”
“This,” replied the king, producing a parchment-scroll and unrolling
it. “’Tis yours as soon as the nuptial ceremony be over.”
Crispus ran his eye over the scroll, and saw that it was what
Roman lawyers would call an _instrumentum_--in other words, a
legally-executed document, constituting him the heir of Polemo in the
sovereignty of Pontus. It was subscribed with the signature of the
king, and, what was of far more weight, with that of Nero himself.
“Do you assent?”
“I assent.”
“Consider well; remember that you are to pledge yourself to remain
faithful to Athenaïs, who in turn pledges herself to remain faithful
to you. Should you in this interval be found breaking your vow by
offering love to any woman--yea, even though it be to your own unknown
wife”--Crispus smiled at the supposition--“you lose the crown of
Pontus.”
“Your terms are strange, but I abide by them.”
“You are ready to wed?”
“This very hour.”
“You promise not to lift her veil? You are content not to hear her
voice? You are willing to depart as soon as the rite is over? You
promise with your friend to observe secrecy as touching this night’s
work?”
There was a light as of triumph in Polemo’s eyes when the two Romans
gave assent to these terms. It confirmed Crispus in his belief that the
king was using him as an instrument of vengeance. But, as before, he
said within himself, “What matters?”
“With what rites do we wed?” asked Crispus.
“With the words customary in your own Roman nuptial ceremonies,
confirming them by placing this token upon the finger of the bride,”
returned Polemo.
He handed to Crispus a gold ring. It was set with a ruby, upon whose
surface there was graven, with beautiful and marvelous art, a device
that caused a quick look of surprise to pass over the face of Crispus.
As he slowly and mechanically turned the ring over in his hand the
ruby darted forth sparkles that caused what was sculptured on the gem
to vanish as if in a blaze of fire. At that sight Crispus gave a great
start, and darted an inquiring look at the king, who replied by a smile
full of a hidden meaning. Titus, who took due note of all this, was
naturally not a little puzzled; he refrained from comment, however,
believing that Crispus would enlighten him later.
“Follow me,” said Polemo, and, lifting a curtain, he led the way to
another chamber so dimly illumined by one lamp only that the parts
remote from the light were scarcely discernible, an arrangement
obviously due to Polemo’s determination that Crispus should see as
little as possible of his bride.
In the semi-darkness two waiting figures, both deeply veiled, were
faintly visible.
Of the one that stood a little in the rear Crispus took no note, she
being obviously an attendant. It was the other upon whom his eyes were
set. Slender and of medium stature, she wore the usual dress of a Roman
bride, the _tunica recta_, a long white robe with a purple fringe,
and girt at the waist with a zone. The _flammeum_, or veil, which
effectually concealed her features, was bright yellow in color, as were
likewise her dainty little shoes. The bride’s hair with the point of
a spear, was dispensed with on this occasion, her head being covered
with a coif, so well disposed that not a single tress was visible. So
completely was her person hidden that, let her dress be changed, and
there was nothing by which he could identify her, if he should meet her
again that same night.
Though Crispus could not see her eyes, he knew full well that she was
watching him as keenly as he was watching her, a scrutiny in which the
advantage was all on her side. She stood, wordless and motionless,
evidently awaiting the king’s pleasure.
“Athenaïs,” said he, “this is your husband.”
She made a little obeisance to Crispus, a simple act, yet performed
with a grace that charmed him.
He did not know in what relation Polemo stood to the bride, but his way
of speaking implied a quasi-authority over her, and since it was the
fashion in those days for parents and guardians to arrange marriages
with very little regard for the feelings of the two most concerned in
the affair, Crispus could not help wondering whether pressure had been
put upon this Athenaïs to induce her to consent to the union. He would
find out.
“Lady,” he said, “I am willing to marry, but only on the understanding
that you come to me without compulsion. Therefore, if you take me
of your own free will, testify the same--since you are forbidden to
speak--by coming forward two paces.”
Athenaïs hesitated, but only for a second. Giving him what he felt to
be a grateful glance, she advanced two steps.
“A mutual agreement,” smiled Polemo. “This is as it should be.”
He whispered in the ear of the bride something that Crispus could not
catch. Whatever it was it evoked from her a little ripple of laughter,
so sweet and silvery, that Crispus was put into sympathy with her at
once.
“If her face be as witching as her laughter!” thought he.
But her laugh, however charming to Crispus, had a very different effect
upon Titus. An attentive spectator would have seen him start violently,
and turn pale. He seemed on the point of breaking out into words, but
checking himself, he stood mute, his whole attitude expressive of
dejection, a feeling that seemed to increase as the nuptial ceremony
proceeded. Crispus, occupied with the matter in hand, did not notice
his friend’s agitation.
At a sign from Polemo Crispus drew near to Athenaïs, Titus acting
as paranymph, or, to use the modern phrase, “best man,” the veiled
attendant performing a similar office for the bride.
Athenaïs, directed by the king, put forth a white and prettily-shaped
hand, which Crispus took in his own.
If her feelings bore any resemblance to those of Crispus she must have
felt like one in a dream, for he could scarcely believe the scene to be
real. An hour ago he would have laughed had anyone prophesied for him
an early marriage, and yet here he was on the point of marrying a woman
of whose past history he knew nothing, a woman from whom, as soon as
the ceremony was over, he must part, without seeing her face, without
receiving so little as one word from her, part for a space of time to
be measured, not by months, but by years! What would his friends at
Rome think of a marriage contracted under auspices so strange? “Weddeth
Crispus as a fool weddeth?” would surely be their comment.
Thus much, however, could be said for his act: it had his father’s
sanction, and with this thought Crispus tried to suppress all
misgivings.
Mechanically he found himself repeating after Polemo the final words of
the rite that was to unite him for life with the unknown Athenaïs.
“Leaving all other, and keeping only to thee, I, Crispus Cestius
Gallus, patrician of Rome, do take thee, Athenaïs, to be my lawful
wife, to be openly acknowledged as such when it shall please thee to
claim me by this token.”
So saying, he slid upon her slender finger the golden ring given him by
Polemo.
No sound came from the woman who was now his wife, but her agitation
was shown by her trembling hand, by her accelerated breathing, by her
attitude, half-reclining, in the arms of her attendant.
Her hand seemed to close voluntarily upon his own. The thrilling
pressure of those fair fingers imparted to him somehow the belief that,
originally reluctant to come to the ceremony, she now viewed it with
pleasure, a thought that gave him pleasure in turn.
The sweet laugh that had come from her, the clasp of her pretty hand,
her willingness to trust her whole future to his keeping, so moved
Crispus that he began to feel a keen regret that he must immediately
part from her. He became almost angry with himself for having submitted
to the hard terms prescribed by Polemo.
As he released her hand she sank back half-swooning in the arms of the
other woman, who, at a sign from Polemo, proceeded to draw her gently
from the apartment. Till the last Crispus kept his eyes upon her,
hoping that, in spite of Polemo, she might raise a corner of her veil,
and give him just one glimpse at least of her face.
It was not to be, however. She melted away into the shadows around, and
he saw her no more.
* * * * *
The two Romans walked again by the star-lit shore with Beth-tamar far
behind them.
“What,” asked Titus, who, since the wedding ceremony, had been
strangely silent, “what was engraved on the stone of the nuptial ring
that you should start so?”
He received little enlightenment from the reply of Crispus:
“_The image of a temple in flames!_”
CHAPTER II
THE BANQUET OF FLORUS
Early on the morning after his arrival at Cæsarea, Crispus was waited
upon at his lodgings by Gessius Florus, procurator of Judæa, who,
apprised of Crispus’ coming, lost no time in calling upon the son of
the Syrian Legate, that Legate whose word was all-powerful in the East.
Previous knowledge had disposed Crispus to take an unfavorable opinion
of Florus, an opinion that became strengthened on seeing the man
himself. A shallow-minded Greek of Clazomenæ, and no true Roman, he
had gained the procuratorship of Judæa, not through merit, but by the
influence of his wife Cleopatra, who was a close friend of the reigning
Empress Poppæa.
Florus, though born in Ionia, had little of the grace that is usually
associated with that region, and had Crispus not known otherwise he
might have taken the governor, with his round bullet head, furtive
greenish-brown eyes, and heavy brutal jaw, for a member of that
pugilistic fraternity whose feats with the cæstus were the delight of
the lower orders among the Romans.
He was desirous that Crispus should form one at a grand banquet, to be
held that night in the Prætorium, or procuratorial palace.
Crispus was about to decline the honor, when he thought of Athenaïs.
For all he knew to the contrary she might be a resident of Cæsarea, and
if so, her “royal blood” would certainly entitle her to an invitation.
She might be among the guests. He would go, though it would be
difficult, if not impossible, to recognize her.
Florus withdrew in apparent delight.
As for Titus, he departed that same day for Rome, embarking on the good
ship _Stella_.
“There is no hope of my ever winning Berenice,” he said, though
without assigning any reason for coming so suddenly to this lugubrious
conclusion.
Before his departure, however, he did Crispus a good service by
introducing him to a brave and worthy Roman, Terentius Rufus by name.
He was the captain of the garrison stationed at Jerusalem, and had come
with his cohort to Cæsarea to aid in the work of suppressing the riots
that were almost certain to arise upon the coming publication of Nero’s
edict relative to the precedency claimed by the Jews and the Greeks.
Terentius Rufus, like Crispus, had received an invitation to the
banquet of Florus, and so, at the appointed time, the two presented
themselves at the Prætorium.
Upon making their way to the hall appropriated to the feast, a hall
called Neronium after the reigning emperor, they paused a moment at
the entrance to contemplate the sight. The marble saloon, supported by
porphyry columns and blazing with the radiance of a thousand lamps, was
a scene of glitter, movement, and color. Sweet spices burned in gilded
tripods; the rarest flowers glowed from sculptured vases; the ivory
triclinia with their purple cushions, the lavish display of gold and
silver plate, the rich dresses and jewels of the ladies, made a picture
destined to live long in the memory of Crispus.
He marveled to see such splendor in the hall of a provincial governor.
“Whence does Florus obtain the wealth that enables him to make such a
display?” he asked.
“There are others who would like an answer to that question,” replied
Rufus, mysteriously.
“Where _is_ Florus?” asked Crispus, glancing around, and not seeing the
procurator.
“Probably tickling his throat with a feather to produce a vomit,”
answered Rufus, referring to the disgusting custom practiced by many
Romans of that age for the purpose of creating an appetite. “You may
trust him to do full justice to the banquet.”
Crispus was not slow to recognize among the guests that type of
physiognomy which, graved on Egyptian monuments long ere Rome was
founded, has continued almost unchanged to the present day.
“There are many Jews here to-night,” remarked he.
“And Jewesses, too,” replied Rufus; “and here comes the fairest of them
all, leaning upon the arm of Florus. For a wonder he’s sober!”
There was a sudden cessation of tongues as a curtain that draped a
certain archway was lifted by two bowing slaves to give entrance to the
procurator.
Glancing around, Florus immediately caught sight of Crispus, and
advanced to give him welcome. He was accompanied by a lady, none other
than the Princess Berenice, and as Crispus quietly surveyed her, he
thought it no wonder that Titus should have fallen in love with her at
first sight. She had dark hair and dark starry eyes, and a face which,
when radiant with a smile as it was at that moment, was perfectly
dazzling in its loveliness. Her figure, which was as beautiful as her
face, was appareled in a robe of purple silk, embroidered with flowers
of gold and adorned with the costliest pearls.
She greeted Crispus with a sweet smile of recognition.
“Do not neglect me to-night as you did at Antioch,” she said
half-jestingly, and then giving him a witching glance she passed on,
with Florus, to her place at the banquet. While the procurator reclined
at full length upon the triclinium, Berenice sat erect beside him, for
the posture assumed by men at the banquet was deemed unbecoming in
women.
Crispus and Rufus had places assigned them at the triclinium adjoining
that of Florus, and upon the same couch with them reclined a
shrewd-looking, keen-eyed man, who, so Rufus informed Crispus, went by
the name of Tertullus, and was a distinguished forensic orator.
“Mark well his noble name,” said Rufus, laughingly. “Tertullus,
thrice-Tully! What could be more suitable for an orator? Take my
advice, Crispus,” continued he, “if you have a lawsuit while at
Cæsarea, fail not to employ my friend Tertullus, who never undertook a
case he did not win.”
“Save once,” corrected Tertullus. “Paul of Tarsus escaped the stoning
we had marked out for him.”
“Ah! I am forgetting him. The dog, it seems, is a Roman citizen. He
appealed to Nero, who let him off.”
“And what was the result?” commented Tertullus. “A few months later
Rome was in flames, lit by the hands of his disciples. The wretches!
Haters of mankind! I know of only one class of men more vile than they,
and that is the sect of the Zealots, whose latest victim I am.”
“How mean you?” asked Rufus.
“Have you not heard? No? Well, a few days ago I was journeying from
Jericho to the Jewish capital. Knowing the state of the country, I
traveled in the company of an armed caravan that was going the same
way. We took a long circuit northwards to avoid the dreaded Pass of
Adummim; all to no purpose. Manahem and his Zealots, like vultures
scenting their quarry afar, swooped down upon us. I was one of the few
that escaped. When is Florus going to dispatch an expedition against
that robber crew?”
“Did you lose aught?”
“Some gold plate, and--what I treasured above all earthly things--a
myrrhine vase, so precious that I weep when I think of it.”
“Don’t think of it, then,” said Rufus. “Turn to a more pleasant theme,
the Princess Berenice. She looks more charming and more youthful than
ever to-night. Now, how old should you take her to be?” he continued,
addressing Crispus.
“Not much past twenty,” he hazarded.
Rufus laughed pleasantly.
“Why, ’tis sixteen years ago since she married Polemo. She cannot be a
day younger than thirty-eight.”
Crispus was surprised to hear it.
“There is many a young girl here to-night,” said he, “who looks older
than the princess.”
“Berenice takes extreme pains to preserve her beauty,” remarked Rufus.
“’Tis said that, like Poppæa, she bathes daily in asses’ milk to render
her skin soft and supple.”
Florus now gave the signal for the feast, and there entered a train of
pretty Greek maidens with baskets containing wreaths of flowers, for to
dine ungarlanded would have been a departure from fashionable usage.
Berenice chose a wreath of violets; Florus made a similar selection.
“The flower honored by a princess must be _my_ choice, too,” he
whispered.
This little by-play did not pass unnoticed by Crispus.
“Florus is madly in love with her,” commented Rufus. “For the matter of
that, who isn’t?”
“I thought that Florus already had a wife,” said Crispus.
“That’s no obstacle in these lax days, when a man takes a new wife
with each year. It is whispered that Florus contemplates divorcing
Cleopatra.”
“Where is Cleopatra at this present time?” asked Crispus.
“In Rome,” answered Tertullus, as he fixed a garland of roses upon
his head, “looking after her precious husband’s interests. He takes
advantage of her absence to pay court to Berenice, who cares not a whit
for him, and intends no hurt to Cleopatra. Berenice is not to be too
hastily condemned,” he continued, observing Crispus’ frown. “Her action
in this matter, as in all others, is guided by two motives--love of
her people, and love of her own superstition. Now, Florus, in the
exercise of his procuratorship, can, if he be so minded, inflict
injuries upon the Jewish people, and can also, though to a limited
extent, interfere with the administration of their public worship.
‘But,’ argues our fair Berenice, ‘he is not likely to adopt these
courses while seeking to win _me_, who am a Jewess. Therefore, for the
good of the Jews I will amuse him with hopes.’ Now after this long
speech,” added Tertullus, “let me eat. I can see the lampreys coming,
and they are my favorite dish.”
And the delicacy being set before him, Tertullus applied himself
thereto. After a time he raised his voice and addressed the procurator.
“I have myself, O Florus, given great attention to the breeding of
lampreys, but I confess that I can never get them to attain the
delicate flavor of those bred by you.”
Two or three other guests made similar remarks.
Florus smiled with the air of a man who, having discovered an excellent
thing, is determined to keep it to himself.
“Now, it is precisely because I happen to know _how_ the delicate
flavor is acquired,” whispered Rufus, “that I avoid partaking of that
dish.”
“By the trident of Neptune,” said Tertullus, “I wish you would
communicate the secret to me, for I am mightily fond of lampreys.”
“Well, keep it a secret, for Florus may not thank me for telling it.
Whenever one of his slaves commits a fault worthy of death, the poor
wretch, instead of being hanged, is flung into the piscina to feed the
lampreys. By the gods, I do not jest,” he added, as he noted Tertullus’
look of incredulity. “Get his chief piscinarius into a corner, put a
dagger to his throat, and he’ll confess that what I say is true.”
As the Roman law gave to a master the power of life and death over
his slaves, Florus’ peculiar practice did not evoke from Crispus the
abhorrence that the man of the twentieth century would express at such
a deed. As for Tertullus, he even went so far as to intimate that he
might adopt the practice himself.
“If a slave _must_ die,” argued he, “let him die in a way that will add
to his master’s enjoyment.”
Crispus sought to change the subject of conversation by asking Rufus
the name of the richly-clothed man who reclined on the left of Florus;
he was a majestic-looking, dark-skinned personage, with hair and beard
finely dressed. At the beginning of the feast he had drawn forth
a little ivory casket, from which he had produced an asp that had
immediately twined itself around his bare arm, and there it remained
partaking occasionally of such morsels as its master chose to give.
“That,” replied Tertullus, “is Theomantes, the priest of Zeus Cæsarius,
and a skilled diviner.”
“And the serpent he carries with him, if you are fool enough to believe
it,” remarked Rufus, “is an incarnation of the great Zeus himself. You
can see by the place assigned to Theomantes how highly he is esteemed.
Every Roman governor nowadays must have a soothsayer in attendance upon
him, and Florus would not be out of the fashion. It is this Theomantes
who supplies our procurator with the liquid for his daily bath.”
“The liquid? What liquid?”
“Well, not water, which is good enough for common mortals like you
and me, nor yet milk, which the fair Berenice finds so excellent a
cosmetic. Florus’ taste runs in favor of blood.”
“_Blood!_” ejaculated Crispus.
“Even so. Do you not know that by some physicians blood is deemed
very efficacious in strengthening the human frame when exhausted by
debauchery? So our dear governor bathes daily in a sanguinary fluid
drawn from the veins of oxen slain in sacrifice, his superstitious
fancy disposing him to believe that there will be more virtue in blood
of that sort. Oh, it’s not an uncommon practice, I assure you. We’ve
even drawn from the Greek a name for it, calling it taurobolium.”
“Every man to his taste,” commented Crispus, dryly; and continuing his
inquiries as to the guests, he asked, “Who is that fierce graybeard
reclining next to Theomantes?”
“Ananias, son of Nebedeus, at one time high priest of the Jews,”
replied Rufus.
“And a cheating knave!” commented Tertullus. “In his prosecution of
Paul of Tarsus before Felix he employed me as advocate, and hath never
yet paid me my fee. But I’ll be even with him.”
“Do you mark,” continued Rufus, “how, from time to time, Ananias
glowers at Theomantes? He considers that he himself should be sitting
next the governor.”
“He is welcome to the place for me,” laughed Crispus. “And who is the
fair damsel beside him? His daughter?”
“Daughter me no daughter, forsooth!” returned Rufus. “That is Asenath,
a Syrian dancing-girl, and his latest favorite.”
“I must reluctantly confess he hath a pretty taste,” said Tertullus;
“she is a delicious armful.”
“And she is desirous, you see, that we should observe the fact,”
remarked Rufus.
The girl in question was a lovely brunette, attired in a Coan robe
which, even in that decadent age, was deemed a trifle too extreme,
consisting as it did of silk so transparent in texture that the shapely
limbs of the wearer could be seen as through colored glass.
And, be it observed, she was not the only female at the banquet thus
diaphanously clad!
“That’s the girl,” continued Rufus, “to please whom he burnt in his
own house the incense that it is not lawful to burn anywhere save upon
the altar of the Jewish temple. And as she was once curious to view
the Jewish worship, Ananias had the way from his house to the temple
carpeted for her pretty feet, and canopied to shield her from the sun.
And he himself was so fastidiously minded that he was accustomed to
wear silk gloves at the altar to avoid soiling his dainty fingers with
the blood of the sacrifices,[1] though why a Sadducee, such as he,
should want to worship God at all is a mystery to me. In the opinion of
Ananias man dies as a dog dies. It seems to me that a God who creates
man from dust merely to turn him into dust again is scarcely deserving
of worship. What say you?”
“Old Homer could have taught him better doctrine than that,” returned
Crispus.
The conversation, it will be seen, was taking a theological turn;
something of like sort was happening at the adjoining triclinium of
Florus.
“I hate these Christians as much as you do,” remarked the procurator to
Berenice. “But Nero hath taught us how to deal with them. And you say
there are still some of this sect at Jerusalem? I had thought that my
predecessor Albinus, in slaying James, the brother of this Christus,
had put an end to these fanatics. You shall have your way, princess.
Within a week of my coming to Jerusalem there shall not be a Christian
left alive.”
“Now the gods confound these Christians!” said Tertullus aloud. “They
grow daily wilder and madder in their blasphemies. They have now the
effrontery to affirm that this Christus of theirs, who died in the
eighteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar, was something more than a man, that
this Galilæan peasant was in very truth a manifestation of the supreme
deity, the creator of the universe, and the great TO PAN spoken of by
the divine Plato.”
At these words there was on the part of Crispus a start as of surprise.
“When do you say this Christus died?” he asked somewhat quickly.
“In the eighteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar,” replied Tertullus.
“In what month?”
“On the fourteenth of Nisan, according to the Jewish calendar.”
“Which in our style would be the seventh of April,” explained Rufus,
after a rapid mental calculation.
Crispus’ surprise seemed to deepen.
“And you say the Christians call their founder TO PAN? Strange!” he
murmured.
“Why so?” asked Florus.
“I could tell a curious story of that month and year. But there! let it
pass.”
“No, we must _not_ let it pass,” cried Florus, and thinking to do honor
to Crispus, he said to those within his immediate vicinity, “Silence,
friends, for the noble Crispus’ story.”
All eyes were bent upon Crispus, who hesitated for a moment, and then,
seeing expectancy written upon the faces of the guests, he began:
“Well, since you will have it: At the time just mentioned, namely the
month of April in the eighteenth year of Tiberius, there chanced to be
upon the Ionian Sea a merchant vessel bound for Italy. It was eventide;
the breeze had died away, and the ship lay becalmed off the Isle of
Paxos. Suddenly the stillness that lay upon land and sea was broken
by a voice coming from the lonely shore--a voice clear and solemn,
and one that carried awe to all who heard it, for it seemed scarcely
to belong to earth. ‘_Thamus!_’ it cried. Now the pilot of the vessel
happened to be one Thamus, an Egyptian, a man of humble and obscure
origin, and not so much as known by name to those on board. Full of
fear, he let himself be called twice ere he would answer. At the third
cry he found courage to ask, ‘What want you?’ And thus did the voice
make reply: ‘When thou comest to Pelodes, cry aloud that the great
Pan is dead.’ That was all; no more. The passengers, amazed and awed
by the event, debated among themselves whether it would be wise to
obey the mysterious voice. Thamus, himself, determined the matter: if
on attaining the appointed place there should be wind enough to fill
the sails, he would pass by in silence, but if not, he would proclaim
the message. The breeze freshened, the ship glided on, but when they
reached Pelodes it made no further progress, for the wind suddenly
dropped again. Thamus, therefore, taking his stand upon the prow,
turned his face to the land, and shouted in a loud tone, ‘_Great Pan is
dead!_’ Then from the hitherto silent shore there arose a sound like
the voice of a multitude, a sound as of weeping and wild lament.”[2]
Such was the story told by Crispus, and he finished with the odd
feeling that the telling of it had pleased neither the Jewish nor the
Gentile portion of his auditors.
“Whence do you derive this story?” asked Theomantes with a somewhat
supercilious air.
“From my father, himself a passenger in this same vessel.”
“Who were they that made these sounds?”
“Beings more than mortal; of that he is convinced.”
“Gods and demons?”
“It may be so.”
“In a lamenting mood?”
“A wailing as of despair, so my father describes the sound.”
“Gods in despair at the death of someone? And this happened in Greece
in the eighteenth year of Tiberius? Would you have us believe that the
Christus crucified by Pilate and the ‘Great Pan’ of your story are one
and the same, and that his death has caused the downfall of the gods?”
“I am hardly likely to adopt that explanation, believing as I do in the
eternity of those gods by whose worship Rome has grown so great. The
story is true, let the meaning be what it may,” added Crispus in a tone
whose sharpness deterred Theomantes from making any further comment.
CHAPTER III
THE QUEEN OF BEAUTY
Now, while telling his story, Crispus had become suddenly alive to the
presence of a very beautiful girl sitting at an adjoining triclinium.
It was not so much her beauty, however, that attracted him as the
attention she had paid to his words. She was by far the keenest and
most attentive of his listeners, seeming to hang breathless upon his
lips during the whole recital; of all the assembly, she seemed to be
the only person to receive the story with pleasure.
“Rufus,” whispered he, “who is that girl with the lovely golden
tresses? To the left of us--on the next triclinium?”
Rufus turned in leisurely fashion to survey the maid in question.
“I know not her name, or who she is. She came hither accompanied by him
who reclines beside her. As I see no likeness betwixt the two, I take
it he is not her father.”
The man referred to was evidently a Hebrew, and distinguished both by
his noble features and rich attire.
“Her father? Not he!” said Tertullus. “That is Josephus, a Jew, and yon
damsel, I’ll swear, is no Jewess. There is a grace and beauty about her
that is quite Ionic.”
“Who is this Josephus?” asked Crispus.
“He is a priest of the first of the twenty-four courses,” replied
Tertullus, “and a rabbi so wondrously wise from his cradle upwards
that when he was only fourteen, aged priests and venerable sanhedrists
would consult him on points of the law too hard for their own
understanding.”
“What’s your authority for that story?” said Rufus dryly.
“The best authority--his own.[3] He hath told me so many a time. At
the mature age of seventeen he had exhausted the whole course of
philosophy, and had decided that Pharisaism is the road to heaven.
But though a Pharisee, he cultivates Grecian literature, has literary
aspirations, and is said to be writing at the present time a treatise
that shall prove us Greeks and Romans to be in the matter of antiquity
mere children of yesterday when compared with the Jews.”
Josephus did not much interest Crispus, but the young girl did, and he
continued to watch her. This was probably her first experience of a
Gentile banquet, and she seemed ill at ease amid her new surroundings.
And no wonder! If the naked statuary and voluptuous paintings to
be seen around, the immodest Coan robes worn by the women, and the
shameless license of their language were distasteful even to the pagan
Crispus, how much more so to a young maiden trained in the pure and
lofty principles of Judaism? Berenice, alas! reared in the atmosphere
of a decadent court, could learn in the Prætorium of Florus little that
was new in the shape of wickedness, but the case was far different with
a young and innocent girl.
“If this Josephus be her guardian, he is not exercising much
discretion,” thought Crispus. “The banquet-hall of Florus is not the
place to bring a young girl to.”
At this point Ananias, the ex-high pontiff of the Jews, and Theomantes,
the priest of Zeus Cæsarius, created a diversion.
“Ay, ay,” muttered Rufus, “I knew that they’d be quarreling ere long.”
The two representatives of antagonistic religions were holding an
animated dispute; as the controversy waxed hotter their voices rose
proportionately, till at last they attracted general attention.
Everyone else in the assembly left off talking to listen to the
disputants.
“Mercury a thief?” cried Theomantes. “So be it, then! And is it not
written in your foolish scriptures that while Adam slept God stole from
his side a rib which He fashioned into the first woman? What else,
then, is _your_ God but a thief?”
Ananias’ reply was anticipated by the Princess Berenice, ever quick to
defend her ancestral religion.
“I will answer you,” said she to Theomantes. “Last night some thieves
broke into my house, and stole a silver vase.” She paused for a moment,
then added, “But they left a golden one in its stead.”
The Jewish guests greeted Berenice’s little parable with loud applause.
“Jupiter!” laughed Florus, “I wish such thieves would come every night.”
Theomantes returned to the attack. Holding his serpent close to the
face of Ananias, and causing the reptile to give a hiss that made the
Hebrew priest start, he laughed and said:
“My God is greater than yours.”
“Prove it,” sneered Ananias.
“Is it not written that when your God appeared in the burning bush,
Moses drew near, but when he saw the serpent, which is my god, he fled?”
“True,” replied Berenice, answering for the silent Ananias, “and a few
steps sufficed to put him beyond reach of the serpent. But how can one
flee from _our_ God, Who fills all space, Who at one and the same time
is in heaven and in earth, on sea and on land?”
Theomantes, about to continue the dispute, was checked by a gesture
from Florus, so the heathen priest, with a somewhat dark look at
Berenice, subsided into silence.
“You have here,” commented Rufus, “a specimen of what is always
happening in Cæsarea when Jew and Gentile meet. But, ah! here cometh
the wine.”
Now, it was the fashion of that day to begin the drinking with an
invocation to the reigning emperor, and hence Florus, looking around
upon his guests, lifted his cup as a sign for them to do the like,
saying at the same time:
“Friends, a libation to the god Nero!”
The _god_ Nero!
Though to the pagan portion of the assembly the words conveyed no
impiety, the case was otherwise with the Jews, but those present were
of the worldly-wise class that sacrifices religion to policy, and hence
most of them, including the Sadducee Ananias and the Pharisee Josephus,
shamelessly prepared to join with Florus in offering to the wickedest
man of that age a libation as to a god.
Now, pagan though Crispus was, there was one thing in the Roman
religion that he, in common with many others, could not approve, and
that was the deification of the living emperor, especially when the
deification extended to such a one as Nero. And yet to refrain from
joining in the libation was dangerous, being tantamount to the guilt of
_læsa majestas_; and of all crimes, the greatest, in the eyes of the
buffoon then at the head of the empire, was the refusal to acknowledge
his divinity.
Come what might, Crispus determined to have no part in the libation,
and while there was on all sides a preparatory lifting of cups, his own
remained untouched. He found a companion in Rufus, and some others,
including the unknown maiden, whose eyes were eloquently expressive of
abhorrence.
He and those of like thought were rescued from an embarrassing
situation by the action of the Princess Berenice. With a pale face and
agitated air she had risen to her feet, and in a voice trembling with
suppressed emotion she addressed the wondering assembly.
“There once reigned,” she began, “and in this very city, a king who, on
a set day, made an oration to his people; and they cried, ‘It is the
voice of a god, and not of a man!’ And because he rebuked not their
words the hand of heaven smote him there that he died. And that king,”
she added, with a catch in her voice, “that king was my father!”
The fate of Agrippa the Elder was well known to all the guests, some
of whom, indeed, had been present at that divine judgment--pronounced
by the smitten king himself to be divine--and the memory of the event,
added to the impressive words and solemn manner of his fair daughter,
caused a thrill to pervade the assembly.
“And now, O Florus, do you desire the like fate for Nero? To call him
god is to draw upon him the wrath of that eternal One, Who will not
permit His glory to be given to another.”
As she sat down amid a murmur of approval from the better-minded, it
became suddenly apparent to Florus that he had made a big blunder.
All-desirous as he was of winning the favor of Berenice, he had
strangely overlooked the fact that the libation in the form proposed by
him might be distasteful to the religious ideas of the Jewish princess.
He gladly seized the opportunity of extricating himself from an awkward
situation by endorsing the words of Crispus, who said:
“The princess hath spoken well. Let us, O Florus, not give to a mortal,
however highly placed, the honor that belongs only to the immortals.”
“Be it as the princess wishes,” said the procurator. “We will change
the phrasing to one in which all may join.” With that he added, “To the
health of the Emperor Nero!” and plashed upon the tesselated pavement a
few drops of the ruddy wine, an example in which he was followed by the
rest of the guests, Jew and Gentile alike.
“A beautiful cup, O Florus,” remarked Tertullus, attentively eyeing the
goblet from which the procurator had made his libation. “I am quite
charmed by it. May one ask for a closer look?”
The cup in question was one of those myrrhine vases imported from the
far East, vases whose delicate semi-transparent material was as much a
mystery to the ancient Romans as it is to the modern antiquary.
“Mark my word,” whispered Tertullus to Rufus, “if we shall not find on
one side of that cup a natural vein of purple curving into something
like the shape of a Grecian lyre.”
Florus, always glad to have the excellency of his treasures
acknowledged, addressed a slave.
“Girl, pass this cup to the noble Tertullus. A judge of art, he will
know how to appreciate such a work. By the gods, have a care how you
carry it!”
The girl, thus bidden, conveyed the vessel to Tertullus. Its chief
beauty consisted in the great variety of its colors, and the wreathing
veins which here and there presented shades of purple and white, with
a blending of the two. As Tertullus had said, one of these veins bore
considerable resemblance to a lyre.
“I never thought to see thee again,” muttered Tertullus to himself,
apostrophizing the cup. “How come you here in the hands of Florus?
A rare work of art,” he added aloud, as he returned the cup to the
procurator. “You have had it long?”
“These seven years.”
“Seven days, you mean,” murmured Tertullus; then aloud, “It must have
cost an immense sum.”
“Thirty talents,” replied Florus with a careless air, as though the
amount were a mere trifle. “There are but two vases of this kind in all
the empire; they were brought to Rome by a Parthian merchant. Petronius
purchased the one, I the other.”
“What a liar you are!” thought Tertullus; and then, as if dismissing
the matter altogether from his mind, he said in a low tone to Rufus:
“Doth Simon the Black still linger in his dungeon?”
Rufus replied in the affirmative.
“May one ask,” smiled Crispus, “who is this Simon the Black?”
“You are a stranger in Judæa, or you would not have to ask that
question,” returned Rufus. “Simon the Black was till lately the
chief of a robber-band of Zealots, whose haunt was among the almost
inaccessible crags that overhang the Red Way, the famous pass that
leads from Jerusalem to Jericho. The Jew was allowed to traverse the
pass in safety; the ordinary Gentile was taken captive and held to
ransom; but as to the Roman, woe to him if caught!--it being the way of
Simon to hang all such without the alternative of a ransom. Hence he
is called by those of the Jews who hate our rule, ‘The Scourge of the
Romans,’ and is regarded by them as a patriot.
“The curious part of it all is that Florus, though often appealed to
both by the Romans and Greeks of Cæsarea, refrained for a long time
from sending a military expedition against this nest of robbers, and
when at last he yielded to public pressure, and dispatched my Italian
Cohort on the errand, his parting words to me were, ‘I do not want to
be troubled with prisoners.’ I declined to take the hint, however, and
brought back Simon alive, much, it would seem, to the mortification
of the procurator. And here at Cæsarea the fellow lies in a dungeon,
Florus strangely refusing to put him on trial.
“It’s galling to think,” added Rufus, “that my work will have
to be done all over again. The pass hath been seized by another
bandit--Manahem, a son of that notorious Judas of Galilee, who drew
away much people after him in the days of the taxing. More catholic in
his views, he plunders and slays Jews and Gentiles alike. And now again
Florus--odd, is it not?--is thwarting me in my wish to proceed against
this new malefactor.”
“Not at all odd,” remarked Tertullus, “if my suspicion be correct; and,
by Castor! I’ll try to verify it before twenty-four hours be past.” And
then, speaking aloud, he turned and addressed the procurator.
“O Florus, do you take your place on the bema to-morrow? ’Tis a court
day.”
The governor frowned at this introduction of business into the midst of
pleasure.
“What cases are there to try?”
“There is the case of Simon the Black. The Romans and Greeks of Cæsarea
are clamoring for his trial.”
“Let them clamor.”
“The long delay over this matter hath so enraged them that they swear
if Simon be not brought to justice by the next court day, which is
to-morrow, they will storm the prison, and will themselves bring him
forth to execution.”
“And should they make the attempt,” remarked Rufus gravely, “I doubt
very much, O Florus, whether we can depend upon the fidelity of our
cohorts to prevent it. This Simon hath slain so many Romans that
military and civilians alike are desirous of seeing him brought to
justice.”
Florus, looking very ill at ease, was silent for a moment.
“You are convinced that our captive is really the Simon the Black, and
that he hath committed the crimes attributed to him?”
“Quite,” replied Tertullus. “I have documents and witnesses enough to
prove his guilt twenty times over.”
“Why, then, need we go to the trouble of a public trial? Since you are
certain of his guilt, I will do as did Antipas with him that was called
‘The Baptist’--send an executioner to his cell. How say you? Speak the
word, and within an hour you shall have his head here upon a charger.”
“Antipas’ act is a bad precedent,” returned Tertullus. “Your
predecessor Festus, as Ananias there can testify, was more equitably
minded. ‘It is not the manner of the Romans,’ said he, ‘to deliver any
man to die, before that he which is accused have the accusers face to
face, and have license to answer for himself concerning the crime laid
against him.’”[4]
“Words deserving to be written in letters of gold,” commented Crispus,
to the manifest displeasure of Florus.
“Moreover,” observed Rufus, “the people will never believe Simon dead
if he be secretly executed.”
“They will, when they see his head over the Prætorium gate.”
“His crimes have been open and public,” said Tertullus, “let his trial
be so.”
“To-morrow?” said Florus. “Why not the next day?”
“The day after to-morrow is a sabbath,” replied Tertullus. “The Jewish
witnesses will refuse to attend court on that day.”
“The sabbath! the sabbath!” repeated Florus pettishly. “Why is the
sabbath greater than any other day?”
“Why are you greater than other men?” asked Berenice gently.
“Because, princess, it hath pleased Cæsar to make me so.”
“Well, then, it hath pleased the Lord to make the Sabbath a greater day
than any other,” smiled Berenice, never at a loss for an answer where
her religion was concerned.
“Will not the noble Florus,” said Crispus, “state the reasons for his
delay in bringing this prisoner to trial?”
The noble Florus did not reply to this pointed question. He frowned,
and hesitated; but, with a son of the all-powerful Legate of Syria
present as a witness of his irregularities, he felt he could not do
otherwise than grant the just request of Tertullus.
“Have, then, your way,” said he. “In the morning Simon shall be put
upon his trial.”
And with that he resumed his conversation with Berenice.
“He’ll be sorry for that concession,” laughed Tertullus quietly; and
then, turning to Rufus, he added, “See that Simon’s guards sleep not
to-night. Florus is quite capable of taking him off secretly.”
“You mean----”
“I mean,” whispered Tertullus, “that the deferring of the trial is due
to the fact that this Zealot, if brought into open court, could say
something to the detriment of Florus; what, I would fain find out.
Therefore, I say again, look well to the prisoner to-night.”
Rufus promised that he would see to the matter.
At this point the ears of the guests were attracted by a sound like
that of cords passing over pulleys, and looking whence it came, they
saw a curtain that draped a wide archway ascend, revealing behind it a
stage.
And now, while the palate of the guests was being regaled with the
choicest of wines, their eyes were gratified by a series of beautiful
tableaux drawn from the domain of classic mythology. The last of these
represented the Judgment of Paris; by a trifling departure from the
original story, the prize of the fairest goddess was to be a golden
zone.
Paris, apparently unable to come to a decision as to which of the
three diaphanously-attired goddesses was the fairest, made the award
dependent upon their dancing. At this there followed _pas seuls_
of such a character that the modest maiden who sat by Josephus was
compelled to avert her gaze.
Venus, having received the award from the hand of the Dardan shepherd,
advanced to the edge of the stage, and surveyed the audience.
“Alas!” she cried with a sudden sigh, “Paris has made a mistake, for I
see one here more lovely than myself. Let the gift be hers, and let her
be hailed as Queen of Beauty.”
With that she unclasped the golden cestus and flung it into the middle
of the hall just as the curtain was falling upon the tableau.
A slave, picking up the fallen zone, carried it to Florus.
“‘ΚΑΛΛΙΣΤΗ’--‘for the fairest,’” said he, reading the sapphire letters
set in the golden cestus. “The question is,” continued Florus, looking
round upon a bevy of ladies who had drawn near to view the zone, and it
was well worth viewing for its beautiful workmanship, “the question is,
who _is_ the fairest?”
But, however fair each lady might secretly deem herself, as there was
not found any bold enough to come forward and claim this title, it
became clear that, if the zone must be bestowed at all, it would be
necessary to appoint an umpire to decide this ticklish matter.
The ladies, entering with a zest into the scheme, were quite willing,
so they averred, to submit their charms to adjudication.
“A pretty little tableau, this,” whispered Rufus to Crispus,
“prearranged by Florus for the purpose of flattering the vanity of
Berenice. His liking for her is so well known that whoever is appointed
umpire--unless he be a very independent character--will lack the
courage to decide for any but the princess.”
A proposal on the part of Tertullus to appoint the umpire by lot was
received with acclamation. Crispus, somewhat against his will, was
forced by Rufus to take his place among the candidates for the office,
and, what is more, when his turn came for putting his hand into the
balloting urn he drew forth the tessera inscribed with the decisive
word, “_Judex_.”
He compressed his lips, much preferring that the honor should have
fallen upon some other.
Rufus now made a proposition.
“Methinks it is but fair,” said he, “that the lady round whose waist
the zone is clasped should bestow a kiss upon the adjudicator.”
This was laughingly made one of the conditions of the contest.
And now, amid much mirth, about twenty of the ladies began to prepare
for the event. The rest, either from modesty or distrustful of their
charms, drew aside, content to look on.
Among those who would fain have withdrawn, not only from the contest,
but also from the palace itself, was the young girl who had so much
attracted the notice of Crispus.
“Let us go,” she whispered in a distressed voice to Josephus. “This is
no place for me.”
But he sought gently to persuade her, by dwelling upon the value and
beauty of the jeweled zone, the ease with which it was obtainable,
the pride and pleasure she would feel in being hailed as the Queen of
Beauty.
“The zone will not fall to _me_,” said she. “Look, and see how many
beautiful women there are around.”
“None so beautiful as you, Vashti.”
She shook her golden tresses at what she deemed his partiality. In the
end, however, she consented to let her will be overborne by his.
The fair contestants were now moving to the place of judgment, a
spacious hemicycle at one end of the banqueting hall. Among them were
the Princess Berenice, and the Syrian Asenath, the favorite of Ananias.
As Vashti moved forward, her air of innocence and purity seemed to
give secret offense to the wanton dancing-girl; her lip curled with
contempt, and resolving to strip the other of her veil of modesty, she
came out with a proposal of a malicious and daring character.
“How can it be told,” cried she, “who is the loveliest, so long as we
remain clothed? The robe may hide deformities. Let it be a condition,
O Florus, that in this contest we appear naked.”
Speaking thus, she laid both hands upon her swelling hips ready to
fling off her robes at the least encouragement.
Now, seeing that in the Floralia at Rome women were accustomed to dance
quite naked, and that at Etruscan banquets the ladies often showed
their fair forms without any clothing whatever, the proposal of Asenath
was not quite so startling as it would be at the present day.
There were, of course, screams of dissent from the fair contestants
themselves, but to the gilded and decadent youth of that assembly,
Gentile and Jew alike, living only for sensuality, Asenath’s suggestion
met with a ready approval. Not even the high priest, Ananias, lifted
his voice against it. The Princess Berenice stood like a statue,
stately and still, neither assenting nor dissenting. As for Vashti, her
cheeks had become of a deathly white, her whole air and attitude were
eloquent of a vivid horror at finding herself amid a circle of gilded
youth who stood by waiting only the word of Florus, to assist her,
_volentem_, _nolentem_, in the task of disrobing.
“What says the excellent Florus?” cried Asenath.
“The proposal seems to me to be fair, for the robe, as you say, may
hide deformities. But,” he continued, becoming secretly conscious that
Crispus did not favor the idea, “the question is out of my hands; it
rests with the adjudicator.”
“And _he_,” replied Crispus, “decides that the ladies shall remain
clothed. This is a contest for beauty, and there is no beauty where
there is no modesty.”
“O good and pious youth, ascend to heaven!” said Asenath with a mocking
laugh; and realizing that _her_ chance of winning the zone was gone,
she stepped from the contending circle to the side of Ananias, who
looked by no means pleased with the decision of Crispus. He, the
priest of a religion that claimed to be purer far than any of the
pagan systems, had received a tacit rebuke from a pagan--a mortifying
experience, the more so as he secretly felt it to be deserved.
Compliant with the directions of Florus, the contestants took their
station upon a low marble seat that lined the hemicycle; and, when so
placed, presented a variety of faces so dazzling in beauty as to make
the adjudicator’s task a hard one.
As if to enhance his difficulty, Crispus received at that moment a
piece of news somewhat startling in character.
Touched upon the shoulder by a hand, he turned, and, to his surprise,
found Polemo by his side. If the Pontic king had been present at the
banquet Crispus had certainly missed seeing him, nor could he now tell
from what corner he had sprung.
“_Athenaïs is among the contestants!_” whispered the king; and ere
Crispus could put a question to him, Polemo had slipped among the
crowd that was standing around to watch the sight, and had vanished
as mysteriously as he had appeared, leaving Crispus in a whirl of
amazement.
His wife among the contestants!
Stern justice required that the prize should be given to the fairest,
but still, for all that, it would be a graceful compliment to let his
wife have the honor; it would certainly please her, who was now the one
woman whom it behoved him to please. But how to identify her?
There was additional embarrassment in the fact that the chosen lady, on
receiving the girdle, was to bestow a kiss upon the judge that had so
honored her. To be kissed, in the presence of his unknown wife, by a
lady adjudged by him to be the fairest of all present! If by some good
fortune the lady chosen should happen to be Athenaïs, well!--but if
not, what would her feelings be? No wonder Crispus shrank from the task
of selection, and thought for a moment of retiring in favor of some
other umpire.
The contestants were now ready awaiting the judgment.
Permitted to adopt whatever attitude they pleased, the majority posed
as if for a sculptor. A few stood or sat, but the greater part assumed
a reclining posture, as being the better adapted to display the grace
of their figure. Extraneous ornaments were allowed; and hence one lady,
lyre in hand, posed as the muse Polyhymnia; a second, toying with
a golden vase, assumed the character of a Danaïd; a third, for the
purpose of showing the curve of a graceful arm, held aloft a silver
lamp; while a fourth displayed a snowy limb in the feigned operation
of tying her sandal; and so on of the rest, each forming in herself a
living picture that would have charmed the eye of an artist.
Midway in the hemicycle sat Berenice, who, neglecting all adventitious
aids, merely sat erect, as if relying solely upon her beauty, and next
her came the timid Vashti, taking that place as being the only one left
vacant.
Holding the girdle in his hand, Crispus went very slowly along the
semicircle, passing from one fair form to another, and studying each
with a critical eye.
The behavior of the ladies during this severe scrutiny offered a
variety of contrasts. Some blushed, as did Vashti; others, like
Berenice, sat with serene dignity, as if unconscious of the matter in
hand; some sought to win favor by a caressing glance; others used the
witchery of a sweet smile; and one or two there were that could not
refrain from laughter.
The completion of his survey left Crispus undecided, and disappointed:
Athenaïs, if she were really among these ladies, was evidently
determined to keep her secret, since she had given no sign by which he
might recognize her. Among the many sparkling rings worn by that fair
bevy, there was none that he could identify as the pledge placed by
him upon the finger of his bride twenty-four hours ago, the ring set
with a ruby sculptured with the likeness of a temple in flames.
[Illustration: Crispus went very slowly along the semicircle]
Since his bride chose to hide her identity there remained nothing for
him but to act in the spirit of strict impartiality by awarding the
zone to her whose beauty in his judgment was most deserving of it,
a difficult matter where all were so beautiful. Even that _arbiter
elegantiarum_, Petronius (of whose friendship Florus had boasted), had
he been present would have found the question a perplexing one.
Crispus recommenced his survey, amid the breathless excitement of those
most immediately concerned.
“He has seen us all,” was the general thought; “now he will make his
choice.”
Half-way along the line he paused--hesitated--stood still. Directly
facing him were the Princess Berenice and the maiden Vashti. His
glance, divided between them, showed that one of these two was to
be his choice, and a little sigh of envy went up from eighteen
disappointed hearts.
For some moments Crispus stood in doubt. Their beauty was equal, or
nearly so.
The Princess Berenice, with her raven hair, dusky eyes, and majestic
bearing, seemed like the incarnation of dark and starry night; the
other, with her soft violet eyes, tresses like sunbeams, and gentle
mien, was like fair Aurora sweetly stealing upon the eastern sky.
“If there were but two prizes!” murmured the unhappy Crispus.
“Why does he hesitate?” growled Florus. “Is it not plain to be seen
that Berenice is the fairer?”
That girdle had cost him thirty thousand sesterces, and he did not want
to see it bestowed upon a person for whom he had not intended it.
Berenice met the scrutiny of her judge with a proud glance, betokening
a confidence that Crispus, who loved modesty, did not like to see; on
the other hand, Vashti ventured but once to raise her eyes with a
sweet, timid, wondering air that moved him strangely.
That glance decided the event!
“Lady,” said he, “what is your name?”
“Vashti, daughter of Hyrcanus,” was the reply, delivered in a low,
trembling voice.
“Then Vashti, daughter of Hyrcanus, as the fairest of all present,
receive this golden zone.”
Vashti was but human; it was a sweet little triumph for her. There
leaped into her eyes a sudden look of pleasure, a look that was
succeeded by one almost akin to fear as she glanced at the humiliated
princess, whose beauty, long supreme in Judæa, was now publicly
relegated to a second place.
Half pleased, half frightened, scarcely knowing what she was doing,
Vashti rose to her feet, an act that gave Crispus the opportunity of
girding her waist with the zone, and securing it with the clasp.
The conferring of the prize upon a Jewess occasioned dissatisfaction
among some of the Gentiles; a few, too, of the Jews resented that the
Herodian princess should be excluded in favor of an unknown maiden. In
both parties there was, however, a majority which, more generous in
sentiment, or perhaps thinking that Berenice and her beauty had queened
it too long over other women, expressed its approbation by the shout:
“All hail to Vashti, the Queen of Beauty!”
“Is not the umpire, too, entitled to a reward?” asked Crispus.
Vashti started back with a burning blush that made her look the more
beautiful.
“Nay, I must not forego it.”
He was so completely dazzled by her loveliness as to forget for the
moment that his unknown bride was watching him. Taking Vashti by both
hands he drew her gently towards him, and momentarily pressed her warm,
red lips to his own, an act greeted by the company with another round
of applause.
All very pretty, but what would Polemo think of it?
Becoming suddenly alive to the existence of that monarch he looked
around for him, and saw him at a distance surveying the scene with a
sphinx-like expression that gave no evidence as to what thoughts were
passing within him. Crispus took a step in his direction, but the king,
as if wishing to avoid him, vanished among the crowd, and was seen no
more that night.
A little later Rufus addressed a question to Crispus.
“Did you notice Berenice’s look when you bestowed the prize of beauty
upon Vashti?”
“No; how did she look?” asked Crispus absently.
“She looked--she looked,” said Rufus reflectively, as if casting
about in his mind for some image to express his thoughts, “she looked
the picture of sorrow. She looked--well, don’t laugh if I use this
comparison--she looked as a wife who loves her husband might look when
she sees him fascinated by another woman.”
Crispus started, stared strangely at Rufus, then walked away.
“Now what have I said to offend him?” muttered the wondering Rufus.
CHAPTER IV
THE DREAM OF CRISPUS
Tempted by the beauty of the starry night, as well as by the wish to
be alone with his thoughts, Crispus passed from the banqueting hall,
and sought the spacious gardens attached to the Prætorium, gardens that
with their variegated parterres and smooth lawns, marble fountains and
shady walks, differed little, if at all, from the aspect presented by a
modern pleasaunce.
There is nothing new under the sun! Even the practice of forcing
shrubbery to assume artificial shapes was not unknown to the ancients,
and the boscage of these gardens presented at different points a
variety of figures, graceful and grotesque.
Now, as Crispus walked meditatively along a quiet path he caught
sight of a distant and solitary figure standing by a marble seat that
gleamed white against a background of dark cypresses. Her face was
turned from him, but there was something familiar in her form; the
stature and shape suggested Berenice, and as he drew nearer he became
certain of it. At the sound of his footsteps the figure turned, and
dimly, beneath the gloom cast by the cypress leaves, he saw the face of
Berenice--Berenice, yet with golden hair! He stopped short in surprise.
Then in a moment the likeness that he had seen, or thought he had seen,
vanished, leaving in its place--Vashti! He looked, but the resemblance
was no more. A mere fancy wrought by his imagination and the dim light.
Vashti greeted him with a shy smile, and a blush due to the memory of
the kiss that he had bestowed upon her.
She was awaiting, it seemed, the return of Josephus. He had left her
there for a moment while he ran off to speak a word with Ananias, whom
he had beheld in the distance.
Crispus looked round, but could see neither Ananias nor Josephus; in
fact could see no one save the beautiful maiden beside him.
“I’ll act as your guardian till his return,” smiled he, as he seated
himself and invited Vashti to do the like.
It was a beautiful night, with nothing to disturb its stillness save
the far-off sounds of music and revelry coming from the Prætorium.
Their position, on ground slightly elevated, gave them a full view of
the sea, a purple mirror reflecting in broken sparkles the light of a
thousand stars.
To their left, and looking like a long white ribbon flung out upon
the dark water, was the mole of Cæsarea, its far end adorned with
the Drusion, a noble tower upon whose top a fire was flaming for the
guidance of ships sailing into the harbor.
It was not, however, upon the Drusion that Crispus’ eyes were set,
but upon Vashti. He longed to know something of her personal history,
and the present occasion afforded him an excellent opportunity. The
difficulty was how to begin. A patrician of Rome, who had in his time
conversed unrestrainedly with princesses and queens, and even with the
Empress Poppæa, he actually found himself embarrassed in the presence
of this Hebrew maid of seventeen. There was something about her, a
spirit of innocence and purity, that marked her off as altogether
different from the women of that age.
However, having once contrived to begin a conversation he found it easy
to maintain it, and ere long he succeeded in eliciting something of her
parentage and history.
Her mother, it seemed, was a widow, Miriam by name, who had one other
child only, an infant. Her father, Hyrcanus, had been a wealthy rabbi
of some distinction. (“Clearly Tertullus was wrong,” thought Crispus,
“in giving her a Grecian origin.”) Hyrcanus, at his death, an event of
the previous year, had by will left his family and effects to the care
of his friend Josephus, who thus exercised in relation to Vashti the
office of guardian. She and her mother were staying for a brief space
only at Cæsarea, their usual home being at Jerusalem, in the street of
Millo. Miriam, a strictly orthodox Jewess, had been much opposed to her
daughter’s going to a Gentile feast, but had finally yielded to the
wishes of Josephus.
All this was told, not in her native Syro-Chaldaic, but in Greek; and
Crispus did not know which was the more charming, the melody of her
voice, or the grace and purity with which she spoke the beautiful
language of Hellas.
“I learned the Greek from my father,” she explained in answer to
Crispus’ question. “He trained me in it from infancy.”
Crispus marveled to hear of a Jew with views so unorthodox.
“According to my friend Rufus, your rabbis have said, ‘He who teaches
his son Greek is as if he reared swine.’”
“_Some_ rabbis have said that. But my father belonged to the school
of Gamaliel, who taught us to appropriate whatever is good among the
Gentiles. The Greek language is good, and Josephus and I are availing
ourselves of its treasures.”
“In what way?”
Instead of giving a direct reply, Vashti asked a seemingly irrelevant
question.
“How old should you take our nation to be?”
As Hebrew history formed no part of the study of Roman youth, Crispus
was fain to confess his ignorance.
“Well, how old is Rome?”
“More than eight hundred years,” he answered with conscious pride.
“Which proves your nation, when compared with ours, to be but of
yesterday. We Jews were a people a thousand years before Romulus drew
his plow along the Palatine.”
Crispus, jealous for the antiquity of his nation, was disposed to
question Vashti’s statement.
“Why, you are as skeptical as Apion. You have heard of Apion?”
“No,” laughed Crispus. “Who was he?”
“A grammarian of Alexandria, and the author of a work intended to show
that we Jews are quite a recent nation in the history of the world,
a libel that has so wrought upon the spirit of Josephus that he is
writing a reply, whose title is to be ‘_Contra Apion_.’”
“And you are aiding him in the work? Come, deny it not!”
Vashti smiled assent.
“I act as his amanuensis,” added she.
A Hebrew maiden of seventeen versed in Grecian literature was a novelty
to Crispus. Curious to know whether her learning was anything more than
superficial, he ventured, with her own consent, to subject her to a
catechism derived from the reminiscences of a two-years’ curriculum in
the schools of Athens, but soon relinquished the task on finding her
knowledge far more extensive than his own.
“You have been questioning me,” said she with a smile, sweet yet grave,
when he had finished. “Now may I claim a like privilege?”
“In order to demonstrate my ignorance,” laughed Crispus. “Well, I’ll
put myself under examination. Be not too hard with me.”
Thus adjured, Vashti began.
“Why does your Greek poet Bianor, in commenting upon the fable of
Arion, who was cast into the sea by the sailors but saved by the
dolphins, say it is meant to teach us that ‘_By man comes death, but by
the Fish salvation_’?”[5]
This, Crispus thought, was a very odd question. He had merely heard
of Bianor as a poet living in the days of Tiberius; and that was the
extent of his knowledge concerning him. As to the passage quoted by
Vashti, it had no meaning for him. The words, however true of the
fabled Arion, were scarcely applicable to mankind at large.
Over Vashti’s face there passed a shade as of sadness, momentary only,
but it did not escape Crispus’ quick eye.
“I thought perhaps you might have comprehended,” said she. “Your story
told to-night at the banquet, the story of ‘Great Pan,’ led me to hope
that--that--no matter! I see now that I was wrong,” she added with a
sigh.
Saddened because she found him unable to explain an obscure line of a
Greek poet! Why, what an odd maiden was this! And the curious part of
it all was, she refused to enlighten him; and hence he could not but
conclude that Vashti had some secret to which the poet’s words were the
key.
The conversation flowed on, and soon touched upon Jewish antiquity
again. There were Jews, so Vashti averred, Josephus for example, who
could carry back an authentic ancestry over a space of two thousand
years. Crispus was wont to pride himself upon his ancient family, but
what was its antiquity compared with such as these?
“And can _you_ show so long a genealogy?”
“My father Hyrcanus could.”
Crispus thought this a somewhat odd reply.
“But if _he_ could, so can _you_, seeing that you are his daughter.”
“Only those genealogies are deemed authentic that are inscribed on the
public rolls. _My_ name is missing from them.”
“How is that?”
“Nay, I cannot tell, but such is the case. I discovered it but a few
days ago. I was in the Archeion--the House of the Rolls, we call
it--with its keeper Johanan ben Zacchai, who has always regarded me
with fatherly affection. Moved by curiosity, I asked to be allowed to
see my own name in the public genealogical records. ‘Well, to please
you, my daughter,’ said he. So he brought out the rolls of papyrus and
parchment; and after a long time, and much searching, he found the
names of my father Hyrcanus, and my mother Miriam, but _my_ name he
could not find, though my little brother Arad’s is recorded. So you
see----”
The sound of approaching footsteps checked her utterance. On turning,
Crispus and Vashti saw at a little distance a stately and beautiful
figure that for a moment stopped short, apparently in surprise,
at seeing the pair in such friendly converse. It was the Princess
Berenice. Some instinct told Crispus that she was looking for him,
and he beheld her with a sort of self-reproach. In spite of her
half-jesting reminder that he should not, as at Antioch, neglect her,
he had repeated his indifference; his only dealing with her had been
to depose her from the proud position of being the first beauty of the
land. What wonder, then, if she should feel somewhat hurt?
“I will leave you now,” murmured Vashti, making as if to rise.
“Nay, do not go,” said Crispus, venturing, all unconsciously, to lay a
detaining hand upon her wrist.
Crispus wondered at her heightened color, and at the new light that
came into her eyes. Was she pleased to think that he would not dismiss
her, even in favor of a princess?
He withdrew his hand, but not before Berenice had noticed the action.
Observant woman is doubly observant at such times.
“Will the Queen of Beauty,” said the princess with a slightly
disdainful air, “permit me to share the conversation of the noble
Crispus?” And, without waiting for a reply, she seated herself, as she
spoke, at the left side of Crispus, Vashti being at his right.
“What is passing in the palace?” asked Crispus.
“The wit of Florus,” replied Berenice. “The wine hath got into his
head. Like Nero, he thinks he can sing. But I was very good, and kept
a grave face the while; nay, I even asked him to sing again, which
pleased him hugely. I cannot say the same of his hearers.”
She laughed so pleasantly that Crispus was fain to laugh too.
And now there began on the part of Berenice a flow of talk that,
sometimes witty, sometimes wise, was always interesting. She touched
on topics grave and gay, from the government of the empire to the
latest fashion in sandals, never failing to illumine the subject in
hand with some subtle observation. She had the field all to herself,
for Vashti was content to be a listener, while Crispus put in a remark
now and again. It seemed almost as if Berenice, surmising that Crispus
had found a fascination in Vashti’s conversation, had determined to
display her own brilliancy. And certainly the character of both was a
revelation to Crispus, who, accustomed hitherto, in the haughty and
exclusive spirit of his race, to regard the Jews as an inferior nation,
was agreeably surprised to find among these “barbarians” two women who,
while equal in beauty to any Greek or Roman lady known to him, were
certainly superior in intellect and charm.
“’Tis the first day of the new moon,” observed Berenice, suddenly.
“I see her not,” returned Crispus, glancing over the face of the sky,
and thereby missing Berenice’s little frown. A foe to paganism, she
did not like to hear personality ascribed to the moon.
“Its slender crescent is visible at Jerusalem, if not from here,” said
Berenice. “_That_ tells me so.”
She pointed to a far-off peak upon the southern horizon, a peak upon
which there had appeared a light no larger than a star. The sparkle was
repeated at a point northward of the first; a third followed; and soon
a whole line of fires was twinkling upon the hill-summits of Judæa.
“Our way of announcing the first day of the month,” explained Berenice.
“So soon as the new moon is seen from a certain hill near Jerusalem by
watchers appointed of the Sanhedrim for that purpose, the tidings is
flashed by fire-signals throughout all the land. ’Tis an old custom
lately revived by the high priest Matthias. But I will not weary you
with matters in which a Roman can take no interest.”
“There you err, princess. My visit to Jerusalem--for thither am I
bound--is undertaken for the sole purpose of seeing your temple.”
“You wish to see our temple?” exclaimed the princess in great surprise,
“you, who at the banquet avowed yourself a worshiper of the gods of
Rome! What interest can our temple have for _you_?”
“My interest is the outcome of a--a----”; he hesitated for a moment,
and then added, “a dream.”
A statement so singular naturally evoked Berenice’s curiosity, and she
begged him to tell the dream. Vashti, though she said nothing, was, as
Crispus could see by her looks, equally curious to hear it.
“I wish now that I could recall my words,” said he, “for though it was
but a dream, the telling of it may cause me to fall into disfavor with
you both.”
That “both” was a distasteful word to Berenice, seeming, as it did,
to imply that he thought as much of Vashti’s opinion as of her own.
Evidently he did, for it was not till Vashti had added a persuasive
word that he would begin his story.
“A few nights ago,” said he, plunging at once _in medias res_, “I
seemed in my sleep to be standing in what appeared to be the court of
some magnificent temple. This court, colonnaded on its four sides, was
a spacious one and open to the sky. It was night, and the stars faintly
twinkled. Before me at some distance rose the temple itself, an edifice
constructed of pure white marble.
“The place was not quiet--far from it. Singular to relate, although no
one was visible, the court seemed to be thronged with men. There was a
running to and fro over the pavement, the clash and clang of arms, and
the sound of warriors engaged in deadly fray. I laid hand to my sword,
desiring to range myself on the one side or the other, but how could
one take part in a combat like this--a combat of ghosts?
“Suddenly I became conscious of a glow; in front of me, upon a low
balustrade, lay a flaming torch. As I looked at it a voice, seeming
to come from the sky, cried in the Hebrew tongue, ‘_Burn!_’ and the
flambeau shook itself as if impatient to be grasped. I hesitated. Again
the voice cried, ‘_Burn!_’ in a tone so awe-inspiring that I durst not
disobey. I lifted the burning brand, and tossed it through a golden
window of the temple. A shower of sparks rose from within; next came a
tongue of fire, leaping forth from the window; a little while and the
whole structure was mantled with flame and smoke. At the same instant I
awoke.”
Berenice’s dusky eyes, eloquent with a nameless fear, were set full
upon the speaker’s face.
“Can you describe the temple seen by you in the vision?”
“I can shut my eyes now,” said Crispus, suiting the action to the word,
“and recall every feature. I am standing on the north side of the
temple; it extends east and west for a length of perhaps two hundred
and fifty cubits. To enter it one must first pass a low balustrade of
marble, curiously wrought, upon which stand little pillars engraved
with a notice in Greek and Latin letters. I have a distinct remembrance
in my dream of reading the notice. It forbade the Gentiles on pain of
death from entering the shrine.”
Both Vashti and Berenice gave a faint cry of surprise.
“Did you speak, princess?”
“No, no! Go on. What next?” she asked breathlessly.
“After passing the balustrade one has the choice of four gates, each
ascended by a stately flight of stairs fifteen in number. Of these
gates, three, situated near the western end, are near each other; the
fourth stands far remote towards the eastern end. Each gate consists
of two folding doors, crusted with gold and silver, and is flanked by
massive towers.” He paused for a moment, and resumed: “I related this
vision to my father, who was as much startled, princess, as you appear
to be. ‘What you have seen,’ said he, ‘is the temple at Jerusalem.’ Can
you wonder, then, that I desire to take a view of it?”
“And did you know nothing of the interior of our temple till the time
of this dream?” asked Berenice.
“Absolutely nothing, I pledge you my solemn word. I was, of course,
aware that Jerusalem contained a notable temple resorted to by devout
Jews out of every nation under heaven, but that was the total extent of
my knowledge. Not a single detail of its architecture was known to me.”
Berenice seemed perplexed, even troubled.
“Strange! whence comes this dream of yours?” she murmured.
“You do not doubt the vision?”
“How can I, since you affirm it to be true?”
“You admit that my description is correct?”
“It cannot be gainsaid.”
“Well, then, since it is beyond the power of the human mind, whether
sleeping or awake, to gain such knowledge as I gained at that time,
shall I offend you by saying that the vision was directly vouchsafed to
me by the immortal gods?”
“The gods?” returned the princess with a touch of disdain in her voice.
“The gods? The gods of you Gentiles have no existence. There is but one
true and living God.”
“Have it so,” replied Crispus, who seemingly could tolerate reflections
upon his religion much more easily than Berenice could upon hers.
“Shall we say, then, that the vision was sent by your own deity?”
“Impossible! Would He Who has enjoined upon us the perpetual worship of
Himself give command to destroy the one and only temple in which that
worship is carried on?”
“He might,” observed Vashti, “if He purposed to make His religion more
spiritual. Pure religion requires neither temple nor altar.”
“There speaks one who is no true daughter of Abraham,” retorted
Berenice.
“Nay, princess, it is because I _am_ a daughter of Abraham that I say
it, for what temple did Abraham have?”
Berenice, about to make an angry retort, was checked by Crispus.
“We are drifting from the primary question,” said he, “which is, whence
came my dream? That dream was plainly a supernatural one.”
“Whence?” returned Berenice. “Whence but from the kingdom of evil?
There are wicked spirits as well as good, and the prince of them is
named Satan, who would rejoice if he could but persuade a Roman to
destroy the temple. I pray you, noble Crispus,” she continued, with
considerable emotion, “dismiss this dream from your mind, lest by
dwelling overmuch upon it you should come to believe that you have a
Divine mission to destroy the temple.”
“It may be that I have.”
Crispus spoke with the grave air of one who believes in the truth of
his words. For a moment the princess gazed at him, speechless with
consternation. Recovering her voice, she cried indignantly:
“What good could come from such a deed?”
“Much--to Rome!”
“How?”
“That temple,” said Crispus, speaking in a cold, deadly tone that set
Berenice shivering with terror, for she loved her temple more than her
life, “that temple draws annually to its courts three million Jews, all
animated by a fierce hatred of Rome, and all fanatically persuaded that
One born in Judæa shall obtain the dominion of the world. You know it
is so, princess; you cannot deny it. Your temple is a perpetual menace
to the safety of the empire. Destroy the temple, and we put an end to
these annual gatherings with their vain and treasonable hopes.”
CHAPTER V
SIMON THE ZEALOT
Early on the morning after the banquet there flew through Cæsarea the
surprising news that the notable Zealot, Simon the Black, was to be put
on his trial on the noon of that same day.
Eager to witness the scene, a motley crowd, composed of Jews and
Greeks, Romans and Syrians, flocked, long before the appointed time,
into the basilica, or court of justice, till the numbers were such that
the building would hold no more.
A Roman basilica presented an appearance very similar to that of a
modern parish church, consisting as it did of a nave, and two aisles
divided from it by a row of columns. At one end a portion, elevated
like a daïs and railed off like a chancel, formed the _bema_ (the word
had passed from the Greek into the Syro-Chaldaic) or tribunal, where
the judges sat and orators pleaded. The whole of the interior was
further surrounded by an upper gallery raised upon the columns that
divided the aisles. The ground floor and the galleries were for the
accommodation of the public.
In the middle of the bema, which was paved with tesselated marble,
stood the governor’s curule chair, and on each side of it were rows of
seats intended for the assessors, it being the custom for a provincial
governor to be assisted in his judgments by a sort of informal council
consisting of distinguished citizens.
Shortly before noon there was a movement on the bema, caused by
the arrival of persons interested in the trial. Among them was the
priest Theomantes, who, in virtue of his dignity as priest of Jupiter
Cæsarius, proceeded to ensconce himself in the seat immediately upon
the right of the curule chair, an act that caused murmurs among the
Jews and applause among the Gentiles.
Ananias now entered, and seeing his own action anticipated, scowled,
hesitated for a moment, and then deliberately sat down upon the lap of
his rival.
“’Tis mine to sit upon the right of Florus,” he cried.
Thereupon, Theomantes, exerting all his strength, flung him off, amid
mingled laughter and hooting from the two factions.
“Even if the high priest of the Jews _had_ the right to this seat, it
is not thine, seeing that thou art not high priest.”
Now, it is not at all improbable that in their struggle for precedency
these two graybeards might have come to unseemly blows before a
delighted audience, but for the intervention of Terentius Rufus, who,
with a body of spearmen, was stationed in front of the tribunal for the
purpose of preserving order among the spectators.
“I never thought my services would be required upon the bema,” said he.
And mounting the tribunal, he threatened unless Ananias settled down
quietly in some other seat that he would remove him, as having wantonly
and purposely created a disturbance in a court of justice.
“Let Ananias possess his soul in patience,” he cried, “till it shall
please Florus to make known Cæsar’s decree on this matter.”
The humiliated Ananias made as if he would retire altogether from the
court, but finally, thinking better of it, sat down upon the left-hand
seat, just as Florus made his pompous entry.
Crispus appeared about the same time, and, as being a distinguished
visitor, was assigned a place among the council.
Florus, having seated himself in his curule chair, demanded to know
what business was set down for the day, and as it appeared that there
were many cases requiring his judicial decision, he announced that he
would begin with the trial of Simon.
A thrill of excitement ran through the basilica when the order was
given, “Go, lictors, bring hither Simon, surnamed the Black.”
Without delay the prisoner was brought.
Walking between two guards, his hands tied behind his back with a cord
whose end was held by a third soldier, came the terrible Zealot, who
had hanged so many Romans that men had lost all count of the number. A
man, tall and muscular, and having a singular breadth of chest, with
black hair, black eyes, and black beard. Clothed in the dress he wore
when captured, a gabardine all slashed with sword-cuts, and black with
dried blood; with face unwashed, and beard and hair long and unkempt,
he made a wild and savage figure. Captivity and darkness, chilling
damps and meager diet, had failed, however, to tame his spirit; he
stood, dark, scowling, defiant, the living incarnation of enmity to
Rome.
Florus, after a brief and (as it seemed to Crispus) uneasy glance at
the captive, turned to a table where sat the advocates, and asked:
“Who conducts the prosecution?”
Tertullus arose.
“Be brief. No oratory,” said the procurator.
In a Roman trial proceedings usually began with the questioning of
the accused in the endeavor to prove out of his own mouth the charge
brought against him. Should this procedure fail, or should the
prisoner, through obstinacy, refuse to answer, it became necessary to
call upon witnesses.
Tertullus turned to question the captive, while the clerk of the court,
with lifted pen, sat ready to record the dialogue; for, be it known,
there were in that age scribes who, by a system of abbreviations, were
capable of writing as fast as a man could speak.
“Your name?” began Tertullus.
“You ask me my name?” said the Zealot with a laugh of scorn. “You ought
to know, seeing what fear it has put into the hearts of you Romans. I
am Simon, son of Giora, of the tribe of Benjamin.”
“Your birthplace?”
“Gerasa, beyond Jordan.”
“Your calling?”
“Slayer of the Romans.”
“Consider! You desire the clerk to write down that answer?”
“Let him write it twice, yea thrice, and in his largest characters.”
“You confess, then, that you are of the sect known as the Zealots?”
“A curse on your Gentile terms; I am of the sect of the Kenaïm.”
“Zealots or Kenaïm, ’tis much the same. What are their tenets?”
“These: call no one king but God; pay no tax save to the temple; slay
every Roman who presumes to exercise authority over the holy seed.”
“‘Call no one king but God’? Then you do not acknowledge the authority
of Cæsar?”
“Cæsar!” It is impossible to describe the contempt with which he spoke
the name. “Cæsar! I spit at the name of Cæsar.”
And he did, there and then, upon the pavement. This repudiation of
imperial authority was received by the servile Græco-Syrian mob with a
roar of execration.
“_Læsa majestas!_” was their cry. “Fling him over the rails!”
“‘Assassinate every Roman’?” continued Tertullus. “Then you would
assassinate Florus, if you could?”
The very suggestion caused the face of the Zealot to mantle with
ferocious joy.
“Place a dagger in my freed hands, set me within three paces of him,
and you shall see.”
“The court will take the will for the deed,” observed Tertullus dryly.
“Attend to the indictment. You are charged with being the chief of a
band of Zealots, or, if it please you, Kenaïm. Stationed among the
heights in the Pass of Adummim, it was your wont to issue forth, and to
rob and to hang every Roman that came that way.”
“A marvel! A lawyer speaks the truth!”
“How many Romans have been put to death by you?”
“Put that question to the vultures. I kept no register of the slain.
Thus much I know, that, give me my freedom, and you shall see me repeat
the work with a new band.”
“Traitor to the empire, do you glory in your guilt?”
“The guilt is yours who presume to exercise authority in a land that
God sware with an oath should be ours forever. Out of this land, then,
ye Romans, with your legions and your lictors, your taxes and your
idols! It is contrary to the will of God that Cæsar should bear rule in
Judæa, and the Jew that acknowledges him breaks the law of Moses. For
it is written therein, ‘One from among thy brethren shalt thou set king
over thee; thou mayest not set a stranger over thee which is not thy
brother’; whereof let due note be taken by that smug Ananias there, who
fraternizes so comfortably with his country’s enemies!”
“As it was your custom,” continued Tertullus, “to plunder, as well as
to kill, you doubtless gained considerable wealth?”
“Wealth? Ay, stores of it,” said Simon, his eyes sparkling as if at the
recollection.
“None was found in the place of your capture.”
Simon laughed exultingly.
“It exists, for all that, in a place where no Roman can lay hand upon
it, reserved for the great day of vengeance.”
“Or, in other words, it is to be used in fomenting war against Rome?”
“Lawyer, thou hast said.”
“It is rumored that several persons of high station have been in
communication with you?”
“The highest in the land. I can see now upon the bema here some of my
past accomplices. Why are they not placed beside me to be judged?”
The uneasiness that had never been absent from the face of Florus
seemed now to increase. It was noticed by Tertullus, who smiled to
himself with the quiet satisfaction of an archer who, after many
trials, has hit the mark at last.
The crowd of spectators, hitherto restless and murmuring, became
suddenly hushed. Florus’ long delay in bringing Simon to trial had
given birth to sinister rumors as to the relations previously existing
between the procurator and the robber-chief. Was the dark story about
to be confirmed? With breathless interest they awaited the issue.
“The court will be pleased at having these accomplices named,” said
Tertullus with affected carelessness.
“I name them not, unless I have a promise that they shall be arrested
without delay.”
“The court will have no hesitation in arresting them, provided that you
can prove your charge.”
“Good! If it be a crime to plot against the life of a Roman, bid the
lictors go and bind the hands of Ananias.”
Tertullus’ face fell somewhat. Ananias was not the name he wanted.
“Lying Zealot!” exclaimed the priest; and, forgetting for the moment
that it was not a Jewish court in which he could do according to his
own pleasure, he cried, “Strike him on the mouth!”
“O Ananias! Ananias!” said Simon, shaking his head with mock gravity,
“were you not once an accomplice with me in a plot to slay a Roman
citizen? ’Tis clear you have forgotten my face: let me recall it to
you. Did there not once come to you--’tis eight years ago now--forty
Sicarii,[6] of whom I was one, offering to slay Paul of Tarsus, a Roman
citizen, mark you! and freeborn? Did you not readily join in the plot?
And now do you disavow your old friend Simon? Nay, verily, be honest,
and take your trial with me.”
Over the face of Ananias there had suddenly crept a look scarcely
compatible with the idea of innocence.
“Will no one stop the mouth of the lying knave?” he cried, trembling
with passion.
“Your looks sufficiently show who is the lying knave,” answered Simon
coolly. “If ye desire proof of this, my accusation,” he continued,
addressing the court, “send to Jerusalem for Paul’s nephew; he will
confirm what I say. Does the court agree that Ananias shall take
his trial with me?” added Simon, looking around him with a sardonic
smile. “No? And yet ’tis the fashion of Romans to boast of their
justice!--justice, forsooth!”
“Prisoner,” said Florus, “be not so free of tongue, and you may find
that our Roman justice, whose purity you seem to question, can be
tempered with mercy.”
“Now, let the court carefully mark that little speech,” said Simon
coolly, “for, being interpreted, it meaneth, ‘Keep quiet as to _my_
doings, O Simon, and I will endeavor to procure your release.’ But in
vain do you offer me the bribe of life, O Florus, in order to stay my
tongue. Welcome torture, scourgings, death, if I do but succeed in
hurling you from power.”
Simon was not to be appeased, and Florus, catching sight of Tertullus’
smile, suddenly realized the lawyer’s motive in pressing for the public
trial of the Zealot. It was to ruin him--Florus!
It was out of the question either to gag the prisoner or to declare
the court closed; either alternative would expose him to suspicion.
He, the judge, must sit and listen to an accusation, which, even if it
were untrue, would be greedily believed by nine out of every ten, so
unpopular was he with the people over whom he ruled. And when the story
should reach Rome, as it undoubtedly would--his enemies would take good
care of that!--it might mean the loss, not only of his procuratorship,
as Simon had said, but even of his life.
“The brazen effrontery of this knave!” said he, assuming a stern
bearing. “Knowing that his doom is certain, he seeks to delay sentence
by vilifying the character of his judges. Go, lictors, bring hither the
flagellum.”
“And, when brought, apply it to the shoulders of the robber Florus,”
said Simon.
“Ye see for yourselves,” said Florus, turning to the assessors, “what
an incorrigible villain this is!”
“Listen to a story that is no fiction,” continued Simon. “Florus sent a
secret messenger offering me free license to plunder and slay Roman and
Gentile alike, on condition of his receiving half the spoil.”
“A lie as black as Erebus!” thundered the procurator.
“It is one thing to accuse, another thing to prove,” remarked Tertullus
quietly, secretly delighted at the turn events were taking.
“I have no proof in writing. Florus is too artful a fox to employ ink
and parchment on such a matter. His intermediary in this business was
his freedman, Nymphidius.”
“Is it worth while sending for this Nymphidius,” asked Tertullus of
Florus, “that he may deny this allegation?”
“It is useless sending for him,” observed Rufus, “for he died this
morning--suddenly.”
“Who helped him to die?” asked Simon. “For it appears to me that his
death has occurred at a time very convenient for Florus.”
A significant question, this! Men looked at each other, little doubting
that Florus had by foul means removed an awkward witness from his path.
“Bear with me, noble Florus,” said Tertullus, “if I assume for a moment
the truth of this knave’s story. What answer,” he continued, addressing
Simon, “what answer did you give to Nymphidius?”
“This was my answer: ‘Tell the uncircumcized dog of a Florus that Simon
will plunder without asking _his_ leave. Let him send to Manahem, the
son of Judas, who will doubtless be glad to purchase license on such
terms.’”
Tertullus now dropped his mask and became, like Simon, an accuser of
the procurator.
“It was this Manahem, O Florus,” said he quietly, “who a fortnight ago
robbed me of a myrrhine drinking-cup, which last night appeared upon
_your_ table.”
Now, during all this time Crispus had been listening with a strange
conflict of emotions. Hatred of Simon’s crimes was mingled with
admiration for his daring spirit. He was also compelled to admit that
the existence of the Zealots was, to a certain extent, justified
by Roman misgovernment, a fact very unpalatable for a patriot
like Crispus, ever striving to believe that Rome and justice were
convertible terms. From the rule of wicked and rapacious governors
like Pilate and Felix, Albinus and Florus, what other spirit could
develop in Judæa but a burning hatred of Roman rule, combined with
a determination to throw off the yoke whenever a favorable occasion
should arise?
Though Simon was doubtless deserving of death, yet nevertheless
Crispus’ sense of justice revolted against his condemnation by judges
like Florus and Ananias, themselves guilty of malefactions. He resolved
to disassociate himself from the council.
“Since the prisoner,” said he, “questions the integrity of two of his
judges, and, as it seems to me, with some show of reason, I herewith
decline to take any further part in this trial.”
Suiting the action to the word, Crispus rose from his seat and withdrew
from the bema.
“And I do the like,” said Theomantes, moved in his action mainly by his
feud with Ananias.
“And I!”--“And I!” exclaimed several other members, rising and
descending from the tribunal.
Florus sat, full of impotent rage, on perceiving that the statements of
Simon and Tertullus were believed in, not only by the common people,
but also by the majority of the council.
“The trial is adjourned,” he cried. “Let the prisoner be carried back
to his dungeon.”
The command came too late. Simon had perceived among the Jewish portion
of the spectators certain disguised Zealots, who, both by eye and by
gesture, were secretly inviting him to make a dash for liberty.
Acting on the hint, he suddenly wrenched himself free from his guards,
darted to the edge of the tribunal, and, taking a flying leap over the
line of soldiers that guarded its front, he alighted among his friends,
who, struggling desperately, began to push him towards the open doors
of the basilica.
The soldiers, attempting to follow, were at once opposed, not only
by the whole Jewish body, but also by the Græco-Syrians, who in this
matter were actuated not out of any love for Simon, but from a desire
to thwart and disappoint Florus, whose rule was hateful to them. The
court of justice became immediately transformed into a wild tumultuous
pandemonium.
“Down with the wicked Florus!”
“Death to old Ananias!”
Stones and other missiles, discharged by men of both factions, now came
whirling into the tribunal. Ananias, gathering his robe about him, fled
to a place of safety. Florus, as he was lifting his hand in the futile
attempt to quell the tumult, received a sharp-edged flint upon his
temples. Down his quickly-paling face flowed a stream of blood, a sight
welcomed by both factions with a huge roar of delight.
“Guards, hither to me!” cried the alarmed procurator.
Four stout soldiers sprang forward and screened him with their
bucklers, that rattled again and again to the pelting shower of
stones as the procurator, following the example of Ananias, fled amid
hootings, cursings, and derisive laughter.
At the command of Rufus the soldiers, by threatening the people with
leveled spears, soon cleared the courthouse. They failed, however, to
recover Simon, who, dragged off by his friends, contrived to make good
his escape.
“He’ll harass us again,” grumbled Rufus, a prophecy destined to meet
with ample verification.
CHAPTER VI
“DELENDA EST HIEROSOLYMA!”
“Then you will not marry me, princess?”
Such were the words addressed by Florus to Berenice, as he walked
beside her in the sunlit gardens of the Prætorium.
The ugly gash he had received that morning from the well-aimed missile
had not enhanced his personal beauty. Berenice, as she watched him
from beneath the fringe of her dark, silky eyelashes, shivered, and
thought how like a satyr he looked! She mentally contrasted the
bloated coarseness of his visage with Crispus’ clear bronzed healthful
complexion.
“Marry _you_!” she said, emphasizing the last word. “My lord Florus,
you have a wife already!”
“So had my predecessor Felix, but that did not prevent your sister
Drusilla from marrying him.”
“Poor deluded Drusilla! she would never have so acted but for the
spells and sorceries of Simon Magus.”
“Would that I knew where this Simon were to be found,” sighed the
governor, “for then would I, too, employ him in the like office!”
“You have the great Theomantes,” laughed Berenice. “Cannot he weave
spells for you? or has he already done so, and failed? But, my lord
Florus, have pity on your wife. Why do you desire wicked Berenice in
place of the good Cleopatra?”
“Fairest of women,” began the governor gallantly.
“Nay,” said the princess, somewhat darkly, “Crispus hath openly
deprived me of that title.”
“A fool, who hath no eyes for real beauty.”
“Is it Berenice the Fair or Berenice the Golden that you are seeking to
woo?”
“Mine,” answered Florus with a fine air of virtue, “mine is not a
mercenary character.”
“Except where the spoil of Zealots is concerned,” laughed Berenice. “I
fear greatly that this morning’s revelation will deprive you of office.”
The procurator, too, was very much of this opinion, but it was not
pleasant to hear it from her. Masking his anger beneath a hollow smile,
he said:
“To gain you, princess, I would--yes! I would willingly turn proselyte,
and that is more than Felix did for Drusilla.”
“’Tis a tempting offer,” said Berenice, with a sweet mocking laugh that
charmed while it maddened the procurator. “How the Jews would joy in
their new convert! Picture me leading Florus by the hand to the temple,
there to present him to Matthias as a pious neophyte!” Then, becoming
grave again, she went on, “My father Agrippa was king of Judæa, and it
has ever been my aim to control the destinies of this same land, an aim
foredoomed to failure were I to marry you.”
“Why so?”
“O dullard! You have ruled because your wife was the friend of the
Empress Poppæa.” (“_Was?_” thought Florus, wondering why she should
use the past tense; he was soon to learn!) “Had you divorced Cleopatra
to marry me you would have set the empress against you, and then where
would have been your procuratorship?”
This view of the case had often occurred to Florus himself. Still, what
was the loss of his office compared with the handling of Berenice’s
gold?
“And,” continued Berenice, “even supposing that the empress,
overlooking the slight to her friend Cleopatra, should be willing to
maintain you in office, she can no longer do so, seeing that she is
dead.”
“Poppæa dead?” gasped Florus incredulously.
“So saith my freedman Sadas.”
“Whence did he learn it?”
“A ship from Rome has just arrived in harbor with the tidings.
Everybody on board is talking about it. Our greatest proselyte is dead,
killed by a blow from Nero’s foot, and she with child! Kicked to death
by him whom you would have had us worship last night as a god,” she
added, her lip wreathing in scorn.
Florus was thunderstruck at the tidings, foreseeing a quick end to
his rule now that there was no Poppæa to stand between him and the
punishment justly due for his misdeeds. He knew full well that as
soon as the Jews received the news they would send to Rome an embassy
praying for his removal. They would certainly mention that little deal
with the Zealots, not to speak of various other little peccadillos.
“And in ceasing to be procurator,” said he, wrathfully, “I, of course,
cease to be of interest to you?”
“Unless you should become Cæsar, in which case send for me, and I will
come to you--yea, fly! As empress of the world I could do the holy
nation better service than as queen of Judæa.”
Empress of the world! She spoke lightly, little dreaming how narrowly
she was to miss gaining the imperial throne.
“You think only of your people, and of your superstition,” muttered
Florus.
“Only of my people, and of my--superstition. You have hit off my
character.”
“You have been playing with me for your own ends,” said he, his great
coarse cheek reddening with anger. “And now you cast me off as one
casts off a sandal that has outlived its use.”
“O Florus, have done!” she said with a wearied air. “We have both
been acting. Let us drop the mask. ’Tis not Berenice herself that is
the charm, but her gold with which you hope to cancel past debts and
to continue your infamous orgies. And I, divining your motives, have
likewise played the hypocrite, feigning a love I never felt, if by so
doing I might benefit Judæa. Strangely have you mistaken my nature in
thinking that, apart from your procuratorship, you could ever have held
any interest for me. My lord Florus, I bid you farewell.”
And with that she left him.
The face of Florus was as the face of a demon as he watched her walking
scornfully away with never a backward glance of pity or remorse. Love
for her had now altogether vanished from his heart; no other feeling
there but a big black hatred that transformed him to the elemental
savage. His only thought now was to revenge himself upon her. But how?
Death? It were a somewhat difficult matter to compass the end of a
Jewish princess. True, he might hire the daggers of the Sicarii, even
as the procurator Felix had hired them to assassinate the high priest
Jonathan--he fell at the very altar--but suspicion would attach itself
to him, and this was a thing to be avoided, if possible.
Besides, a death like that were too light a punishment; one sharp
pang, and all would be over. His vengeance must take a more subtle, a
more protracted form. How to accomplish it was the question, and thus
thinking, he walked meditatively back to the Prætorium.
On entering, he learned that King Polemo--Berenice’s ex-husband--was
awaiting an interview with him in the Ivory Hall, a saloon so called
from its paneling.
Florus received the news with something like a frown.
“What wants he with me?” he muttered, darkly. “’Tis he who has brought
me to this.” But in a moment his face cleared again. “A friend of
Cæsar! Ha! he may be of help to me in this crisis,” and he accordingly
directed his steps to the Ivory Hall.
“Bring wine,” commanded he; and this being done, Florus was left alone
with his visitor.
The friendship--if, indeed, it deserved the name--existing between the
two men, had begun a year previously at Rome at the time when Florus
was about to proceed to Judæa in the character of procurator. The
king’s sudden attachment was a fact somewhat puzzling to Florus, who,
however highly he might think of himself, was nevertheless secretly
conscious that his character was not such as to appeal to a man of
Polemo’s stamp. However, there the fact was: Polemo was evidently
anxious to ingratiate himself into Florus’ good will, for, finding
that the Roman was ill-provided with money, he supplied him with a sum
sufficient to enable the new procurator to make a splendid entry into
Cæsarea. Since that time Florus had received additional sums from the
king. Never was there a more willing and a more charming lender than
Polemo. Content with receiving written acknowledgments of the amount,
he did not press for repayment. Let not Florus disturb himself; he
could pay at his leisure. Delighted at this easy way of obtaining
money, Florus had, in the course of one short year, recklessly borrowed
again and again, till in his more sober moments he trembled to think
how great was his debt. If suddenly called upon to refund the whole at
once, he would be a ruined man.
Of late Florus had grown very uneasy; the suspicion, nay, the certainty
seized him that the king was trying to establish a sinister hold over
him. There was in Polemo’s grave air and peculiar smile something that
seemed to say, “What I bid you do, you will do!” And Florus, feeling
himself chained hand and foot, durst not resent the other’s quiet
air of mastership, for these were the days, be it observed, when the
Roman law ordained that, whatever his rank (unless he belonged to the
imperial family, who, of course, were above all law) the debtor unable
to meet his liabilities must become the bond-slave of his creditor.
That Polemo had some end in view was certain, but what it could be,
Florus had, so far, not the least inkling.
One fact, however, became increasingly clear. Polemo, who in days gone
by had submitted to the rite of circumcision in order to gain the hand
of Berenice, had now no love either for Judaism or the Jews, and spoke
of the latter in terms of scorn and hatred.
Florus, disposed by nature to be harsh in dealing with the people
under his rule, seemed to receive a tacit if not direct encouragement
from Polemo; at any rate, he never left the king’s presence without
a determination to adopt new methods of repression, even though by
so doing he should run the risk of losing the favor of Berenice. It
seemed almost as if Polemo had set himself to counteract her influence;
and in truth Florus, swayed first by one and then by the other, had
vacillated strangely between right-doing and wrong-doing. His own
natural disposition, however, inclined him to follow the sinister
suggestions of Polemo, to such an extent as to make his procuratorship
more infamous in character than any that had preceded it.
Florus had often wondered what was the attitude of Polemo’s mind
towards Berenice, but on this point he could never quite satisfy
himself. When he had ventured, not without some diffidence, to intimate
his intention of wooing the king’s one-time wife, Polemo smiled,
bidding him succeed--if he could! And after that, whenever the two met,
Polemo never failed to inquire, not without a suggestion of sarcasm,
how the other’s suit was progressing.
He did the like on the present occasion.
“May her own Jewish devil, whom they call Satan, carry her off to
Tartarus,” was Florus’ elegant rejoinder.
“Ah! stands the case so? I thought ’twould have that ending. ’Twere
unwomanly of her to accept the love of a man already wedded, especially
as she herself----”
Florus wondered what was coming next, but Polemo had checked himself as
if about to say too much.
“I came not, however, to talk of Berenice,” he continued, “but of your
own desperate position.”
“A position for which you are in some measure responsible,” said Florus.
“Nay, this secret league with robber Zealots is a folly all your own. I
have advocated severity, but unfortunately your severities have never
gone far enough for my purpose.”
_His_ purpose? thought Florus. Did he think, then, to govern Judæa
through him? It would seem so.
“Your shafts have galled the animal merely without causing him to turn
and fight.”
“Be plainer with me.”
“My desire has been to see the Jews rise in revolt by reason of the
harshness of your administration. Your timid leniency has foiled my
aim. The Jews have _not_ risen.”
Florus grew secretly angry to think that he had been a tool alternately
to Polemo and Berenice, the more so as he had succeeded in giving
satisfaction to neither.
“’Twere better to carry out my policy. To goad the Jews into rebellion
is now your only hope of salvation. Your harsh dealing in the past will
then have some justification. You can plead that the character of the
people forced you against your will to be severe. Repressive measures
are required by a people always on the verge of breaking out into war.
Their revolt at this juncture will serve as a cloak to cover your
former misdeeds.”
Now, while Polemo was speaking thus, a new feeling came over Florus. He
found his anger giving place to a tingling sensation of pleasure, as
he recalled Berenice’s words that she cared for nothing but her people
and her religion. Here in the suggestion of Polemo was the opportunity
of striking at her through these twin idols of her affection. Among all
his schemes for hurting Berenice he had not thought of this. The very
thing! What a splendid vengeance it would be if he could successfully
goad the Jews into war, and then utilize that war as a means for
destroying both nation and temple!
There have been monsters in history; Florus was one of them. His
malevolence could contemplate with equanimity the extermination of a
whole people provided only that he could hurt Berenice by the action;
and if the groan of every dying victim should send an additional
torture to her heart, why then, the more that died the better!
But, as he fell to reflecting, his ardor cooled somewhat.
The scheme was all very fine, but, in spite of Polemo’s opinion to the
contrary, seemed likely to recoil upon his own head. How could the
governor that had purposely provoked a war hope to escape punishment at
the hands of Cæsar? He put the question to Polemo, who received it with
secret satisfaction, perceiving that Florus was quite willing to do the
work, if only he could emerge from it with safety.
“Fear not. Having performed your task, you disappear for a time. My
kingdom of Pontus shall afford you a safe asylum till the counselors
who surround Nero shall have persuaded him that you have in reality
done a good work.”
“Humph! will they be able to do so?” asked Florus, dubiously.
“They will,” answered Polemo. “Am I not the friend of Cæsar,” he
continued, exhibiting the ring whose stone was engraved with Nero’s
portrait, “entitled to stand at his right hand. I will show him that
you are a keen patriot; that all your outrages so called, even your
alliance with the Zealots, have been but the development of a profound
and subtle policy, all directed towards one aim only--the good of Rome.”
Florus, whose actions were never directed by anything but his own
self-interest, grinned at the notion of being taken for a patriot.
“The Jewish superstition,” continued Polemo, “is spreading, not only
among other nations, but also among the Romans themselves. The captive
is taking captive the conqueror. The Roman Senate sees in this wide
diffusion of Judaism a menace to the safety of the empire. How is it
to be stopped? There is but one way: destroy the temple at Jerusalem,
and you destroy the superstition. And since war is the only means of
accomplishing this end, Roman statesmen would be grateful to Florus
for initiating the war. Why should we show a false mercy to the Jew?
Consider Rome’s past policy towards him, and the return he makes for it.
“Rome does not seek, nor even wish, to impose her own gods upon any
of the subject nations. But how different is the case with the Jew,
who compasses sea and land to make one proselyte, and in the person of
Poppæa has all but captured the imperial throne itself. Not a city of
the empire but has its synagogue, though, forsooth, the Jew will not
permit a single Gentile temple to be erected on the so-called holy soil
of his own land--nay, would fly to arms should the thing be attempted.
“This people are seeking to Judaize the empire, and should this
proselytism continue at its present rate of progress, Rome is doomed.”
“How so?” asked the startled Florus.
“Because mankind, when Judaized, will turn, not to Rome, but to
Jerusalem, as the capital of the world, and the seat of ideas. The
high priest, and not Cæsar, will wield the scepter of empire; and,
since toleration is unknown to the Jew, Oriental barbarism will triumph
over Western civilization. Three times a year shall we be compelled to
appear at Jerusalem. The laws of the Twelve Tables will give place to
the precepts of the rabbis. Homer will be burnt in the market square;
the philosophy of Plato superseded by the Pentateuch of Moses. Our
circus games, Olympian contests, and theatrical plays will cease.
Sculpture will be forbidden; the fairest masterpieces of Phidias will
perish beneath the hammer of fanatics. The beautiful temples of Greece
will be given over to the flames--there must be but one temple only,
that of the jealous Hebrew God. All that gives to life brightness, and
beauty, and joy, will vanish forever from the world, and we must find
our chief pleasure in circumcision and the synagogue, in fastings and
Sabbaths.”
“By the gods, Polemo, you frighten me!” exclaimed Florus, contemplating
with dismay this picture of a Judaized world.
“I trust I do, for then you will the more readily carry out my designs
against the hateful race of fanatics, who will do all I have said,
if they be not checked. The existence of the Jew and his proselyte
ought not to be tolerated by the Roman; their very creed teaches them
disloyalty.”
“In what way?”
“How is the power of Rome maintained? Only by its army. Abolish the
legions, and how long, think you, would it be before the Northern
barbarians would come pouring over the Rhine and the Danube bent on our
overthrow? What part do the Jew and his proselyte take in our common
defense? None! Let a Roman subject become a disciple of the synagogue,
and though called upon, he obstinately refuses to serve in the army,
on the plea that he may have to march or to fight on the Sabbath day,
a thing forbidden by his religion. Rome has had to yield to them,
and hence the unwritten law exempting Jews and their proselytes from
military impressment. The Gaul and the Greek, the Spaniard and the
Egyptian, must be told off to defend the empire: you and I, dear
Florus, must shed our blood, in order, forsooth, that the Jew may have
leisure to trade upon us, and grow rich.”
“A piece of injustice, the very thought of which makes one savage,”
commented Florus.
“The Jew is _in_ the empire, but not _of_ it; he enjoys its advantages,
but refuses to pay for them. The wealth made by him in huckstering is
not employed to benefit the province where earned, but is sent to the
temple at Jerusalem, there to lie dormant. The drain of gold and silver
to the temple is so serious a matter as to have affected at times the
currency of a province, compelling its governor to forbid the export.[7]
“Why this piling up in the temple of treasure, amounting to millions of
aurei? Why? Because war cannot be carried on without gold. This hoard,
which the Jews would have us regard as merely the religious offerings
of pious souls, is in reality being accumulated for the purpose of
waging war against Rome.”
“I have often thought so myself,” said Florus, who had never thought
anything of the kind.
“You heard Simon the Zealot say that he had put his gold where no Roman
could touch it; what place did he mean if not the sanctuary of the
temple?--a sanctuary to which even Cæsar himself is denied access. I
warrant that the escaped Zealot will find asylum there, for before he
took to the mountains he was known to be the friend of Eleazar, the
captain of the temple, an officer whom you know to be outspoken in his
hatred of Rome. But to return from individuals to the nation. When they
deem the occasion ripe, they will of themselves declare war, a war
certain to begin at the passover time; for, on the pretext of coming
up to the feast, the Jews and their proselytes can be conveniently
summoned from every quarter of the empire. Rome hath never liked these
gatherings, and with reason. Their numbers grow year by year: at the
last passover the pilgrims swelled the population of Jerusalem to the
number of three hundred myriads. Ye gods! Think of it! Three million
fanatics all burning with a hatred of Rome allowed to assemble in
a city, said to be the strongest in the world! What can the Senate
be thinking of? Why should we wait till this nation be grown more
powerful? Even now there are rumors of alliances with nations outside
the borders of the empire--with Parthians beyond the Euphrates, and
with the Arabs of the desert. Every year increases _their_ strength,
and _our_ peril. But let their city and their temple be given to
the flames--which is what must happen in the event of war--and
their religion comes to an end; the day of proselytism is over; the
pilgrimages cease, for who will have faith in a deity powerless to
protect his temple? ‘The gods of Rome,’ ’twill be said, ‘are more
potent than he of Judæa.’ Judaism once destroyed, the empire is safe.
It is in your power, Florus, to do this, and I----”
“_Satis!_” cried the procurator. “You have said enough to convince me
that the destroying of this nation is a patriotic and righteous deed.”
But Polemo had still another argument left, more powerful than any
other. He had purposely kept it to the last.
He drew forth a small roll of parchment notes, which Florus recognized
as his own monetary acknowledgments.
“On the day that the Jews declare war, I shall burn these without
asking for repayment.”
CHAPTER VII
THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM
The first rays of morning sunlight were gilding the stately towers
of Cæsarea as the soldiers of the Italian Cohort filed through the
southern gate of the city.
They were marching on foot to Jerusalem, a journey of some sixty miles,
marching by the military road made by the Romans themselves, a highway
so well and durably paved that portions of it still remain after the
lapse of nearly two thousand years.
A little in advance of these troops, and justly proud of their fine and
martial appearance, rode the tribune Terentius Rufus, and at his side
was Crispus, mounted likewise upon a curveting steed.
On the previous day Nero’s edict had been posted up in the public
places of Cæsarea; it gave the precedency to the Greeks.
Now, though it was plain to the least observant that the city was
seething with excitement caused by the triumph of the one faction and
the mortification of the other, Rufus and his cohort had been commanded
by the procurator to return to Jerusalem on the ground that all was
quiet at Cæsarea!
“And Florus himself,” remarked Rufus, “is withdrawing to Sebaste with
his legion, so that the city will be entirely denuded of troops. Pluto
take me!” he continued, knitting his brows in perplexity, “if I can
understand his conduct save upon the supposition that he wants to
kindle the torch of war.”
The two rode on in silence for a while. Then Crispus, who from time
to time had been glancing back at the marching troops, said, with a
somewhat perplexed air:
“Rufus, there is something lacking in thy cohort. What is it? Ah! I
have it. The eagle! Where is it?”
“Purposely left behind in the Prætorium at Cæsarea.”
“Name of Mars!--why?”
“In going through Judæa we have to pay respect to the Jewish
superstition, which, as you know, regards all images with abhorrence.”
Crispus was for the moment dumb with indignation.
“What!” cried he. “We must not carry our standards in a country
conquered by us? Doth Rome rule Judæa, or Judæa Rome?”
“Judæa doth, in this matter at least, rule Rome.”
“I pray you, Rufus,” said Crispus, reining in his steed, “bid a
centurion return for the eagle.”
But Rufus shook his head.
“Pontius Pilate was of like mind with you. He made his first entry
into Jerusalem with figured banners. For three days and two nights the
Jewish populace howled, raged, and wept round his Prætorium. At the end
of the third day he sent his troops among them with drawn swords. The
Jews flung themselves prostrate, bared their necks, and cried that they
would rather die than see their laws broken.
“What could dismayed Pilate do? He couldn’t massacre a whole people in
the first week of his government. Compelled sullenly to yield, he sent
the ensigns back to Cæsarea. Since that day no troops dare venture into
Jerusalem save with plain banners.”
“Forbidden to carry the eagles,” muttered Crispus wrathfully. “How long
shall this be?”
“Till our next war with them, when we shall more thoroughly vindicate
the supremacy of Rome, and be masters in our own house.”
“When will that be?”
“’Tis but a matter of days, in my opinion.”
Days! To Crispus this was startling news, and yet not unwelcome.
“I carry with me a sealed letter,” continued Rufus, “addressed to King
Agrippa, who is at Jerusalem. He is, as you know, the brother of the
Princess Berenice, the nominator of the high priest, and the supreme
guardian of the temple treasures. The purport of the letter I know
not, but if I may judge from Florus’ sinister smile as he handed me
the missive, it contains some command which Agrippa will be loth to
execute. Should the Jews of Jerusalem support the king in his attitude,
it may prove the beginning of an outbreak whose end no man can foresee.
I may be wrong, Crispus, but I have a presentiment that in this letter
we are carrying the fate of Judæa.”
Crispus frowned. He loved fighting, but it seemed to him there would be
little honor and glory gained in reducing to submission a people goaded
to war by the deliberate oppression of an unjust governor.
The road traversed by the Romans wound southwards through the
flower-enameled meads that constitute the Plain of Sharon, never more
lovely than when seen in the soft sunshine of a May morning.
Now and again in their march the Romans would pass a gayly-clad group
of Jewish country-folk, many of them accompanied by asses and mules,
laden with timber.
“Pilgrims bound for Jerusalem,” explained Rufus in answer to Crispus’
inquiries. “Within a few days comes the Festival of the Xylophoria, or
the Wood-offering, when the Jews are accustomed to bring to the temple
supplies of timber sufficient to keep the sacrificial fires going for a
year.”
At a wayside spring a somewhat numerous caravan had made a brief halt
to refill their water-skins, and to refresh their beasts of burden. The
air was lively with the sound of timbrels, of songs, and of dances.
The approach of the clanging cohort, with its swinging martial stride,
put a sudden stop to the mirth.
“The Romans! the Romans!” was the cry.
Silent of tongue, but with eyes that looked unmistakable hatred, the
pilgrims drew aside to let the legionaries pass. One fierce-looking
Jew, bolder than his fellows, cried aloud: “To Gehenna with all
Gentiles!”
Rufus rode past with a smile of contempt.
“Yon fellow knows full well,” said he, “that if I choose, I can hang
him to the nearest tree, and yet the knowledge of that fact cannot keep
him from expressing his hatred of the Romans.”
“What is the Gehenna to which he would consign us?” asked Crispus, who
was not so well versed in Hebrew matters as Rufus.
“The Jewish Tartarus, a place of flame and torment, to which you and
I, no matter how virtuous our life, are destined to be sent, according
to the saying of the rabbis, ‘The Gentiles are only so much fuel for
Gehenna.’”
“They don’t love us, these Jews,” laughed Crispus.
“Hatred of the Roman is drawn in with the maternal milk. You see now
the necessity for maintaining so large a military force in Judæa.
Africa, once the seat of the Carthaginian empire, is kept in order
by a single legion. One legion, too, suffices for warlike Spain.
Greece, once so great in deeds of arms, hath no legion at all within
her bounds. These turbulent Jews require three legions. Think of it!
Thirty-six thousand men perpetually under arms in a province no larger
than our native Latium, so restless are these Jews, so hostile to our
rule.”
“Why that stoppage in front?” said Crispus, glancing ahead at a group
of distant pilgrims who had come to a sudden standstill in a way that
threatened to impede the march of the oncoming Romans.
“That,” replied Rufus, “is another proof of Jewish contempt for the
foreigner. The stone you see by the roadside marks the border of two
provinces. At present we are in heathen Phœnicia; pass that stone, and
we are in holy Judæa. Your Hebrew, on arriving at the frontier, takes
off his sandals and carefully wipes them, lest he should pollute the
sacred soil of Judæa by bringing upon it the profane dust of other
lands.”
Crispus looked, and saw that it was even as Rufus had said. Every Jew,
upon coming to the frontier-stone, removed his shoes, and either wiped
or shook them, a somewhat useless cleansing, seeing that a minute
afterwards the six hundred men of the Italian Cohort were bringing in
Phœnician dust with them.
“You are a patrician of Rome,” said Rufus, addressing Crispus, “proud
of your pure and lofty lineage, but know this, that if the vilest
beggar in Jerusalem should be touched by you on the eve of the passover
he would deem himself so unclean as to be unable to keep the feast.
Purification by bathing would entitle him to the privilege of the
supplementary passover held seven days later to meet such cases.”
A march of some twenty-five miles brought the cohort to Antipatris, a
military station guarding the line of communication between Cæsarea
and Jerusalem. Within the barracks of this town Rufus found ample
accommodation for his troops. At nightfall he and Crispus ascended to
the battlements of the Roman castle; from their lofty position the two
could see the whole extent of Sharon, from the mountains to the sea,
whitened by the silvery moonlight.
Far and wide over the landscape gleamed the fires of the Jewish
pilgrims, camping for the night under the leafy terebinth or by the
wayside spring.
“List!” said Rufus, with uplifted finger.
Floating upward from the valley below came the sound of many voices
conjoined in a mournful melody. Now and again Crispus could faintly
catch some of the words of the refrain.
“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning!”
As the breeze wavered, the voices rose and fell with a weird and
plaintive effect, and Crispus thrilled as he listened. There was, to
his way of thinking, a sob in every cadence--“How long, O Lord, how
long?”--a wild appeal to heaven for vengeance against their present
oppressor, the Roman.
A spirit of profound melancholy fell upon Crispus as he contemplated
the character of this strange Eastern nation. In his journey that day
every face seen by him, every incident that had happened, gave proof
that though Jew and Roman touched each other at a hundred points, they
were nevertheless as far apart as if seas rolled between them.
While all other nations of the empire, including even Greece, so
renowned in arts, arms, and learning, were content to live peaceably,
nay happily under the shadow of the eagle-wings of Rome, the Jew
maintained an attitude of sullen hostility to his conqueror.
How long was this antagonism to last? Was the Jew to remain forever a
thorn in the side of the empire, or must the solution of the problem
come, as Rufus was convinced it would, in the shape of an exterminating
war?
Next morning at sunrise the march was resumed. The road, that had
hitherto followed a line parallel with the coast, now turned inland,
and leaving the maritime plain behind them, the Romans began to ascend
the picturesque ravines that wind towards the rocky tableland upon
which Jerusalem is built.
Gophna, another military station, fifteen miles distant from the holy
city, was their second stopping-place.
At daybreak they began the third and final stage of their journey,
along a road dazzlingly white and dusty.
At the ninth hour of the morning the cohort was toiling through an
upland ravine. In front of them at some distance was a numerous body
of wood-bearing pilgrims. Suddenly, as their van gained the highest
point of the road, a thrilling shout broke from it, followed by a
precipitate hurrying forward on the part of all of those in the rear.
“Yerûshalaïm! Yerûshalaïm!” was the cry that rang out on the morning
air, the cry of the Jews.
“Hagiopolis! Hagiopolis!” exclaimed the Greek proselytes.
“Hierosolyma!” said Rufus quietly.
Impelled by a natural curiosity, Crispus pressed forward his steed,
and, as he gained the northern height of Scopus, the whole city at one
flash burst full upon his view.
He drew rein, and, with a lively interest, gazed upon the famous
city--“_longe clarissima urbium Orientis_”--whose origin was lost far
back in the night of antiquity, a city gray with age ere ever a stone
of Rome was laid!
A century earlier Jerusalem had presented a dull and even squalid
appearance; but, thanks to that magnificent despot, Herod the Great, a
monarch distinguished by his taste for Grecian architecture, the city
was now a dream of beauty, with its imperial mantle of proud towers;
its marble palaces gleaming through the clear, transparent air of a
Syrian morn; its stately colonnades and triumphal arches, interspersed
with the foliage of the tall and graceful palm; and, above all, the
pure, white temple, “a mount of alabaster, topped with golden spires,”
flashing in the morning sunlight with a splendor that forced the eyes
to turn aside.
Crispus looked at it, and thought of his dream.
“Mark me,” said Rufus, “it will never be well with Rome till yon fair
city be leveled with the dust, and the plow passed over it.”
Prophetic words!
If those Jews, among whom Crispus and Rufus were now making their way,
could but have foreseen the future, their daggers would have flashed
in the sunny air, and the two Romans would have been no more!
The supreme emotion evoked among the peasant pilgrims by the sight of
the holy city was expressed in characteristic fashion. Some laughed
aloud in the insanity of joy; others, with clasped hands and tears
in their eyes, sank upon their knees, and not a few among the women
fainted. Some pulled off their sandals, and walked barefoot towards
the city, as though the way were hallowed ground; others assumed their
richest robe, as if they were about to enter a holy synagogue. One
member of the throng, a Levite, lifting up a sonorous voice, began the
chanting of a psalm, appropriate to the occasion; and the refrain was
immediately taken up by the whole multitude, slow-moving towards the
city:
“The hill of Zion is a fair place, and the joy of the whole earth; upon
the north side lieth the citadel of the Great King.”
“Now, if by the Great King is meant Cæsar, which is to be doubted,”
remarked Rufus, “these fanatics are right. Thou seest yon edifice,
Crispus, towering high above the temple. ’Tis my Roman citadel, of
whose hospitality you must partake.”
Making their way through a region of groves and gardens, adorned with
the mansions of the wealthy residents, the Roman troops entered the
city, and threading its narrow, winding streets, came to their quarters
in the citadel Antonia, so named by Herod the Great in memory of his
friend and patron, Marc Antony, its usual name among the Jews being
Baris, or the Tower.
This fortress occupied the summit of a lofty rock, separated from the
mount on which the temple stood by a deep ravine, crossed by a line of
arches. As the temple--in itself a stronghold--dominated and looked
down upon the city, so did Antonia dominate and look down upon the
temple. Far above the golden roof of the sanctuary towered its haughty
battlements, adorned with the standard bearing the significant letters,
S.P.Q.R. Upon that proud banner, the visible symbol of Roman dominion,
no Jew ever looked save with a wrathful curse.
Leaving his men in their quarters, Rufus, losing no time, set off,
accompanied by Crispus, for the palace of Agrippa, bent on delivering
to that monarch the letter of Florus.
It was still early morning, and the streets, thronged by pilgrims,
new-arriving, presented an animated and busy aspect, which would
disappear later, when the heat of noontide would usher in the quietude
of the siesta.
Suddenly, high above the sounds produced by the restless throng, there
rose a voice, and one so weird that Crispus had never before heard the
like. At its hollow tone, voices, sounds, footsteps, ceased. A hush as
of death fell over all.
Along the middle of the street, and moving at a pace that never changed
from its slow and measured uniformity, came a wild-eyed, melancholy
figure, clad in a single robe of camel’s hair, and tied at the waist
with a leathern girdle.
His arms were raised to heaven; he glanced neither to right nor left;
his face was like a mask of stone, set in one unchanging expression of
woe.
No man stopped him; no man questioned him; all knew the uselessness of
it.
He was a familiar figure to the people, but familiarity had never
lessened one thrill of the awe felt by them whenever he appeared.
“A voice from the East, a voice from the West, a voice from the fours
winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against
the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people.
Woe, woe to Jerusalem!”
The people stood, as they always stood when he passed by, immovable,
silent, wondering. Did they behold a madman, or one in whom was the
spirit of the ancient prophets?
“Who is yon fellow?” asked Crispus, watching the figure as it receded
in the distance.
“Jesus, the son of Hanan. ’Tis four years since he began to appear at
the yearly feasts, traversing the streets and uttering the woe that we
have just heard. Brought before the tribunal of the procurator Albinus,
and questioned, he would answer only, ‘Woe, woe to Jerusalem!’ Though
scourged till his bones were laid bare, he maintained during it all a
dry eye and a stony countenance, uttering the while his weird plaint.
He seems to be, not a man, but a voice.”
“The voice of some god, it may be,” muttered Crispus, upon whose mind
the incident had left a singular impression. “Doomed Troy had its
Cassandra, whom none would believe until too late. So, too, Jerusalem
seems to have its prophet, to whom this foolish people, that dream of
war, would do well to give heed.”
Resuming their walk, the two friends ascended the slope of Mount Zion,
and came to the old Asamonean Palace, the residence of King Agrippa.
“Aren’t you coming in with me?” asked Rufus, as Crispus hesitated. “We
may encounter the Princess Berenice.”
Crispus turned away, saying he would await his friend’s return in the
Xystus close by. Rufus looked after him in some wonderment.
“For the future,” he muttered, “I had better refrain from mentioning
Berenice’s name; it seems to trouble him.”
Rufus, on being admitted to the presence of Agrippa, found him seated
at a table. In person he was tall and slender. Delicate and refined in
features, and dressed in the height of Jewish fashion, he presented,
at any rate in the eyes of the sturdy Roman, a somewhat effeminate
appearance. On one side of him was his sister Berenice, who had arrived
at Jerusalem the preceding night; on the other was an elderly man with
a hooked nose, thin lips, and a yellow polished forehead, who looked
like a typical rabbi, as indeed he was, being none other than Simeon,
the son of the celebrated Gamaliel. Before him lay an ink-horn and
a parchment-scroll; between his fingers was a calamus or reed pen.
Evidently he had been composing some document with the aid of his royal
friends, and all three were looking as if very well pleased with their
work. Rufus wondered whether they would look so well pleased after
reading the document that _he_ was bringing for them.
“This prayer,” said Simeon, laying his hand upon the parchment-scroll
before him, “this prayer will serve as a fan to winnow the chaff from
the wheat.”
The three looked up as Rufus entered. He, being the commandant of
Antonia, was a great man in Jerusalem, and they therefore received him
affably.
“And what would the excellent Rufus with us?” asked Agrippa.
The excellent Rufus handed the letter to the king, who took it between
his delicate jeweled fingers and broke the seal. While he was doing
this Berenice rose from the table, and drawing near to Rufus addressed
him in a low tone.
“Did you leave Crispus at Cæsarea?”
Her tone and look, betraying more than ordinary interest in the absent
Roman, came as a revelation to Rufus.
“As I live,” he thought, “this woman loves Crispus.” Aloud he answered,
“Nay, princess, he hath accompanied me to Jerusalem.”
“Where is he now?” she asked eagerly.
And Rufus, knowing that it would bring trouble into those beautiful
eyes were she to learn that the phlegmatic Crispus preferred the
miscellaneous crowd in the Xystus to the attractions of the Asamonean
Palace, replied, “I left him in Antonia.”
What other question she might have asked was interrupted by Agrippa,
who, having mastered the contents of the epistle, was frowning
terribly. He called his sister to his side and handed her the letter.
She knit her brows as she read, and in turn passed the missive to
Simeon, who, after duly perusing it, seemed to be more angry than his
royal patrons.
They were quiet for a time, all thinking.
“Submit not to this demand,” said Berenice passionately, addressing her
brother, “since submission will be quoted as a precedent; we shall be
virtually acknowledging his right to make such claim. One oppression
will lead to another.”
“True, but on the other hand,” returned Agrippa, “if he should seek
to make good his demand by force of arms ’twill lead to tumult and
bloodshed--nay, even to open rebellion, for at this present time the
popular mind is strung to a high state of tension by prophets who
predict the near advent of the Messiah’s kingdom.”
Turning to Rufus he said aloud:
“You know the contents of this letter?”
“Indeed, no. I was told no more than to press for an immediate answer.”
“I will defer my reply till to-night.”
Rufus bowed and withdrew.
“I am the cause of this,” said Berenice sorrowfully.
“You, princess! How?” exclaimed Simeon.
“This is Florus’ way of taking vengeance upon me because I have
declined to listen to his wooing.”
CHAPTER VIII
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE ROYAL SYNAGOGUE
The heat of noontide had passed, and Crispus, under the guidance of
Rufus, was spending his time in viewing the city. It might be thought
that the Temple would be the first place visited by him, but this Rufus
reserved for the night, when, by virtue of his office as commandant of
Antonia, he would be able to exhibit that edifice--or as much of it as
was permissible for a Gentile to see--by the tender light of the moon,
and freed from the crowds that frequented its courts during the day.
“And what place is that?” asked Crispus, pointing to a quadrangular
edifice of white stone, over whose portal was written in Hebrew
characters the word “_Shalom_,” or “Peace.”
“The Royal Synagogue, so called,” answered Rufus, necessity here
compelling him to break a certain injunction he had laid upon himself,
“so called as having been raised by the Princess Berenice at her own
private expense. Among the Jews, if you would gain a character for
piety, build a synagogue.”
“Is the worship going on?”
The proximity of a sun-dial enabled Rufus to give an answer. “It is a
little before the ninth hour, which constitutes the _Arabith_, or time
of evening prayer. Worship will begin shortly. You see the pious are
already hurrying thither.”
“I have never yet seen a synagogue service,” said Crispus, “and would
fain see one.”
“I deplore your taste, but for friendship’s sake I’ll accompany you.
’Tis the fashion of the Jews, as you see, to run to their synagogue,
by way of showing their eagerness for divine worship. But we, who are
dignified Romans, can take it more leisurely.”
Discoursing thus, Rufus drew near the Royal Synagogue.
“A small edifice, this, but neat,” he continued. “Now if you want to
see something really splendid in a synagogic shape, go to Alexandria
and view the Diapleuston, with its seventy golden chairs for the
seventy members of the Sanhedrim; and as for size, so vast is it that
the signal for the ‘Amen’ has to be given by the waving of a flag. ’Tis
a striking scene!”
As they stood upon the threshold, Rufus addressed the decurion that was
in attendance upon him. “It is forbidden to wear arms in the synagogue;
therefore, Quintus, take charge of my good sword, and tarry here till I
come again. Doff we our sandals, Crispus, for ’tis the custom to enter
barefoot.”
Access was gained to the interior of the synagogue by a vestibule. Here
stood the doorkeeper. He recognized in Rufus the commandant of Antonia,
and at the latter’s desire conducted the two visitors to a place at the
rear, where, screened by a pillar, they could see without being seen.
The interior of the synagogue was very similar to that of a basilica,
being oblong in shape and divided by pillars into aisles.
The worshipers were ranged, the men on the one side and the women on
the other, a partition about four feet high running between them--a
striking contrast to the modern synagogic usage of placing the women in
side galleries, screened with lattice-work.
At the farther end of the building was a platform or daïs, on which
stood the ark, or coffer, containing the rolls of the sacred books.
Before it rose a golden candlestick, with seven branches.
“A copy of the one in the temple,” observed Rufus.
In front of the platform was a line of seats, whose occupants, mostly
aged rabbis, sat facing the congregation. These were the places of
honor, the “chief seats” so much coveted by every Jew; and here, by
special privilege, as being the foundress of the synagogue, sat the
Princess Berenice.
“Who is that sitting on the right of the princess?” asked Crispus.
For reply Rufus drew forth a golden coin, and pointed to its obverse,
which bore the legend, “Agrippa, the Great King.”
Crispus, knowing that Agrippa’s realm of Chalcis was of less extent
than many a Roman estate, asked:
“In what is he great?”
“In his own esteem, and in the knowledge of his own law, being expert
‘in all customs and questions which are among the Jews.’ We shall
perhaps have the pleasure of hearing him read from the Law and the
Prophets, since he is fond of so doing.”
“And what is that short marble pillar at one side of the daïs?”
“That is the Red Column. Offenders against synagogic discipline are
tied to it and scourged.”
Rufus had scarcely said this when the people rose to their feet, the
customary attitude for prayer.
The shelîach, or “angel,” who presided over this part of the worship
was Simeon, the son of Gamaliel, and he began with an announcement that
caused no little surprise among the members of the congregation.
There was to be made, beginning with that very day, an addition to
the current liturgy of the synagogue, an addition necessitated by the
conduct of those impious sectaries, the Nazarenes.
“Who are the Nazarenes?” whispered Crispus.
“The Christians,” replied Rufus.
It was well known--so ran the tenor of Simeon’s remarks--that in spite
of their changed faith, these apostates, being in no way recognizable,
since they preserved the outward semblance of orthodox Jews, were
in the habit of resorting to the synagogues, and of joining in the
worship, thus defiling the holy people by their presence. As such mixed
worship could not be acceptable to God, the true Jew must take steps
to preserve himself from such defilement. Therefore for the future the
initiatory prayer would be of a character such as no Nazarene could
join in without at the same time abjuring his faith, since it contained
curses directed against Jesus, the son of Panther.[8] That prayer he
would now proceed to recite, and let each member of the congregation
mark well his neighbor, and take due note of him who should refuse to
ratify it with the customary “Amen.”
“Who is Jesus, the son of Panther?” asked Crispus.
“The same as he whom we call Christus. His disciples say that he was
born of a pure virgin--a manifest impossibility. The Jews, with more
reason, assert that his mother committed adultery with a soldier named
Panther.”
Now, as Crispus was passing his eyes over the congregation at this
juncture, he happened to see what had hitherto escaped his notice.
Vashti was standing among the worshipers. She was pale, very pale;
the expression of her face, the very attitude of her figure, were
suggestive of mental distress.
For a moment Crispus was puzzled to account for her agitation; then the
truth like a flash of light darted into his mind. Vashti had a secret,
and one that could no longer be kept hidden by her unless she chose to
play the traitress to her conscience, and that, he felt certain, she
would not do.
“Cursed be Jesus, the Son of Panther!”
A shiver passed over Vashti; she compressed her lips tightly, while
from every other Jewish mouth there flew an “Amen!” uttered with a
vehemence that spoke of a fierce and vindictive hatred.
Ere Simeon could come to his next sentence, a man by the partition--it
was Sadas, Berenice’s freedman--who had been intently watching Vashti,
suddenly raised his arm to attract attention, and cried in a voice that
penetrated to every corner of the congregation:
“Holy rabbi, here is one who refuses to say ‘Amen’ to that anathema.”
Amid the breathless silence that followed, all eyes turned, first upon
the speaker, then upon the person pointed out by his accusatory finger.
The congregation doubted. This maiden, so regular in her attendance at
the synagogue, daughter of the rabbi Hyrcanus, and ward of the orthodox
Josephus, an apostate? It could not be.
“Vashti, daughter of Hyrcanus,” said Simeon gravely, “do you refuse to
join in the common voice of the synagogue?”
Vashti was silent.
“Cursed be Jesus, the son of Panther! Do you not say ‘Amen’ to this
anathema?”
At this, which to her mind was blasphemy, the girl’s spirit took fire.
“I do not. It is our duty not to curse, but to bless.”
“Are you wiser than our fathers and the prophets who were wont to curse
the enemies of the faith?”
“They belonged to a covenant that is past. Besides, even they did not
curse the dead.”
“Then curse we the living!” cried Simeon angrily. “Cursed be the whole
tribe of Christians! Do you say ‘Amen’ to that?”
“In doing so I should be cursing myself.”
From the age of twelve, her time of joining the synagogue, Vashti, by
reason of the sweetness of her disposition and of her liberality in
alms-giving, had won the favor of the whole congregation. But now, all
in a moment, that favor was withdrawn. Jewish bigotry asserted itself.
The knowledge that she had become a Christian converted friends into
enemies. She found herself surrounded by dark and scowling faces.
“Judgment!” cried Sadas, the man who had accused her; and a hundred
voices took up the cry, “Judgment!”
In the Hebrew word for synagogue--Beth-din, or House of Judgment--is
expressed one of its peculiarities; besides being a place of worship,
the synagogue was also--and this with the sanction of the Romans
themselves--a judicial court for the trial of such offenders as were
accused of violating the precepts of Judaism.
“Let the damsel be brought hither,” said Simeon in cold judicial tones.
The many hands put forth to push her forward were needless; of her own
free will she walked from her place to the front of the congregation.
Her girlish figure standing all alone before the crowd of wrathful
spectators failed to elicit their sympathy; the gray-haired elders,
who were her judges, had likewise hearts of marble; neither youth
nor beauty had power to influence them in the matter of a person
apostatizing to the hateful creed of the Nazarenes.
“Damsel,” said Simeon, “we require no witnesses of thy guilt. Out of
thine own mouth thou standest condemned as being a Christian. Yet are
we minded to give thee time for reflection. Thou mayest, if thou wilt,
withdraw thy statement.”
“I cannot withdraw the statement, for it is true. I am a Christian.”
Fierce cries broke forth from the assembly: “Traitress! Apostate!
Nazarene!”
“How long hast thou been a Christian?”
“’Tis a matter of a few weeks only.”
“You have received the baptism prescribed by this heresy?”
Vashti signified assent.
“Who was he that baptized thee?”
“I may not name him.”
“Doth our city contain many of this faith?”
“Very many.”
“Name some,” commanded Simeon. This he said, not believing that she
would do so, but knowing that her refusal would add to the wrath of the
assembly.
“Even among the heathen to betray one’s friends is counted base. How
much more, then, among Christians?”
“By revealing their names you will be doing much towards redeeming
yourself from the punishment that otherwise will most surely come upon
you.”
“Not even to redeem myself from death will I betray my friends.”
“Come, girl, be not obstinate. Who were they that persuaded you to
adopt Christianity?”
“The Law and the Prophets chiefly.”
“You blaspheme.”
“Nay, give me leave to speak, and I will show you that our so-called
new faith is but the fulfillment and completion of the old.”
“This damsel resembles her master Paul,” sneered Agrippa. “With a
little talking she thinks to make us Christians.”
Simeon, seeking to prejudice her still more in the opinion of the
narrow-minded Jews, to whom all Gentile learning was an abomination,
continued:
“You have given much time to the study of the Greek writings?”
“As did your father Gamaliel,” was the quiet reply. “If it were a
virtue in him, why seek to make it a fault in me?”
“Hear, O Israel,” said Simeon, addressing the assembly, “in my father’s
school were a thousand students, of whom five hundred studied the
wisdom that is in the Law; and to-day they are all living, and held in
honor. And there were five hundred who studied the Grecian vanities,
and to-day there is not one of them alive.”[9] He paused for a moment,
and then put the customary question:
“Can anyone here present show just cause why punishment should not be
inflicted upon Vashti, daughter of Hyrcanus?”
Vashti looked round upon the assembly, but in the words of the Psalmist
she had become a stranger to her brethren, an alien among her mother’s
children. There was none that would speak a good word for her.
“There are two persons here,” said Vashti, “who can testify, if they
would, that my change of creed is not deserving of punishment.”
“Who are these witnesses?”
“King Agrippa for one.”
That monarch, upon hearing himself appealed to, regarded Vashti with a
languid and scornful gaze.
“Thou callest upon _me_ to testify in thy favor?”
“O king, after Paul of Tarsus had set forth his tenets before your
tribunal, did you not say, ‘This man doeth nothing worthy of death or
of bonds’? My faith is but the same with his. Since you pronounced
_him_ innocent, how can you declare _me_ guilty?”
These words put the king in a very awkward dilemma. Deny them he could
not; to confirm them would be equivalent to a declaration of her
innocence. He shrugged his shoulders, and, like the coward that he was,
took refuge in silence.
“And who is the other witness?” asked Simeon, after a very awkward
pause.
“Yourself,” replied Vashti. “Will _you_ not plead for me, you whose
grandsire Simeon held the infant Jesus in his arms, calling him ‘The
glory of the people of Israel’?--you, whose sire Gamaliel, speaking of
the apostles of Christ, said, ‘Refrain from these men, and let them
alone’?”
Simeon’s face darkened, and he turned away. Every word spoken by Vashti
did but increase the wrath of her judges, who wanted, not argument,
but submission and recantation.
No more questions were asked. The council, drawing together, conferred
in whispers around the chairs of Agrippa and Berenice.
Having agreed in their verdict, the judges returned to their seats--all
save one, a noble and gentle-looking elder, who said with a ring of
indignation in his voice:
“I protest!”
But his protest availed nothing. Unable to save Vashti or to bear the
sight of her punishment, he walked from the synagogue amid the somewhat
angry murmurs of the assembly.
“Who is he?” asked Crispus.
“Johanan ben Zacchai, wisest and best of the rabbis. Though he himself
is an orthodox Pharisee, his father Zacchai, or--to Grecize the
name--Zacchæus, a wealthy publican of Jericho, is said to have been a
secret Christian. Hence his sympathy for poor Vashti. Are you going to
intervene on her behalf?”
“Anon. Let us first see what her punishment is to be.”
Simeon now rose to pronounce judgment.
“Vashti, daughter of Hyrcanus, your punishment is a twofold one; you
will receive forty lashes save one, and you will be shorn of your
tresses.”
The vindictive character of the sentence set Crispus’ blood on fire.
“To be shorn of her tresses?” he murmured. “Such a suggestion as that
could proceed only from a woman’s mind. Princess Berenice, your hand is
in this.”
Vashti, on hearing her doom, swayed, and would have fallen to the
ground but for the officers who supported her on each side. She had
expected some such penalty as the payment of a fine, or excommunication
from the synagogue. But the loss of her hair--the glory of a woman! And
_scourging_! The mere physical pain of this last was as nothing in her
eyes compared with the horror of being stripped to the waist in the
sight of all the congregation.
A mist swam before her eyes; her face, pale before, now became deathly
white; she tried to speak, but her tongue failed her.
Looking for all the world like one insane, she turned her swimming gaze
upon the assembly, but saw no pity in their set faces. What punishment
could be too severe for a Nazarene? Nay, verily, let her be thankful
that her doom was not stoning, as it assuredly would have been but for
the humiliating fact that the death penalty required the sanction of
the hateful governor, Florus.
And now appeared the executioner carrying the dreadful whip, a wooden
shaft with three long ox-hide thongs, thirteen strokes from which made
the conventional thirty-nine stripes. The Law allowed forty, but the
Jews, affecting to be merciful, diminished that number by one.
“Pull off her garment, and bind her to the Red Column.”
At these dreadful words Vashti, rendered strong by agony, broke from
her guards, and moving swiftly forward fell on her knees before
Berenice.
“Princess, you are a woman. Have pity on me. If I must be scourged let
me--let me retain my vesture.”
The two officers who had followed Vashti fell back at a sign from
Berenice. Bending forward from her seat, she said in a whisper:
“_My hour of triumph now. It was yours at Cæsarea._”
At her chilling tone Vashti shrank back. Her eyes became big with
horror as the truth suddenly flashed upon her that the whole synagogue
proceeding was a plot, formed by the jealousy of Berenice, who feared
that Vashti was seeking to win the love of Crispus. Suspecting her
to be a Christian, she had induced Simeon to compose the new prayer,
purposing by this means to wreak her vengeance upon the girl whose
beauty had been preferred to her own.
This sudden revelation of the character of the princess, the subtlety
of her plot, the wickedness of masking it under the guise of religion,
came upon Vashti with a shock so great as almost to drive the scourging
from her mind. For the moment her only thought was, how could the
princess be so wicked?
“Officers, the lash!” said Berenice, spurning the suppliant girl with
her foot.
“Hold, let the maiden be!” cried a voice coming from the rear of the
synagogue.
There was a great start on the part of Berenice, who knew not till then
that Crispus was in the synagogue.
Vashti started, but it was with joy. Gone in a moment was her sense
of fear. She turned her eyes from the two men who held her to the
stately figure of the Roman stalking up the floor of the synagogue,
determination written upon his countenance. Her trusting and beautiful
smile set Berenice’s heart thrilling with pangs of jealousy impossible
to describe. Her plot for the humiliation of Vashti seemed likely to
end in creating another link of sympathy between the two whom she would
fain keep apart.
Amid a death-like silence Crispus, followed by the faithful Rufus, made
his way to the front. There was in his cold eye a gleam that caused the
two officers to let go Vashti, who, released from their hold, would
have fallen but for the supporting arm of Crispus.
He turned to face the angry assembly, who were beginning to murmur at
seeing the hateful “apostate” snatched from their hands by an authority
equally hateful. A stranger in Jerusalem, Crispus was unknown both
to the congregation and to Agrippa, which last took him to be some
meddlesome officer from Antonia, bent on exercising an authority to
which he had no claim.
He started to his feet with an angry air.
“Who is this that seeks to interfere with the course of Jewish justice?
Know you not that I am Agrippa, the great king? Who art thou?”
“My friend,” said Rufus quietly, “is Crispus Cestius, son of the Syrian
Legate, a maker of kings, and--an unmaker.”
This answer completely confounded Agrippa. He recognized the wisdom of
becoming immediately humble. The authority of the Proprætor of Syria,
the Ruler of the East, soared far above that of Judæan procurators
and Herodian kings. A hint from him to the Roman Senate that Agrippa
was unworthy of his post would be quite sufficient to deprive him of
his crown. Smoothing his brows, and assuming a smile that in no way
harmonized with his inward feelings, he said:
“And what would the noble Crispus have of us?”
“The release of this maiden.”
The politic Agrippa, on the point of granting the request, was stayed
by his more strong-minded sister, who was not disposed to let the
captive go without at least a protest.
“By whose authority do you make this demand?”
“By that of the Legate of Syria.”
“Will you let us see in the Legate’s own handwriting the order for the
release of Vashti, daughter of Hyrcanus?” said Berenice, sarcastically.
“He acts by me, his secretary and deputy.”
“How know we that he will confirm your act?”
“Should he refuse to do so I will restore the maiden to your hands,”
said Crispus, who knew that he was quite safe in giving this pledge.
Taking courage by his sister’s example, Agrippa now ventured upon a
mild protest.
“But, noble Crispus, you are infringing Jewish rights. The Legate hath
no jurisdiction over the internal affairs of our synagogues.”
Crispus gave a disdainful smile.
“The authority of Cestius Gallus is supreme over every matter, small
or great, within the province of Syria; he has power to reverse any
judicial sentence, whether of basilica or synagogue, that he deems
unjust, as he will certainly deem this to be when it comes to his
hearing. Do you question his authority, O king?”
Berenice answered for her brother.
“It is not to be doubted,” said she, “that a fond father will ratify
the action of a foolish son. Pronounce the damsel free, Agrippa. Cæsar
at Rome may burn Christians alive, but we of Judæa must not even whip
them. The great Crispus forbids it.” And gathering her robe around her
she swept out with a proud and scornful air.
The two Romans--no man daring to stay them--proceeded to remove the
trembling Vashti from the synagogue, and, attended by the decurion
Quintus, they conducted her to the gate of her house in the street of
Millo.
“So, Vashti, you are a Christian?” said Crispus. “I think I understand
now the allusion in the poet Bianor, ‘By the Fish we are saved.’”
She smiled, pleased to think that he had remembered her words.
“Under the name of ‘The Fish,’” said she, “we symbolize our Divine
Master, who leads us through the waters of baptism.”
As she spoke--they were standing at the time within the gateway of
her dwelling--their ears were caught by the tread of numerous feet
accompanied by fierce cries, and looking whence these sounds proceeded
they saw, coming at a quick pace and with faces expressive of the
wildest excitement, a mob of Jews, some carrying steel weapons and
others wooden clubs.
In a moment the three Romans sprang within the stone passage, dragging
Vashti with them, and closed and barred the gate.
They soon discovered, however, that they were not the objects of
attack; it was doubtful whether they had even been seen. Like the rush
of a whirlwind the crowd swept past the gateway, rending the air with
their cries.
Similar sounds, proceeding from the adjacent streets, showed that these
also were being traversed by excited throngs.
“Down with Florus!” shouted some.
“That’s a saying with which I can very well sympathize,” said Rufus.
“Death to the Romans!” cried others.
“Ha! that’s a different matter. That touches you and me,” he continued,
addressing Crispus.
“The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord! Sacrilege! Sacrilege!”
Successive waves of people rolled along the street, voluble women
among them, dragging their slow-moving children by the hand. Their
fragmentary talk soon enabled the listening Romans to gather the cause
of all this excitement.
Florus had sent to Agrippa demanding seventeen talents from the Corban,
saying that he wanted them for Cæsar.
The Jewish mind was fired to wrath not so much by the amount
itself--which was rather a small one for a man of Florus’ rapacity,
the sum being about £6,000 in modern English currency--but by the fact
that the demand was made upon the Corban or Temple treasury. The gold
deposited there was regarded as sacred to Jehovah, to be used only in
His service; the diverting of even a single shekel of it to any other
purpose was, in the eyes of the frenzied Jew, one of the greatest of
crimes. It would be a crime if committed by the high priest himself;
but when the demand came from a heathen, unclean, uncircumcized,
rapacious, whose object, as all well knew, was not to transmit the
money to Cæsar but to spend it upon his own sensual pleasures, it
was no wonder that the contemplated profanation should fire the blood
of every Jew, and send him running with all haste to prevent the
sacrilegious deed.
“It is as I have said,” whispered Rufus to Crispus. “Florus is
purposely trying to create a revolt.”
“Vain is it for Rome to boast of her justice,” sighed Crispus, “when
she sends forth governors such as Florus.”
“If there be an uproar in the temple,” continued Rufus, “it is my duty
to quell it.”
As soon as the street of Millo had become comparatively quiet the three
Romans stole forth, taking a wide circuit so as to arrive upon the
north side of Antonia, the side farthest from the temple.
On their way they encountered a company of youthful and richly-dressed
Jews, who, basket on arm, in imitation of beggars, were soliciting alms
by way of casting ridicule upon the procurator.
“Give an obolus for Florus, he is so poor!” they whined in a mocking
voice.
“Woe to them if Florus gets to hear of it!” muttered Rufus.
On arriving at the Turris Antonia he found that his centurions had
taken all precautions for the safety of the fortress. Upon the roof of
the cloisters facing the bridge that connected the fortress with the
temple, the Italian Cohort was drawn up in all the glittering panoply
of war, their silence and discipline presenting a striking contrast to
the tumult and disorder that was raging not many yards distant.
The temple-courts were filled with a crowd so numerous that it seemed
as if the whole city must have assembled there. To the mind of Crispus
with his Roman love of order there was something peculiarly repulsive
in the spectacle before him. It was an Oriental mob, and like all
Oriental mobs when inflamed with rage, its units behaved like frenzied
demons. They spat towards the Romans; they tossed their garments; they
shook their fists; they yelled out curses; they cast dust into the air.
The wilder spirits among them took to flinging stones, the rattle of
which, falling upon the brazen armor of the soldiery, was audible above
the tumult of voices; of all which the superbly disciplined Roman
troops took no more heed than a man takes of gnats on a summer eve.
Rufus, advancing to the head of the stairs that descended to the
temple-court, lifted his hand. The sign was perceived and understood,
but it was some time ere the crowd quieted down to a listening mood.
Standing upon the very place where, eight years previously, Saint Paul
had addressed a raging mob, and speaking in the same language--the
Syro-Chaldaic--Rufus sought to pacify the fears of the multitude.
Florus, it seemed, had demanded seventeen talents to be taken from the
Corban. He--Rufus--was not prepared to say that the Jews were wrong in
resenting this demand; as the servant of Florus it was not his business
to criticise the actions of his master, but the Jews were certainly
wrong in their way of showing their disapproval. The lawful method
was to dispatch an embassy to Florus to state why they considered the
demand unreasonable. Let them do so without delay. If they were now
assembling under the belief that he--Rufus--was going to invade their
sanctuary for the purpose of seizing the seventeen talents they were in
error; he had not received any such order from Florus, and till such
order came he would be endangering his own head if he should venture
to forestall the will of the procurator. They could, therefore, depart
quietly to their homes in the full assurance that their treasures would
remain untouched for that day, at least, and probably for several days
to come. As to what might ultimately happen, well, it was not wise to
anticipate evil.
Rufus had scarcely made an end of speaking when on the still air rose
the chiming of the silver trumpets, blown by the priests as a signal
that the hour had come for the closing of the temple.
The crowd murmured, hesitated, but finally departed in peaceful
fashion, and the great temple-courts were left to silence.
CHAPTER IX
“LET US GO HENCE!”
It was the evening of Crispus’ first day in Jerusalem, and Rufus, who,
as the Roman overlord of the temple, had free access to its outer
courts during any hour of the day or night, now suggested a quiet and
contemplative walk around its cloisters.
“Come!” said he, “and I will show you THE STRONGEST FORTRESS IN THE
WORLD!”
By the glorious light of an Eastern moon, that silvered the sleeping
city and the peaceful hills around it, the two Romans crossed the arch
connecting the fortress Antonia with the northern side of the Temple
Hill, the hill anciently known by the name of Mount Moriah.
They descended a flight of stairs and entered the northern cloister
of the temple, a cloister divided into two long aisles by lines of
marble columns, forty feet in height, and formed of marble, beautifully
polished.
“Each of these columns,” remarked Rufus, “consists of a single block.”
The roof of the cloister was of cedar, curiously graven, and the
pavement a mosaic of many colors.
This magnificent colonnade was reared upon the very edge of the scarped
cliff, and extended in a direct line east and west for a length of more
than one thousand feet.
“The temple-platform,” observed Rufus, “as you will see, after having
gone round it, forms an irregular quadrangle, and occupies the flat
summit of a precipitous rock. We’ll inspect all four sides in turn.
First, what think you of this, the northern side?”
Crispus turned his eyes upon Antonia, frowning white in the moonlight
from the other side of the ravine.
“Throw down that arch,” said he, “and you make this side of the temple
practically unassailable, and--but whom have we here?” he added,
breaking off suddenly.
Slowly making their way along the cloister came a band of men clothed
in semi-military garb, and bearing spears. A few carried torches, whose
yellow glare was reflected from the polished surface of column and
pavement.
“Be it known to you,” said Rufus, “that the temple has _two_ captains,
Roman and Jewish. While it is my duty from Antonia to keep watch _over_
the temple, it is the duty of yon officer to keep watch _within_ it.
This is the Levitical guard going its round. Woe to the sentinel whom
they find asleep. They’ll beat him with clubs, or wake him by setting
fire to his clothing.”
“Who is the fierce-looking hero marching at their head?”
“That, my dear Crispus, is the rival captain of the temple, Eleazar,
son of the ex-high priest Ananias, whom you have already seen at
Cæsarea. Betwixt father and son is open war. Ananias, suave and polite,
courts the good graces of the Romans; Eleazar, sullen and fierce,
boasts his hatred of us. He is said to be secretly leagued with Zealot
banditti, and to have known more than he ought of the doings of Simon
the Black. Indeed, Quintus is of opinion that the fugitive Zealot,
with the connivance of Eleazar, is at the present moment hiding within
the sanctuary. If so, he is secure from arrest, for Cæsar himself may
not enter there. So deep a scorn hath this Eleazar for Romans that he
refuses to return their salutations. Be thyself a witness.”
The Levitical guard had by this time reached the place where the two
Romans were standing.
“Peace to you, Eleazar,” said Rufus, raising his hand in salute.
But the Jewish captain marched past at the head of his guard, taking no
notice whatever of the Roman.
Rufus laughed with good-humored contempt.
“What did I tell you?” said he to Crispus. “That was not well done,
Eleazar,” he called out after the receding figure. “Johanan ben Zacchai
makes it his boast[10] that he never yet let Gentile forestall him in
giving the salaam.”
Speaking thus, Rufus led the way to the eastern cloister, which,
extending in an even line due north and south, formed the second side
of the irregular square.
“Now here we have a truly Titanic work,” he said. “When the temple was
first planned by an ancient king called Solomon, he found the summit of
the hill too small for his architectural ideas, so what did he do but
rear a wall sheer up from the valley below till it was on a level with
the top of the mount; the vacancy betwixt the wall and the mount was
then filled in with earth and stone, and on the esplanade thus formed
was built this grand colonnade, which we now see; hence its name,
Solomon’s Colonnade. From the summit of yon pinnacle at the southeast
corner the plumb-line falls a sheer descent of four hundred and fifty
feet--at least so say the priests who have measured it. Cast your eye
downward, and mark the depth!”
As Crispus leaned far over the stone balustrade, and ran his eye first
to the right and then to the left along the vast mass of masonry,
rising vertically in mid-air, he muttered: “The gods themselves would
not dare attack the temple from this side.”
Far down, scarcely visible, glinted a slender line of water.
“The brook Cedron,” said Rufus, “flowing to-day, dry in summer. The
name Cedron, or Black, is justly deserved, for into the rivulet flows
the black blood of the daily sacrifices conducted thither by channels
bored through the solid rock.”
“How name you yon fair hill in front of us?”
“The Mount of Olives, so called from its trees. Come, view we now the
third side.”
They passed on to the southern cloister, which, like the eastern, was
built upon a vast substructure of masonry rising in massive grandeur
from the valley below.
“This,” said Rufus, “bears the name of the Royal Colonnade, as being
the grandest of all, for whereas the other cloisters have but two rows
of pillars, this has four. And mark them! Each column is a monolith,
fifty feet in height, and as to its thickness, three men with joined
hands can scarcely encircle it.”
This Royal Colonnade, open on the side towards the temple, was closed
upon the other by a wall. The two, therefore, mounted a staircase and
walked along its roof.
“Those houses whose roofs you see beneath us extending far to the
southward, form the suburb of Ophel, the residence of the priests and
their servants, the Levites and Nethinim, whose duty necessitates their
living near the temple.”
“It seems to me,” muttered Crispus, as he gazed downwards, “that he
would be a bold general who would venture to make his attack from the
south side.”
Walking onward, they came to the last, or western cloister, whose edge
overhung the ravine known as the Valley of Tyropæon, a deep cleft that
completely severed the temple-mount both from Acra or the Lower City,
which lay due west, and from Zion or the Upper City, which lay to the
southwest.
The temple-hill and Mount Zion were joined by a stone bridge, a
magnificent structure, being in length 354 feet, and having a roadway
50 feet broad; in the center the depth of the valley beneath was 225
feet!
“Well, what think you of this--the fourth side?”
“Destroy the bridge, and you make this part of the temple inaccessible.”
“Yet this was the side--there was no bridge then--that our great Pompey
successfully stormed.”
“It speaks ill for the skill of the defenders.”
“But well for the courage of the Romans--eh? But I doubt whether even
Pompey would have carried his assault had not Jewish superstition
favored him.”
“In what way?”
“He was told that the Jews had such reverence for the Sabbath that they
would not fight on that day unless actually attacked. He therefore
spent every Sabbath in raising huge mounds, and the rest of the week
in guarding them; at the end of twelve months he made his triumphal
attack.”
“Would the Jews again act so supinely, think you?”
“I doubt it. Since then they have seen the folly of their ways.”
Having walked all round the colonnades to the point whence they set
out, the two friends now passed into the spacious court open to the
sky. In the middle of this court rose the Sanctuary, or the Temple
properly so called.
“It stands, if you will believe the Jews, upon the very center of
the earth’s surface,” remarked Rufus. “In the adytum the stone upon
which the high priest deposits his censer upon the Day of Atonement is
regarded as the navel of the earth.”
Crispus, approaching the edifice upon its north side, experienced a
strange thrill as he beheld, just as it had appeared in the dream, the
golden-latticed window through which he had flung the incendiary torch.
“Do you know, Rufus, to what room that window belongs?” he asked,
pointing it out.
“’Tis one of the windows of the Hall Gazith, the chamber in which the
Sanhedrim meet to try those accused on a capital charge. Among others
condemned there, was the founder of the sect of the Christians, who
worship their Master as a god; though, methinks, if he had aught of
divinity in him he should have delivered himself from his enemies.”
They walked round to the east, the quarter that gave them the finest
view of the edifice.
It was a fabric of white marble, inferior, doubtless, in point of
beauty to the graceful temples of Greece, but far superior to them in
size and magnificence; and as for solidity, Rufus was careful to point
out to the wondering Crispus that some of the blocks composing the
external wall were no less than sixty feet in length!
“A fortress within a fortress!” he murmured, viewing the fabric with
the eye of a soldier. “He who captures the cloisters has but begun his
work.”
But the glories hidden within the Sanctuary were not for the gaze
of Gentiles. Around the whole of the edifice ran a low marble
balustrade--the “middle wall of partition”--whose dwarf pilasters
bore inscriptions in Greek and Latin, forbidding the alien to proceed
further on pain of death.
Here and there, as Crispus could see, half-concealed in the shadows of
the temple-wall, stood the dusky forms of sentinels, who, though to all
appearances inert, were nevertheless keeping a jealous watch upon the
two Romans.
The floor of the Sanctuary was not upon the same level as the floor of
the Court of the Gentiles, but stood at an altitude of twenty-two feet
above it, upon the summit of a solid platform of masonry.
This elevation was ascended by a stately flight of stairs leading up
to a magnificent pylon, whose twofold gate was richly plated with
Corinthian bronze, a composite metal, more esteemed in that age than
silver or gold.
“The Eastern or Corinthian Gate,” remarked Rufus.
Though access to the temple was forbidden to the Romans, there was not
wanting even upon its very forefront the sign of the Roman dominion.
Over this gateway was the golden image of an eagle with extended wings,
a surprising sight in view of the Jewish hatred of sculpture.
“Placed there by Herod the Great out of compliment to Augustus, and
though many a fiery Zealot has climbed up there with intent to hew it
down, our procurators have determined to keep it there.”
Having taken as close a view of the edifice as was permissible, Crispus
drew back to contemplate it from a distance.
He had all a Roman’s reverence for antiquity, and the thought that the
smoke of the daily sacrifice had ascended from this temple for the
space of more than a thousand years was well adapted to impress his
imagination.
Hallowed by the white light of the moon, the fabric rose with solemn
and majestic air, the very stillness resting upon it seeming to have in
it something of the divine.
He was tempted almost to believe in the strange miracles said to
have occurred here--above all in the permanent miracle asserted by
every Jew that the dark, central shrine, curtained off from mortal
view, and never trodden by human foot save once a year only, was the
dwelling-place of the deity himself!
A light touch upon his arm ended this reverie, and Crispus, on turning,
found himself looking into the eyes of the Princess Berenice--very
lovely eyes they were, too!--yet in them he fancied he could detect a
light as of fear, due perhaps to the wild belief that he had come to
take a clandestine view of the temple as a preliminary to the flinging
of the incendiary torch.
“What do you here, princess?”
“Keeping watch upon you,” she said with a laugh that was not all a
laugh. “It is my habit to walk at night in these courts.”
Rufus at this juncture thought fit to slip quietly away, leaving the
two together.
Crispus thought of the circumstances in which he had last seen the
princess.
“Why look you so earnestly at me?” smiled Berenice, becoming conscious
of a very attentive gaze on his part.
“I am wondering, princess, why eyes so beautiful and gracious as yours
are now could look so pitilessly upon poor Vashti.”
“My love for my religion is such that it makes me cold, even cruel, to
all who oppose it.”
Her statement was probably true in a general sense, but Crispus doubted
whether she had been moved by religious zeal in the case of Vashti.
“Then you must hate me, who am likewise opposed to your religion?”
“Nay, you are not an apostate. You have never known the truth.”
And then, as if anxious to get away from the synagogue scene, in which
she was conscious that she had not appeared to advantage in Crispus’
eyes, she pointed to the Sanctuary and said:
“Do you not think it beautiful?”
“’Twere wrong to think otherwise.”
“Too beautiful to be wantonly destroyed,” she said significantly.
“You see me without the fatal torch--as yet.”
“As yet?” she repeated, with a touch of fear in her voice. “You
are not--you are not letting that dream still hold a place in your
thoughts?”
“Whatever opposes Rome must be destroyed, even if it be a temple.”
“You would destroy our temple? You cannot,” she said, speaking with a
vehemence that surprised, and even startled Crispus, “you cannot. It
is beyond the power of Cæsar and his legions. Let all the nations of
the earth league together for that end, and they would fail. The temple
is eternal, and cannot be destroyed, for our prophets have so assured
us. The world was made for the sake of the temple,”--she was but
repeating the doctrine of the rabbis--“and so long as the world shall
stand, so long will the temple stand. When the last day shall come,”
she continued, her eyes shining with all the enthusiasm of a devotee,
“there will still be seen the smoke of the sacrifice ascending from the
altar. It is the place loved of God, the place where He has chosen to
put His name forever.”
So spoke Berenice, and perhaps never in the history of the world did
words meet with a rebuke more startling and more significant.
For scarcely had she finished speaking when there rose upon the air a
mysterious something that caused her to grasp the arm of Crispus with a
convulsive start.
From the hidden interior of the Sanctuary there came a sound that
bore--to compare it with earthly things--some resemblance to the rising
of a wind; faint at first, its volume increased, little by little,
till, issuing from the Sanctuary, what seemed to be a rush of air swept
through the temple-courts.
A wind, and yet no wind! It had no effect upon external objects: not a
fold of Crispus’ toga waved; not a hair of the princess was stirred.
What was happening was like nothing earthly; the sense of a mysterious
and unseen presence struck an awe to the soul of Crispus. If he had
never before believed in the supernatural, he believed in it now; if he
had never before felt fear, he felt it now. The hand which his first
impulse had sent to his sword dropped powerlessly to his side again.
What availed the might of a legion, or of ten thousand such, against
invisible and spiritual powers?
Terror had laid hold of Berenice; half-swooning she sank upon her
knees, her hands still clinging to the wrist of Crispus; but for his
detaining hold she would have fallen prone upon the pavement.
Closing her eyes as if to shut out some awful vision that was about to
appear, she faintly gasped with blanched lips: “_The bath col!_”
She was not alone in her belief. From different parts of the
temple-court persons, hitherto unseen by Crispus--priests, Levites,
Nethinim--had suddenly started into view, and were gazing up at the
lofty temple, whose long and magnificent façade gleamed like a bank of
pearl in the moonlight. And one cry only broke from their lips, to die
away in a feeling of mingled awe and terror:
“THE BATH COL! THE BATH COL!”
Crispus was sufficiently familiar with this phrase to know that it
meant the voice of the deity.
Did this “sound as of a rushing mighty wind” really emanate from the
Hebrew God who was said to ride upon the whirlwind, and to speak in the
voice of the thunder?
That was the belief of the Jews assembled in the court; they were about
to hear the awful voice that had spoken to their fathers from Sinai!
Slowly--very slowly--the quivering, continuous flow of sound died
away. For a brief space there was a weird spell of silence; then came
a sudden clangor, startling by contrast with the previous stillness, a
clangor like that of hollow brass struck by a giant hand.
All eyes turned instantly upon the Corinthian Gate of the Sanctuary.
That great gate, whose folding-doors of plated bronze were so ponderous
as to require the united strength of twenty men to turn them on their
hinges, was now slowly revolving inwards as if yielding to some
invisible pressure from without.
Wider and wider grew the space between the two doors, till at last they
had revolved so far back that they could revolve no farther.
The gate had opened apparently of its own accord!
And now came an awe-inspiring sequel.
From the interior of the Sanctuary issued a solemn voice, crying in the
Hebrew tongue:
“LET US GO HENCE!”[11]
All trembled at the sound; none more than Crispus.
“The voice that spoke in my dream!”
This moment of supreme and thrilling terror was followed by a sequence
of sounds suggestive of the departure of a vast multitude. It seemed
as if ten thousand feet were descending the lofty stairs of the
Corinthian Gate, and were treading the pavement of the forecourt. Yet
neither shape nor shadow met the gaze of the appalled and trembling
Jews, who had drawn together in one dense throng as if for protection
against--they knew not what!
As for Crispus, had he wished to describe his feelings at this awful
moment he might have employed the language of the sacred writer: “Fear
came upon me and a trembling that made all my bones to shake. Then a
spirit passed before my face; it stood still, but I could not discern
the form thereof!”
For there was a flowing of air past him, as if some long procession
were going by; he could detect the sound of rustling garments and of
sighing voices; yet had his life depended upon the action, he durst not
put forth his hand to test whether the unseen train that was gliding
past were palpable to the touch.
The sounds passed on, taking their way through the eastern cloister;
and, mounting upon the wings of the night, they melted away in the
direction of Olivet.
Long, long after the mysterious voices had ceased, the Jews, filled
with a divine awe, stood speechless and motionless, as if fearful lest
their speaking should call forth the wrath of departing deity.
Among the group was the famous rabbi, Johanan ben Zacchai. He was the
first to find tongue.
Pointing to the interior of the Corinthian gateway, with its walls and
roof fashioned from the cedar of Libanus, he cried in a solemn tone:
“The end of the temple hath come, for this is that which was spoken
by the prophet, saying, ‘Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may
devour thy cedars!’”[12]
And at that word “fire,” Berenice looked at Crispus and trembled.
CHAPTER X
THE VENGEANCE OF FLORUS
Florus was in Jerusalem, and--sinister omen!--an armed legion with him.
Following fast upon the dispatch of his letter demanding the seventeen
talents, he had taken up his abode in the old palace erected by Herod
the Great upon Mount Zion. This, as being the usual residence of
the procurators while at Jerusalem, had received the Roman name of
Prætorium.
Its two colossal wings of white marble, the Cæsareum and the Agrippeum,
named respectively after Augustus and his great minister, were united
by a long terrace, which, from its tesselated flooring, was called by
the Romans the Pavement, but by the Jews Gabbatha, or the Elevation.
On the morning after the arrival of Florus, a vast concourse of Jewish
citizens assembled in front of this terrace when it became known that
the procurator had summoned the members of the Sanhedrim thither for
the purpose of interrogating them as to the riot that had taken place
three days previously.
Among those who came was the crafty Sadducean priest Ananias, who
hoped, by reason of his private friendship with Florus, to dispose that
tyrant to pacific measures.
Beside him, glooming within himself, was his eldest son, the fierce,
dark-browed Eleazar, captain of the temple, whose wrath was scarcely to
be restrained by the whispered admonitions of his more politic father.
Florus, disposed for reasons of his own to receive the Sanhedrim in the
open air, had given orders for his curule chair to be brought forth,
and set down upon the Pavement midway between the two wings.
In the rear of this elevated tribunal and along its whole length
glittered the brazen bucklers and crested helmets of the legionaries;
they flanked the walls of the two wings likewise, so that the whole
military force formed the three sides of a rectangle, the fourth being
open to the view of the public.
These troops were the Twentieth Legion, a force drawn, not like Rufus’
Italic Cohort, from native Romans, but from the dregs of the Syrian
populace who were forced to a military service from which the Jew, by
reason of his religion, was exempt. Hence the feeling of these troops
towards the Jewish nation was one of fierce hatred, a hatred that had
often shown itself in deeds of blood. Let Florus give but the word and
they would not hesitate to massacre every man, woman, and child before
the tribunal.
On this particular morning, as they stood awaiting the coming of
the procurator, there was in their manner something so sinister and
expectant that a secret misgiving, a sense as of tragedy to come,
seized upon many of the Sanhedrim.
Florus appeared at last, and contemptuously ignoring the fawning smiles
of Ananias stalked to the curule chair, dark, haughty, frowning.
The herald called for silence, an unnecessary order, seeing that a
death-like stillness had fallen upon the occupants both of Gabbatha and
the public square.
Florus’ mood was shown by his first question to the Sanhedrim.
“Is it true that my person has been mocked by the youth of this city,
who have gone about, basket on arm, and crying aloud, ‘Give an obolus
for Florus the Pauper?’”
The members of the Sanhedrim looked at one another in alarm. Finally
they glanced at Ananias as if inviting him to be their spokesman.
Hiding both hands within the folds of his robe--an Oriental way of
showing respect and humility--and making a profound obeisance, Ananias
spoke:
“O Florus, live forever----”
(“Now heaven preserve us from that calamity!” muttered Eleazar.)
“That certain youth _have_ behaved ill is but too true, and we cannot
deny it. But----”
Florus cut him short.
“Ye see in me the representative of Cæsar----”
“None more worthy to represent him, O Florus,” said Eleazar,
caustically.
“And he who mocks me, mocks Cæsar,” continued the procurator with a
side glance at Eleazar. “I therefore demand of you, the Sanhedrim, who
are responsible for the due maintenance of order in this city, that
the youths who have affronted me be handed over here and now to be
dealt with as their misdeeds deserve. And if ye fail to produce these
malefactors, know that for many days to come ye shall have a tale of
sorrow to tell.”
Miserable Sanhedrim! Among the elder of them were some who, thirty
years before, on an occasion never to be forgotten as long as time
shall last, had said, and that, too, on the very spot where they
were now standing, “We have no king but Cæsar.” Thus had they made
their choice. Verily, then, let them not repine if Cæsar, or his
representative, should treat them in a manner not according to their
liking!
The hapless Ananias, collecting with difficulty his wits, which
had been somewhat scattered by Florus’ fierce air, stammered out a
deprecatory speech.
What he said amounted to this: that the people were as a whole
peaceably disposed; some few had done amiss, and for these let pardon
be granted, for it was no wonder that in so great a multitude there
should be some more daring than they ought to be, and by reason of
their youth foolish also. It was, too, a very difficult matter to
distinguish the innocent from the guilty; and seeing that all alike,
those who had offended as well as those who had not, were sorry for
what had happened, it would become the clemency of Florus to overlook
the affair, lest a too stern application of justice should bring about
disorders even more grave than those that had already taken place.
“That last is in the nature of a threat!” exclaimed Florus fiercely.
“Yours is just the sort of speech one would expect from a man who has
plotted against the life of a Roman citizen,” he continued, with a
fine forgetfulness of his own delinquencies. “Disorders more grave
will undoubtedly ensue, if the guilty are allowed to walk unpunished.
Say without periphrases whether you will, or will not, give up these
malefactors.”
Ananias hesitated, but Johanan ben Zacchai was bolder than the ex-high
priest.
“We cannot,” said he, “consent to give up these youths.”
At this there came a shout of approval from the people assembled before
the tribunal.
Florus glared at them for a moment, and then resumed:
“And yet refuse to make a grant to Cæsar of seventeen talents from the
Corban?”
“Shall man rob God?” exclaimed Eleazar, fiercely. “This, too, we will
not do.”
Again a shout of applause, this time louder, from the populace. Florus
accepted it for what it was meant, defiance of himself. Turning to the
troops in his rear, he cried:
“Put these rebels to the rout. Plunder the Upper Market. Slay all who
oppose.”
Plunder! What more agreeable order for the soldier? They required
no second bidding. Like tigers suddenly let loose they raced across
the bema, sweeping the helpless Sanhedrim aside, and drawing their
trenchant broadswords they precipitated themselves upon the
defenseless people, striking out right and left, and using not the flat
of the blade, but the point and edge.
It was all the work of a moment. Taken completely by surprise, and
without arms to defend themselves, the front ranks, hideously gashed,
sank moaning to the ground. The rest of the crowd, aghast at the sight,
and suddenly realizing that a massacre was intended, strove to avoid
the Roman blades. But for those nearest the bema flight was impossible
owing to the density of the throng. Then began a horrible struggle for
life; he who fell in that crowd never rose again, but was trampled
to death, trampled out of all recognition; moved by the instinct of
self-preservation everyone strove to thrust his body forward betwixt
his neighbors, or failing this, tried to drag his fellow back in the
attempt to interpose something between himself and the terrible swords
that were steadily coming on from behind.
With the flight of those farthest from the bema, the mass became
gradually loosened, and finally breaking into detached groups, fled in
all directions, pursued by the shouting and triumphant legionaries.
But the Romans were not to have it all their own way. Many of the
Jews, escaping to the streets adjacent to the square, took refuge
in the first houses they came to, and having barred the gates, they
ascended to the roofs and proceeded to assail the enemy below with
tiles and stones. Others who had fled farther afield, procuring weapons
or whatever implements might serve as such, retraced their steps, and
favored by their knowledge of the narrow and winding streets, ventured
to give battle to the Romans, and what is more, contrived for a time to
hold them in check.
The streets of Zion rang with the clang of arms, and the shouts of the
combatants.
News of what was happening came quickly to the ears of Berenice,
producing in her mind not only consternation, but an agonizing sense of
self-reproach. She felt herself to be indirectly the cause of it all.
It was Florus’ revenge for her rejection of him. Her first impulse was
to fly to the procurator, and appeal to him to stay his hand. Her pride
revolted from this step. But, as the sound of the fray grew louder and
fiercer, she became more agitated; casting her pride away she resolved
to hasten to his tribunal and intercede on behalf of her people.
As a royal princess, she deemed herself secure from molestation by the
Roman soldiery; but, forgetful of the fact that she was unknown by
sight to the majority of them, she ran forth from her palace without a
single attendant. Fortunately she was seen by her master of the horse,
who, collecting as many of her household troops as he conveniently
could at a moment’s notice, went after her with all speed.
On coming within sight of the tribunal Berenice paused aghast.
Hell itself seemed to be let loose that day. The Jews, captured in
the neighboring streets, were being dragged into the square to be
ruthlessly slaughtered before the very eyes of Florus. No distinction
was made as to age or sex. Even infants, torn from the arms of
shrieking mothers, were tossed aloft and caught upon the points of
spears. Young girls, tied naked to stakes, were exposed to the brutal
jests of the soldiery, who offered their captives liberty if they would
but consent to taste a morsel of swine’s flesh.
As Berenice, with reeling brain, stepped forward, she caught sight of
a group of drunken soldiers, standing around a bright-eyed Jewish boy,
whose age could not have exceeded twelve years.
“Tell us the name of your God?” exclaimed a soldier.
“He is called the Lord,” answered the boy, nothing daunted by the ring
of fierce faces around him.
“Well, curse the Lord and you shall live,” said a second soldier,
menacing the lad with his spear.
But the little fellow had been too well drilled in the shibboleths of
Judaism to do their bidding.
“Cursed be all they that serve graven images,” he replied defiantly.
“This wolfling will grow up into a brave wolf,” laughed the first
soldier.
“That shall he not,” cried the second savagely; and, raising his pike
with both hands, he drove the weapon through the breast of the boy,
who, with the one word “Mother!” fell dead upon the spot.
“O God!” gasped Berenice, “canst thou look on and let these men live?”
Scarcely able to move for horror, she made her way up the steps of the
bema, and drew near to Florus. With hands clasped at the back of his
neck, and with one leg thrown carelessly over the other, the procurator
was lolling at ease in his curule chair, amusing himself with the fears
of a numerous body of richly-dressed captives, who were said, rightly
or wrongly, by his spies, to be the very youths that, three days
before, had gone about begging money for the indigent Florus.
“By the way,” said he, “why don’t you Jews eat pork?”
The question drew loud laughter from the senseless soldiers standing by.
One of the captives ventured the remark that there were some nations
that did not eat lamb.
“And they are quite right,” commented Florus. “Lamb is very insipid;
but pork--ah! that is one of the choicest delicacies the gods have
conferred upon mankind, and I swear by Pluto that if ye will not eat of
it ye shall die.”
“Florus, in the name of God I adjure you to have pity upon these
youths,” cried Berenice. “Refrain from further bloodshed.”
The feeling of Florus was a strange mingling of love and hatred as
he beheld the distressed princess in all her wild beauty, her hair
loosened, her feet bare.
His first mad impulse--he had been drinking heavily--was to clasp her
in his arms and kiss her passionately regardless of the spectators; his
next, as he recalled her scornful language at Cæsarea, was to spurn her
with language equally scornful.
Hatred triumphed. He had gone too far now to recede, and since he could
not have the sweetness of love, he would have the sweetness of revenge.
Among the captives was a beautiful youth, whose unmistakable air of
fearlessness had given secret umbrage to the procurator.
“Marcus, you here?” cried Berenice in dismay. He was known to her as
being a worshiper in the Royal Synagogue.
“Fear not for me, princess. _I_ am safe.”
Self-confidence such as this moved Florus to a frenzy of wrath.
“Lictors, crucify me this knave who considers himself so safe.”
“Oh, no! no!” cried Berenice in an agony of grief.
The youth, with a proud smile, gave utterance to words that in every
province of the empire, save one, had power to stay the hand of even
Cæsar himself:
“CIVIS ROMANUS SUM--I am a Roman citizen!”
“Ah! So _that_ is thy hope? Well, it shall not avail thee. A Roman
citizen? Pah! How easy to become such nowadays! Damas the Jew is a
knave, but he has two oboli to spare; so the prætor touches him with a
wand, twirls him round, and lo! Damas the Jew becomes Marcus the Roman,
and struts about in a toga.”
And here Florus, leaping up, illustrated his words by strutting about
with an air of mock dignity, amid the laughter of his satellites.
“I am a freeborn Roman; nay, more--I am of equestrian rank.”
“A knight--eh? Well, we’ll acknowledge thy dignity by giving thee a
higher cross and painting it purple. Lictors, bring hither a stock.”
In his mad desire to torment to the uttermost the soul of Berenice,
Florus did not hesitate to defy Roman law by an outrage so great that
Cicero confesses his inability to find a name for it. “It is an offense
to bind a Roman citizen; a crime to scourge him; almost a parricide to
kill him; what, then, shall I say of _crucifying_ him?”
Such an outrage on the part of a Roman governor might be deemed
incredible were it not attested by a contemporary historian.
“Florus,” says Josephus, “dared to do what no governor before his time
had ever done--to have men of the equestrian order scourged and nailed
to the cross in front of his tribunal, who, although they were Jews by
birth, were yet of Roman dignity notwithstanding.”
Desirous of adding not so much to the agony of Marcus as to that of
Berenice, Florus, with a cruel smile, issued a fresh order.
“Hold! before crucifying the knave we’ll scourge him.”
A strange thing is the heart of a woman! Berenice, who had been willing
to subject a young girl to scourging, now shuddered when a similar
torture was proposed for a young man.
As for the victim himself, vainly did he urge his legal right to be
transferred from the tribunal of Florus to that of Nero.
“_Appello Cæsarem_--I appeal unto Cæsar,” he cried.
“Cæsar’s a long way off,” laughed Florus. “In Greece, playing the fool.
You’ll have to shout a good deal louder, if he’s to hear you.”
Deaf to his protests, the lictors stripped the youth of his garments
and tied his wrists to a column. He tried to be brave, but where is
the man that _could_ be brave when subjected to the strokes of the
“_horrible flagellum_”?
A thrilling scream burst from Marcus’ lips as the leathern thongs,
weighted with triangular pieces of lead, descended upon his naked,
quivering flesh.
“O Apollo! How sweet a voice!” cried Florus mockingly. “By the gods,
Nero must look to his laurels, for he hath a rival. Give him a second
stroke. Ah! a higher note this time. Swing the flagellum again. We’ll
run him through the whole octave.”
The rest of the captives, apprehensive of the same fate, looked on with
blanched cheeks and terror-stricken eyes.
Berenice’s distress of mind made her look like some wild thing. Her
manifest agony was a luxury to the soul of Florus.
“There are twenty of these youths,” he whispered, “and they shall all
suffer the same fate, scourging and crucifixion. But you can save them,
if you will.”
“How?” gasped Berenice.
Florus’ whispered reply was of a character so infamous that the
indignant princess raised her hand and struck her open palm against his
cheek; struck, too, with all her force.
Smarting with the pain, Florus started back with a very ugly look upon
his face.
“Guards, remove this woman from the bema. What hath she to do with
these matters?”
And the rough soldiery, paying little respect either to her womanhood
or to her rank, drove her down the steps of the tribunal.[13]
* * * * *
Night fell, calm and beautiful.
The Syrian stars looked down upon the tribunal, whose stones, could
they have spoken, might have told how, thirty years before, a wicked
populace had cried, “_His blood be on us, and on our children!_”
That self-invoked curse was working out its fulfillment.
There, on the very spot where those words had been uttered, stood a
multitude of crosses, each lifting a ghastly victim to the midnight sky!
CHAPTER XI
“TO YOUR TENTS, O ISRAEL!”
During the massacre instigated by Florus, a massacre that numbered no
less than three thousand six hundred victims, Crispus, by nature of the
case, had been compelled to look helplessly on.
Side with the Roman troops he could not; to side with the Jews would
have been unpatriotic. His attempt at mediation met, like that of
Berenice, with an insulting repulse from the procurator. Burning with
indignation, he retired to the Turris Antonia and addressed to his
father a letter describing the disgrace that had been brought upon the
Roman name by Florus, and urging the Legate to come at once with a
legion and restore order in Jerusalem by the only method possible, the
deposition of the wicked procurator. This letter, when finished, he
dispatched to Antioch by the hand of a swift courier.
Florus, having given ample ground for rebellion, proceeded, in
pursuance of the same sinister policy, to take his departure,
withdrawing all his troops save one cohort, and that a divided one,
half being allotted to the Prætorium, and half to Antonia.
Never did the baseness of Florus’ character appear more than in this,
the final act of his official career. He knew that, in the present
excited state of the city, garrisons so slender would offer an
irresistible temptation to the seditious. But what cared he for the
Romans whom he was leaving behind? If the garrisons were massacred,
why, so much the better for his purpose.
As Florus looked back upon the city he was leaving he might have said
with a nobler Roman than himself, “Mischief, thou art afoot; take what
course thou wilt.”[14]
Among the troops ordered to leave Jerusalem upon this occasion was
the Italian Cohort of Rufus, who, however great his dislike of the
procurator, had, as a loyal soldier, no other course than to do as he
was bidden.
Crispus, determined to remain in the city, betook himself to the
Prætorium, and offered his services to its commandant Metilius, who was
glad to welcome any auxiliary, and especially one like Crispus, whose
suggestions for the defense of the palace were not only original, but,
what is more, practicable.
To Metilius’ lament that, owing to the lack of the requisite missiles,
the balistæ and other machines of like character would have to remain
idle, Crispus laughingly replied:
“If it comes to that, we can discharge these statues upon the heads of
the mob.”
He was standing at the time in a magnificent hall decorated with
sculpture, and, happening to cast a casual eye over the marble
masterpieces around him, was so much attracted by one of them that he
walked up to it and examined it with an attention that set Metilius
wondering.
The statue represented a beautiful maiden clothed to the feet in
a graceful stole. Upon the pedestal was sculptured the one word,
_Pythodoris_.
“Pythodoris?” murmured Crispus. “Were not that name graven here I
should have called it Vashti.”
For indeed, the statue, both in face and figure, was so like the Hebrew
maiden that anyone acquainted with her might very well have supposed
that it was intended for no other person.
“Pythodoris?” said Crispus reflectively. “The name is new to me. Who is
she, or perhaps I ought to say, who was she?”
Metilius confessed himself unable to satisfy the curiosity of Crispus.
He, too, had never heard the name.
“This much I know about the statue,” remarked he; “that it is a recent
addition to this gallery, and was, I believe, a gift of King Polemo.”
The introduction of the Pontic king’s name added not a little to
Crispus’ perplexity.
“The lady evidently is, or was, a queen,” observed Metilius, pointing
to the Oriental diadem upon the head of the figure.
Surveying the statue more closely, Crispus saw engraved upon the sandal
in minute letters, ΛΑΣΟΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ.
“‘The workmanship of Lasus,’” said he, reading the name of a sculptor
well known at the beginning of the first century. “’Tis fifty years ago
since he died, so we may conclude that this is the image of a queen no
longer living. How to account for her resemblance to Vashti? But,” he
added suddenly, cutting the matter short, “we do wrong to stand musing
here, when there are graver matters to attend to.”
Herein Crispus spoke truly. The seditiously-disposed among the Jews had
noted with secret joy that Florus had left the city all but denuded of
troops. What could the two slender garrisons of three hundred each do
against the whole city? To neglect such a golden opportunity for the
recovery of freedom was a contravening of the will of Elohim, who must
surely have brought about this arrangement for the good of the holy
seed.
Day by day affairs grew more threatening; in the temple-courts and
in the synagogues, fiery Zealots from the mountains, and wild-eyed
prophets from the desert, declared to the credulous multitude that all
the signs of the times pointed to the near advent of the long-promised
Messiah, when the Jewish nation should not only be free, but should
reign supreme over all the children of the earth from the rising of
the sun to the setting thereof.
Vainly did Agrippa and Berenice seek to deter the infatuated populace
from a course certain to end in the ruin of the Jewish state.
“To your tents, O Israel!” was the answer of the Zealots. “What
dealings have we with Cæsar, or what is our portion in Rome?”
* * * * *
It was eventide, and the silver trumpets were sounding the signal for
the closing of the temple-gates, as two figures mounted the stairs
leading to the roof of Solomon’s Colonnade.
The one was Eleazar, the captain of the temple, the other Simon of
Gerasa, who, during several days, had been living in a secret chamber
of the sanctuary; for Eleazar could not refuse the right of asylum to a
patriot whose stores of wealth, acquired by brigandage, had always been
sent by secret and devious methods to the temple treasury.
As the two paced the roof they talked, and seldom in the history of the
world has talk been more momentous in its consequences.
“The people are ripe for war,” said Eleazar with a fierce, exultant
smile. “We’ll set them to attack the garrisons in Antonia and the
Prætorium.”
“Whence shall we obtain the necessary arms?”
“You know Masada?” asked Eleazar.
It would indeed have been strange if Simon had not known the name,
at least, of the famous stronghold, emphatically named Masada--“THE
FORTRESS”--built by Jonathan Maccabæus upon a precipitous cliff,
fifteen hundred feet in height, overhanging the waters of the Dead Sea,
a fastness in which the treasures of Jerusalem had been deposited for
security during the troubled times of the Asamonean monarchy.
“It contains arms for ten thousand men,” continued Eleazar.
“With a Roman garrison to guard them.”
“Tush! the garrison is but a slender one, and, aware of this, I have
sent off a band to attack the place.”
Simon received this startling news with a grim joy.
“’Tis a declaration of war,” remarked he.
“’Tis meant for such. One must make a beginning.”
“But Masada!” remonstrated Simon. “Art mad? The fortress is
impregnable.”
“And therefore the more easily surprised. An impregnable fortress
always renders its garrison careless.”
“Who heads this daring expedition?”
“Manahem, the son of Judas of Galilee.”
“The traitor who bought from Florus the license to plunder!” exclaimed
Simon wrathfully; for he and Manahem had long been jealous rivals.
“Shall I repel a man who offers me his services?” answered Eleazar.
“Four nights ago he descended from the mountains with his guerilla
band, and sought me out, bidding me tell him to do something for the
cause. I bade him go and take Masada.”
“If he succeed, he will indeed be a Manahem,” sneered Simon, playing
upon his rival’s name, which in Hebrew signifies Comforter.
Overhead hung a dark-blue firmament sparkling with stars, by whose
light the nearer hills that “stand round about Jerusalem” were clearly
visible; beyond them, appearing far off on the horizon, was the mount
known from old time as Beth-haccerem, whose conspicuous peak had marked
it as a suitable station for signaling tidings to Jerusalem by that
primitive mode of telegraph, the beacon-fire.
Eleazar’s eyes were set upon Beth-haccerem, and Simon, following his
companion’s gaze, was surprised to see a light springing into being
upon the dark summit of the distant peak. No evanescent flash, but
a light that continued to sparkle and glow; evidently a signal, the
meaning of which was known to the priest, if one must judge by the
satisfaction that gleamed from his dark countenance.
“Sooner than I durst hope,” he murmured. “The impregnable fortress has
fallen.”
“_Masada?_” gasped Simon with a mingled feeling of amazement and
jealousy.
“So is yon light to be interpreted,” replied Eleazar. “The armory of
Masada is now in our hands, and to-morrow a train of wagons will come
rolling towards Jerusalem laden with weapons for the people.”
“How will your father and the Sanhedrim take this deed of yours?”
“Leave me to deal with them,” replied Eleazar with a hard smile.
On the next day a meeting of the Sanhedrim was convened by Matthias,
the high priest, for the purpose of considering the course to be
observed by that body, should the common people persist in their
outspoken determination to take up arms against the Romans.
At this gathering--held in the temple within the walls of the famous
_Lishcath Ha-Gazith_ or Hall of Squares, so named from its checkered
pavement--Eleazar came out with a new and startling proposition, upon
which he desired a vote should be taken.
“It hath been the custom in our temple since the days of Herod,” said
he, “to offer daily a sacrifice for the safety and welfare of the
reigning Cæsar. But why should we pray for our enemy? why pray for an
uncircumcized heathen? why pray for Nero, who in claiming Divine honors
insults the name of the Most High? In praying that the life of this
blasphemer may be prolonged, what are we doing but praying for the
continuance of blasphemy? Brethren and fathers, this must not be. My
voice is that from to-day the sacrifice for Cæsar shall cease.”
As soon as Eleazar had resumed his seat, Ananias rose to oppose the
daring innovation propounded by his son.
“However agreeable this proposal may be to our secret inclination,”
said he, “the question for us is, in what light would Nero regard
it, for it will not escape his knowledge. He would take it as an
affront--nay, more, as a declaration of war.”
“Let him take it as such,” said Eleazar, boldly.
“Now you reveal your true aim,” answered Ananias, “which is to act as
a mover of sedition. You would have the Sanhedrim declare war against
Rome.”
“War is certain to come--nay, is here now--and there is no other course
left for the Sanhedrim but to side with the multitude in their struggle
for liberty.”
“Not so,” cried some, loudest among them being Ananias.
“O then, you will fight on the side of the Romans--a noble act for
patriotic Jews!”
“There is a third course--to remain neutral,” said Simeon ben Gamaliel.
“That way death lies. The people--the fight once begun--will have no
neutrals among them. Their cry will be, ‘He that is not with us is
against us.’”
“We can leave Jerusalem,” said Johanan ben Zacchai. “Not without
cutting yourself off from God. The sacrifices through which He is alone
accessible--can they be offered anywhere but in that place where He
has chosen to put His name? Dare we as priests live apart from the
temple? No! And, since we cannot prevent the war, we must seek to guide
its course by putting ourselves at the head of the national movement,
unless we would see ourselves set aside and relegated to obscurity,
and even, it may be, given over to prison and to death. It is clear
that----”
But at this point the council, at the instigation of Ananias, lifted up
their voices in dissent, so loud and so prolonged, that the orator was
compelled to come to an end.
At the first lull, Ananias bade Matthias put the question to the vote,
and, this being done, the proposition for the abolition of the Cæsarean
sacrifice was defeated by a considerable majority.
“So ends your treason!” sneered Ananias, addressing his son.
Eleazar rose, somewhat pale, but with a defiant smile on his lips.
“The vote is of no consequence----” he began.
“Hark to him!” cried Ananias.
“As captain of the temple, I decree that from to-day no more sacrifices
shall be offered on behalf of Cæsar.”
“And how will you effect your decree?” laughed Ananias.
“Why, thus,” replied Eleazar coolly, placing a ram’s horn to his lips,
and blowing one sharp, shrill note.
At that sound every door opening into the hall Gazith flew wide
revealing a sudden blaze of arms. Then, marching with slow and majestic
pace, there filed into the chamber a tall and stately band of Nethinim
clad in glittering mail. Moving with admirable order, they ranged
themselves along the four walls of the chamber, and then stood, shield
and spear at their back, as silent and motionless as statues.
These Nethinim formed a part of the temple guards, servants of Eleazar,
who, independently of their oath of obedience to their captain, were
for other reasons devotedly attached to his person. Whatever he should
bid them do, that would they do.
And what was his bidding to be? The silent Sanhedrim waited in wonder,
indignation, fear.
“The vote of to-day has taught me,” said Eleazar, “who are the friends
and who are the foes of Israel. Let those who are on my side,” he
continued, “move to the right.”
The invitation was accepted by not more than a dozen members, among
them being Matthias the President, and Simeon ben Gamaliel.
“From to-day,” continued Eleazar, “the temple becomes the seat of
a holy war, the abode of the Lord’s host, a citadel in the service
of freedom. Henceforth, its gates open only to the true worshipers
of Israel, whose foes ye are,” he added, turning to his Sanhedrist
opponents. “Withdraw, ere the scourges of the Nethinim quicken your
steps.”
The fierce storm of indignant protest that burst from Ananias and his
party met with a savage laugh from Eleazar.
“You dare threaten us with expulsion from the temple?” cried Ananias,
his eyes blazing with wrath.
“This is no place for the friends of Cæsar. What! ye will not budge?
Guards, drive these traitors forth.”
As if the command were a joy to them, the Nethinim rushed forward,
at the same time drawing forth scourges and whips which they applied
without more ado to the bodies of the immovable Sanhedrists.
Then ensued a strange scene. From the Sanhedrim came screams of pain
and fierce protests, undignified scufflings and even oaths.
Their feeble resistance was soon overborne; without weapons, and
inferior in numbers and strength to their more youthful opponents, they
were thrust forth from the Hall of Squares, and driven across the wide
court of the Gentiles.
A sight so unusual at once attracted the attention of the multitude,
who were at first disposed to side with the struggling Sanhedrim,
but the magical words, “Friends of the Romans,” quickly turned their
sympathies into the opposite scale, so that they readily joined the
Nethinim in the work of expulsion; and the end of it all was that the
venerable fathers found themselves outside the temple, indignant and
breathless, disheveled and bleeding.
After a brief consultation, they took their way across the Tyropæon
Bridge to the Upper City, and entered the palace of Ananias. From its
flat roof they could see something of what was passing in the temple.
Every part of the holy house was glittering with arms. Eleazar was
making good his word; the temple was being garrisoned, in the interests
not of Rome, but of Israel.
Aware of the hatred with which his pro-Roman sympathies were regarded
by the mob, Ananias, in conjunction with a large body of Jewish
loyalists, deemed it prudent, before the day was out, to take refuge
with the soldiers in the Prætorium.
Late that same night, Berenice escorted by a small retinue made her
way to this palace; and, while her guards waited without, she herself
entered to take a farewell of Crispus.
She came with startling tidings. Simon the Black was in the city,
and, resorting to a master-stroke of policy, had freed all the poor
debtors--and they were a very numerous body in Jerusalem--by persuading
them to set fire to the Archeion in Ophel, the building in which
were registered all monetary loans contracted by private citizens,
such official registration constituting the only legal proof of the
transaction. Having thus involved the multitude in an irrevocable act
of sedition, Simon had next led them forth to Olivet, where the Zealots
of Manahem, returning in triumph from the conquest of Masada, were now
engaged, by the torches’ glare, in making a free distribution of arms
to all who were willing to fight.
With signs of the liveliest agitation, the princess told how it was the
intention of the mob on the following morning to storm the two Roman
strongholds, and massacre the garrisons by way of retaliation for the
butchery wrought by Florus.
“Will you not leave the city with me, ere it be too late?” she asked of
Crispus in earnest tones.
“’Tis not the fashion of Romans to desert their post, however numerous
the foe,” returned Crispus.
“Your departure will not be desertion, for no one has ordered _you_ to
fight. Your station here is a voluntary one.”
“I will not leave my fellow-countrymen to their fate! That your people
have good cause for insurrection is, alas! but too true. But, for all
that, my way is clear. I am a patriot and a Cestius, and it is my duty
to keep the Roman eagle supreme in this city, or die in the attempt.”
Berenice was silent for a moment; then, laying her hand upon his arm,
she said in tender tones:
“Let me stay here to help you; you may become wounded, and who is there
to nurse you? And if you die, which heaven forbid, I--I will die with
you.”
Crispus could not but be touched with this expression of sympathy
on her part. Forgetting the incident in the synagogue, he felt that
he could love her, if she were always like this. And as he had
once thought Vashti’s face to be like Berenice’s, so now did he
think Berenice’s face like Vashti’s, as he beheld it at this moment
transfigured with a beautiful and heroic light.
“Princess, this is no place for you,” said he gently.
He conducted the reluctant and sorrowful Berenice to her palanquin at
the palace gate. As he parted from her some tempting spirit bade him
whisper tenderly:
“Farewell, _Athenaïs_.”
He might not have pronounced that name had he foreseen its effect.
Her sweet and lovable expression vanished in a moment, to be replaced
by a cold, suspicious look that repelled him as much as the other had
attracted.
“Why do you call me by that name?” she asked, seeming to shrink from
him.
“Perhaps I am trying an experiment, princess,” said he, significantly.
Evidently it was an experiment that did not please Berenice. She looked
for all the world like a woman detected in a secret. With a glance
that might be interpreted as one almost of fear, she sank back on the
cushions of the palanquin, and, without another word to him, gave the
order for the bearers to proceed.
In pensive mood, Crispus watched her departure. Whether she were
Athenaïs, or whether she were not, it was difficult to see why the
simple mention of the name should act so strangely upon her. That he
had not lost her favor, however, was evidenced by the arrival, during
the night, of three thousand Jewish cavalry. They were the troops of
King Agrippa, and had been sent by him to bring his sister safely out
of the troubled city; meeting them on the way, Berenice had bidden
them go on to the help of the little garrison in the Prætorium. It can
readily be imagined how gladly these new auxiliaries were welcomed
by Metilius, but when Crispus suggested that one-half of them should
proceed to Antonia, Darius, the master of the horse, declined, on the
ground that the princess’ orders were that he should fight for the
Prætorium only.
CHAPTER XII
“VÆ VICTIS!”
Early next morning the Zealot chief Manahem, who, with his followers,
had camped during the night upon Olivet, descended that mount, and,
seated upon a chariot, entered the city with an air of pomp and state
that moved the spleen of Eleazar, as he watched the procession from the
roof of the temple-cloisters.
“Is this fellow a king?” said he. “Will he reign at Jerusalem?”
Manahem was welcomed with enthusiastic acclamation by the newly-armed
populace, who demanded that he should at once lead them against
Antonia, fully believing that he who had taken Masada would have no
difficulty in taking a similar fortress. Manahem could not decline this
task without risking his character for bravery; so, after plundering
and burning the deserted palaces of Agrippa and Ananias, he advanced
at the head of a tumultuous and disorderly throng towards the Turris
Antonia, where, having procured silence, he--in very bad Latin--called
upon the commandant to surrender the fortress.
“I am a Roman.”
And the officer, deeming that answer sufficient, disdained to give any
other.
“So was he who held Masada,” replied the Zealot chief, giving the
signal for the attack.
All day long under Manahem’s leadership a fierce fight raged round the
fortress, but when night fell, the Jews had nothing to show for their
fiery valor except their heavy tale of dead and dying.
Manahem’s wrath, arising from his failure, was enhanced by the
remark of Simon, who, out of jealousy, had refrained from helping his
brother-chief.
“You have caused the holy seed to be massacred.”
“Thou shalt captain them thyself to-morrow,” said Manahem.
“Be it so,” replied the Black Zealot calmly.
Next morning when the multitude had again assembled for war Simon thus
addressed them:
“Let him who had father or mother, son or daughter, killed in the day
of Florus come forward.”
Immediately hundreds of men pushed their way to the front.
“Behold the men who killed them!” cried Simon, pointing with his sword
to the fortress.
This lie, for such it was--the garrison having taken no part whatever
in the massacre--had a telling effect upon the crowd, filling them with
new fire and new fury. Led on by Simon in person, they rushed forward
with the scaling-ladders and planted them against the walls, though
it was only to be driven back again. For many hours the battle raged;
nineteen times repulsed, they returned with spirit unabated to the
attack; at the twentieth assault, which took place towards the close of
the day, the Jews succeeded in effecting an entrance.
“Leave not one alive!” was their cry. “Did they spare us and our little
ones?”
The little garrison, faced by overwhelming numbers, bravely maintained
the honor of the Roman name; with never a thought of asking for
quarter, they fought doggedly on, “each stepping where his comrade
fell,” till the blade glimmered in the grasp of the last man.
The standard that on the loftiest tower had so long flaunted before
Jewish eyes the hateful letters S.P.Q.R., was hauled down and torn to
shreds.
Thus fell, after two days’ hard fighting, the great fortress of
Antonia, an event that gave little pleasure to the victor of Masada,
when he heard the people saying that night, “Manahem hath slain his
thousands, but Simon his ten thousands!”
* * * * *
“To the Prætorium!” was the cry of the multitude next morning.
Manahem resumed his command; and, mounted on a prancing horse and
followed by shouting crowds, he advanced to the open space fronting
Gabbatha, and in a loud voice called for the surrender of the palace.
The reply to this was an arrow, which, as intended, went clean through
the crest of Manahem’s helmet.
“Your heart next time,” said Metilius, “if you again propose treason to
a Roman.”
Manahem, swearing by Urim and by Thummim that the defenders of the
Prætorium should meet with the same fate as those of Masada and
Antonia, moved off to a quarter, whence, shielded from the missiles of
the enemy, he could direct the operations of the siege.
The most pitiable object in the Prætorium at this time was Ananias. He
had ventured to look forth from a window, and the crowd, recognizing
him, yelled out their fierce hatred of the Sadducean hierarch, loudest
among the shouters being priests themselves, whose words soon showed
the cause of their fury.
“Who sent his servants round to collect the priests’ tithes, and
bludgeoned those that would not pay? Who but Ananias?”
“Who, when he had got the tithes, kept them to spend upon the harlot
Asenath, so that many priests died for want? Who but Ananias?”
Before his terrified gaze they paraded the gory head of the Antonian
commandant fixed upon the point of a lofty pike.
“Thus shall it be with thy head,” they cried.
From that hour Ananias had the air of a man haunted with the certainty
of coming down. With melancholy countenance, he wandered aimlessly
through the splendid halls of the Prætorium, trembling at the din of
battle outside its walls, and expecting at every moment to witness the
fearful inrush of fierce-eyed, saber-brandishing Zealots, all athirst
for his blood. His cowardice moved even his Jewish friends to contempt.
“Ananias, thy face is like a whited wall,” laughed one.
A whited wall! Those words troubled him for the rest of the day,
reviving, as they did, a saying that had long since passed from his
memory.
“_God shall smite thee, thou whited wall_: for sittest thou to judge me
after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?”[15]
Whence, and from whom, came these words? Evidently from some prisoner
before his judgment-seat, whom he had ordered to be struck.
Yes; he remembered now; it was the indignant utterance of Paul of
Tarsus--that Paul whose life he had sought to take by the daggers of
the Zealots. And now, by the irony of a divine Nemesis, the daggers of
these same Zealots were seeking to take _his_ life!
Were there no secret chambers, he wailed, where one could hide? He had
heard that Herod, in building this palace, had constructed such. Would
no one point them out? But all were too busy with the siege to attend
to his plaint.
That siege was conducted with cool skill on the part of the Romans, and
with undisciplined fury on that of the Jews, who with that fanatical
frenzy peculiar to Orientals, did not hesitate to fling their naked
bodies upon the Roman pikes in the vain attempt to force a way into the
Prætorium.
Every device known to the warfare of that age was tried by the
Jews--escalade and fiery arrows, battering-ram and secret mining--tried
and made of none effect by the vigilance and ingenuity of Crispus. He,
far more than Metilius, was the life and soul of the garrison, even as
Simon proved himself more resourceful and valiant than his captain
Manahem, who chose for the most part to sit still in a safe place,
paying out five golden pieces for every Roman head brought to him.
King Agrippa’s cavalry did excellent service at the first. Sallying
forth at unexpected times they scattered the mob with their furious
charges, and, sweeping the streets clear of the besiegers, they rode
triumphantly round and round the palace. But Simon soon found a remedy
for these tactics by sprinkling the ground with steel calthrops that
lamed the horses and brought down the riders. After this the cavalry
refused to make any more sallies. Simon marked their flagging zeal, and
was quick to turn it to his own advantage. By the mouth of a herald he
proclaimed that the Jewish defenders of the Prætorium should have full
liberty to march out of the city with their arms and effects; some few,
however, were to be exempted from this privilege, Ananias being one
of the number. To his eternal disgrace, Darius, master of Agrippa’s
horse, accepted these terms; Metilius, owing to the paucity of his own
band, was unable to prevent this defection, and accordingly, on the
twenty-first morning of the siege, the Jewish contingent began to file
through the front gate of the Prætorium, amid the jeers and curses of
those whom they were leaving to their fate.
Death had reduced the number of the Romans to two hundred and fifty;
and, as it was impossible with so small a force to defend the whole
circuit of the Prætorium, Metilius seized the opportunity while
the eyes of the Zealots were fastened upon the outgoing Jewish
troops to withdraw quietly and quickly to the three great towers of
Mariamne, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, erected by Herod the Great, and
respectively dedicated to the memory of his wife, his brother, and
his friend--towers situated upon the city-wall, which, at this point,
formed in itself the northern and western sides of the Prætorium.
In the matter of military architecture, antiquity had nothing to show
more marvelous than these three towers. Each stood upon a base of stone
without any chamber or vacuity in it, the base of Mariamne forming
a solid cube of thirty feet, that of Phasaelus forty, and that of
Hippicus sixty. The battering-ram was powerless against these enormous
blocks, compacted with unequaled perfection, and bound together by iron
cramps.
The Zealots, quickly discovering that the Prætorium had been abandoned
by its defenders, entered, and a wild scene ensued. Never remarkable
for discipline or for subserviency to their chiefs, they wrangled
fiercely over the spoil, even to the extent of drawing swords upon
each other. Upon one point, however, all were agreed--namely, that the
beautiful sculptures adorning this old Herodian palace were a violation
of the Second Commandment, and an insult to the Jewish religion.
“Idols!” they screamed.
Making no distinction between the statues of mortals and those of gods,
they called for hammer and mallet, and broke all alike to pieces.
“Vashti’s image among the rest, I suppose,” muttered Crispus, as he
watched the work of destruction. “I would have given much to preserve
it.”
The next day two Zealots, who had been exploring every corner of the
dismantled palace, emerged with a shout, leading captive an old man. It
was Ananias, who had lain during the night concealed in a subterranean
aqueduct.
More dead than alive, the trembling priest, who had once held despotic
sway in Jerusalem, was hauled amid contumely and blows to the presence
of Manahem, who received him with a smile of savage satisfaction.
“What shall be done to this friend of the Romans? this traitor to
his country?” said he, affecting to ask the advice of Simon, whom he
secretly hated, yet dared not hurt.
And herein Simon behaved in very subtle fashion, for wishing Ananias
to die, yet suspecting that if he said as much, Manahem, out of sheer
opposition, would adopt a contrary course, he made answer:
“Let him live.”
It was with a malicious smile that Manahem replied:
“It is my will that he dies.”
And at his nod two Zealots buried their daggers deep in the breast of
the one-time high priest.[16]
An hour afterwards Simon was in the temple-court conversing with
Eleazar.
“Thy sire is dead.”
Eleazar was startled, and to some extent grieved. Filial sentiment
was not altogether dead in him, in spite of his recent quarrel with
Ananias, and on learning how the latter had died, he exclaimed fiercely:
“God do so to me and more also if I make not the end of Manahem as the
end of Ananias!”
The arrogant Manahem, unconscious of the forces secretly working
against him, now entered upon a course that brought him to ruin.
In the sack of the Prætorium he had come across a purple robe and a
golden crown, both belonging formerly to Herod the Great, and, putting
these emblems of royalty upon himself, he began to assume the air of a
king.
Leaving a strong force to watch the towers, Manahem, regally attired,
marched with the rest of his followers to the temple, declaring his
purpose to be a religious one; he came to offer a sacrifice as a means
of obtaining further victories.
But Eleazar, suspecting that his design was to gain possession of
the temple-fortress, without which Manahem could never be master of
the city, closed the gates, set every available Levite on guard, and
refused admission to the Zealot chief.
And now arose a dissension among the followers of Manahem; some were
for obtaining ingress to the temple by force of arms, but others,
sensible that Eleazar was as good a patriot as Manahem, were for
withdrawing.
Then Eleazar, seeing the quarrel becoming great among them, fanned the
flame by a speech that ended with the words:
“Men, zealous for God, you who out of a love of liberty have revolted
from the Romans, do you now betray that liberty? You who have cast off
the yoke of a foreign tyrant, do you now take upon you the yoke of one
home-born?”
Simon, who was standing beside Eleazar, clenched the matter.
“Ten thousand gold pieces to the man who brings me the head of
Manahem,” he shouted.
Thereafter all was confusion.
Some of the Zealots, siding with Eleazar, turned their swords against
their former chief, of whose tyranny they had already begun to weary;
the rest, closing around, endeavored to defend him. Then, beneath the
temple walls, there began a desperate fight, maintained for a short
time with equal fortune on both sides; but when the armed Levites,
under Simon and Eleazar, descended from the temple, the scale of battle
turned. The defeated party fled through Ophel, within whose narrow
and winding streets Manahem contrived to elude capture; but only for
a day or so. Discovered in his hiding-place, he was dragged forth and
slaughtered.
Thus ignominiously perished the last of the sons of the famous Judas,
the Galilean, sons, who, like their untamable father, had spent their
lives among the craggy heights of Judæa, waging guerilla warfare with
the Roman.
Eleazar now took upon himself the captaincy of all the disorderly
elements in the city. Simon was his second in command, and under their
joint direction the siege against the Roman garrison in the three
Herodian towers was pressed forward with vigor. But the fierce attack
was met by a defense equally fierce; ten Zealots died for every Roman,
since the garrison from the cover of their lofty walls could deal far
more hurt to the besiegers than the besiegers could to them.
Yet, in spite of the fact that the advantage was all on his side,
not many days had passed before Metilius, yielding to a strange and
unaccountable spirit of cowardice, suddenly announced his intention
of seeking terms with the enemy. Crispus, thunderstruck at this
weak-mindedness, argued in vain. Metilius held the command, and it was
his to do even as he listed.
Great was Eleazar’s satisfaction to hear himself addressed from the
battlements by Metilius on the question of capitulation.
An immediate armistice was proclaimed; and Eleazar, after a brief
deliberation with Simon, declared that if the Romans would descend from
the towers, and deliver up their arms, they should be permitted to go
forth from the city free and uninjured. To this Metilius assented,
and the compact was ratified by the reception into the towers of
three Jews, distinguished in rank, who, giving their right hand to
the tribune, swore “by the altar of God” to carry out the promised
stipulations.
Placed in a disgraceful position by this coming surrender, Crispus
determined at first that he would remain behind, though he should be
the only one to do so; sword in hand he would die, defending to the
last the Tower of Hippicus. But he soon relinquished this notion as
a piece of splendid but useless heroism; he would be casting away
his life without saving the fortress. It would be wiser and more
satisfactory to live on, and take part in his father’s campaign against
the city, a campaign that would soon reduce the Jews to submission
again.
At the hour fixed for the surrender--it was the Sabbath day--the
Romans descended from the towers, and stood on level ground.
They were received by Eleazar and Simon, who pointed the way the
soldiers should march. Metilius, on looking, saw that his band would
have to pass beneath two spears set obliquely in the ground so as to
form a kind of yoke; the Jews were adopting a Roman ceremony applied
both to slaves and to captives taken in war.
At this sight the blood even of Metilius rebelled.
“This was not included in the compact,” said he.
“Nor excluded,” replied Eleazar with an insulting smile. “March!”
Opposition being, in the circumstances, futile, the Romans were
compelled to submit to the humiliating ceremony. As each passed beneath
the yoke he delivered his sword and buckler to certain of the Zealots
stationed there to receive them.
But when the last Roman had been deprived of his arms, the Levitical
guards of Eleazar, sword in hand, came crowding round the little band.
Their significant looks sent a sudden suspicion to the hearts of the
Romans.
“The end has come, Metilius,” said Crispus. “’Twere better to have gone
on fighting.”
“Prepare for death, ye uncircumcized fools,” cried Eleazar with a
savage laugh.
“Death?” faltered Metilius. “Death, when ye have vowed by a solemn oath
to respect our lives!”
“We swore by the altar of God, and such oath is not binding upon the
conscience of a Jew. Here standeth Gamaliel’s son, Simeon, master of
all the learning of the scribes. Let him say whether I speak falsely.”
And that rabbi, who chanced to be present, stepped forward to justify
Eleazar’s assertion.
“The elders have delivered it,” said he, “that if a man swear by the
gold of the altar he must keep his oath, or dread condemnation; but if
he swear by the altar only, he is not guilty if he break his word.”
But Johanan ben Zacchai, who happened likewise to be present, opposed
this casuistry.
“Simeon,” said he, “which is the greater, the gold, or the altar that
sanctifieth the gold?” And, turning to Eleazar, he said:
“Will ye indeed slay these men?”
“Aye! Did they show us mercy in the day of Florus?”
“You will never get another Roman garrison to submit.”
“Be it so.”
“Defer the deed, for to-day is the Sabbath.”
“A holy day and a holy deed--to exterminate idolaters.”
Simon, although a party to Eleazar’s guilty trick, was nevertheless
willing to make an exception in favor of one of the captives.
“Give me the life of this man,” said he, pointing to Crispus.
“That fellow?” said Eleazar, with a wrathful glance at Crispus. “He is
the one who has done us the most hurt. Why do you seek to spare him?”
“Because at my trial he was the first to rise and rebuke the wicked
Florus.”
“He is the man,” said Simeon ben Gamaliel, “who defied and insulted
us in our own synagogue by snatching a Christian damsel from the
punishment justly due to her.”
“These heathen,” said Eleazar, “when they get the opportunity, try to
make us forswear our faith. Verily, we will do the like by them.”
The bravery exhibited by Crispus throughout the siege of the Prætorium
had created in Eleazar a feeling, not of admiration, but of rage; and
this rage was now enhanced by the serene and fearless bearing of the
captive.
Drawing his sword he walked over to Crispus.
“Cursed polytheist, what is the name of your chief god?”
“He is called Jupiter.”
“Then curse the name of Jupiter, if you would save your soul alive.”
Eleazar’s sneering and insulting menace drove Crispus to a foolish, yet
heroic, defiance.
“Men,” said he, turning to the Romans behind him, “the end has come.
Let us die bravely.” Then, raising his hand aloft to heaven, he cried,
“Sovereign Jupiter, all hail!”
“Swine that thou art!” exclaimed Eleazar; and, grinding his teeth with
rage, he plunged his sword to the very hilt into the side of Crispus,
who sank to the ground as one dead.
Quickened by Eleazar’s example, the Levites and Zealots began a
massacre of the defenseless captives. But Crispus’ words had not
been without effect upon the Romans. How bravely they died let that
historian say who was contemporary with the event.
“They neither defended themselves, nor asked for mercy, but only
reproached their slayers for breaking their oath and the articles of
capitulation. And thus were all these men barbarously murdered, all
excepting”--alas! that it should be written of a Roman!--“all excepting
Metilius; for when he entreated for mercy and promised that he would
turn proselyte and be circumcized, they saved him alive, but none else.”
* * * * *
Thus was Roman rule extinguished in Jerusalem in the year 66 A.D., a
little more than a century after its capture by the great Pompey.
On that same Sabbath, the high priest Matthias, in view of the
great triumph, decreed that the evening sacrifice should partake of
a thanksgiving character; and that, to enhance the dignity of the
occasion, the water used in the service should be taken, not from the
ordinary draw-well in the southern court of the sanctuary, but from the
hallowed Pool of Siloam outside the city wall.
But the Levitical train dispatched on that errand returned with
dismayed faces and empty urns.
Siloam would take no part in the wicked thanksgiving. _Its waters had
ceased flowing!_[17]
CHAPTER XIII
A GOOD SAMARITAN
“He is opening his eyes! _He lives!_”
So spoke Vashti as she knelt beside the silent and recumbent form of
Crispus.
The unmistakable rapture in her tone seemed to displease the woman
standing beside her.
“Why should you be glad, child? He is an enemy to our race.”
“Mother!” said the girl, reproachfully. “Did he not save me from
scourging?”
“Is that any reason why we should imperil our lives on his account?
We shall be stoned to death if the Zealots learn that we are hiding a
Roman in our house. Better for us that he were dead.”
“O, mother, hush! lest he should hear your unkind words.”
Crispus, though awake, heard nothing of this conversation, being too
faint and confused at first to understand anything. Gradually, with
the clearing of his senses, he discovered himself to be lying upon
the floor of a low-roofed chamber that had latticed windows, and was
prettily furnished in Oriental style. He wondered what place it was,
and how he came to be there. Then, as memory began to assert its sway,
he recalled the scene in which he had last closed his eyes--Eleazar’s
glare of hatred, the swift sword-flash, the sharp pang of pain, and the
sinking into darkness and insensibility.
He had expected sudden death at the hands of Eleazar; but clearly he
was not dead yet. Some person must have removed his supposed corpse
from the pile of massacred Romans, and who could that person be but
the lovely maiden that knelt beside him?
He tried to lift himself upon one elbow, but fell back exhausted by the
effort. There was no strength left in him.
“Are you in pain?” asked Vashti.
“No; only weak--weak!” he said in a voice that startled him; he could
not speak above a hollow whisper.
Vashti placed her left arm beneath him; and, lifting him, she put a cup
to his lips.
“Drink!” said she.
Crispus drank, of what he knew not--some dark liquid--but it seemed to
endow him with new life.
“Eat!” was her next command.
Submissive as a child, Crispus ate of whatever her hand offered.
“And now,” continued she, “sleep, and sleep will give you strength.”
He wanted to ask questions, but Vashti enjoined silence by placing
her finger upon his lip in so pretty a way that he was fain to do
her bidding; so, closing his eyes, Crispus, almost against his will,
dropped off to sleep again.
His sleep extended over several hours.
On waking he found Vashti by his side again, ready to minister to his
wants; and, as these wants included a desire for knowledge on certain
points, she proceeded to enlighten him.
“You are in my mother’s house,” said she. “This is my own chamber; and
there,” she continued, pointing with pride to several tiers of shelves
filled with papyrus rolls, “there are my Greek books.”
She then went on to tell him how he came to be there. After the
massacre of the Roman garrison, Josephus, at her request, went to
the fierce Eleazar and asked for the body of Crispus, saying, “He is
a Roman noble, known to me. I pray you, let me give him honorable
burial.” Eleazar’s reply was, “Take him; I war not with the dead.”
When the supposed corpse of Crispus had been conveyed to her house
Vashti sorrowed over it, but her grief suddenly turned to joy when she
detected a movement of his lips.
By a happy stroke of fortune--the hand of God, Vashti called
it--Eleazar’s sword had passed through the ribs of Crispus without
injuring the vital parts. His seeming death was a swoon due to loss
of blood, a loss so great that a few more drops might have ended the
matter. There was life in him, however--faint it might be--but still
life, life that with due care might be preserved. And so--for they
durst not call in a physician, lest the truth should become known to
the outside world--she and her mother, who had some knowledge of the
healing art, had dressed his wounds and carried him to this chamber.
Vashti smiled sweetly when Crispus murmured his gratitude. “Now, I pray
the gods that the Zealots may not discover this, your kindness to me.”
Then she told him of Metilius’ base appeal for life, a story to which
Crispus listened with scorn.
“Rightly named Metilius--little coward!” said he. “What became of him?”
“The Zealots dismissed him with contempt.”
“What a life his will be! He’ll never dare show his face among Romans
again.”
He attempted to raise himself, but, as on the previous day, found that
he was too weak to do so.
“How long am I to lie here?” he said with something like a groan.
“Till your lost blood be made good.”
“When will that be?”
And though pre-informed by her mother that Crispus’ return to vigor was
likely to be a matter of weeks, Vashti replied with a cheerful smile,
“Not many days hence,” justifying herself by the knowledge that to put
a patient in a desponding mood is to retard his recovery.
Vashti’s mother was named Miriam, an elderly dame, so hard and sour of
visage, that Crispus could but wonder how she came to have a daughter
so fair and graceful. He formed a somewhat adverse opinion of Miriam.
True, she visited his chamber every day; but, as he could plainly see,
her inquiries as to his progress were merely perfunctory; in spite of
the fact that he was the son of the great Roman Legate of Syria, she
looked upon him as an encumbrance--nay, more, as a positive danger,
in view of Zealot rule, a person to be got rid of at the earliest
opportunity; and Crispus inwardly chafed at being unable to oblige her
in this respect. A Jewess of the orthodox, narrow-minded type, she was
out of sympathy with Vashti’s ideals; and Crispus mentally blessed the
late Hyrcanus in that he was of a different character from his wife,
and had given his daughter an Hellenic as well as an Hebraic training.
The dissimilitude betwixt mother and daughter had become accentuated of
late owing to Vashti’s conversion to Christianity. When questioned on
this last matter, Vashti acknowledged, striving the while to hide her
tears, that the change of faith had caused Miriam to become strangely
hard and cold.
It was perhaps this growing spirit of estrangement on the part of
Miriam that caused Vashti to find a solace in the companionship of
Crispus, who, though a heathen, seemed more in sympathy with her than
her own Judaic mother.
Crispus marveled at Vashti’s care for him, marveled still more as the
days went by without any slackening of her ministrations. An ideal
nurse, she seemed bent on doing everything within her power to render
pleasant his enforced inactivity. Tactful to a nicety, she was never
in the way and never out of it. Responsive to the passing whims of
her patient--and what patient is not whimsical at times?--she could
recognize when he wished for solitude, and would leave him to himself;
if he were desirous of conversation, she was ever ready to meet his
desire. On learning that he had a great liking for Herodotus, she drew
that charming, old-world historian from her little library, and read to
him day by day, seldom failing to illumine the subject with interesting
comments of her own; and once, at eventide, she took her harp and
sang in a voice so sweet that Crispus begged for a repetition of the
pleasure; and, ever after that, as the shades of twilight fell, she
would sing to him from that cycle of psalms which, though he knew it
not, are destined to be sung till the end of time.
It puzzled Crispus that Vashti should so interest herself in him.
Was this interest the expression merely of her gratitude, for the
service he had rendered her in the synagogue, or was it the expression
of a more tender sentiment? Was Vashti seeking to win his love? The
thought troubled him. It was hard to be compelled to crush this rising
desire on her part--that is, supposing it existed--for however pure,
attractive, and beautiful Vashti might be, she was not for him; he
must remain faithful to the unknown Athenaïs, not only because it
was a point of honor for a Cestius to keep faith, but also because
his ambition could not easily forego the kingdom dependent upon his
mysterious marriage.
Vashti, it seemed, had a little brother, a child of eighteen months.
One morning she brought him with some diffidence into the chamber,
and, finding that Crispus did not object to his presence, but, on the
contrary, derived considerable amusement from his infantine attempts at
talking, she brought him every day; and though Vashti was “as learned
as Minerva”--Crispus’ own expression--she proved herself in other
respects a veritable tom-boy, playing at “hide and seek,” and romping
round the room till the child fairly shrieked with delight. It was a
new feature in her character, and one that pleased Crispus.
Tired at last of play the little fellow clambered upon his sister’s
knee, and nestled against her breast.
Vashti’s remark that he was called Arad led to a talk upon personal
names and their meanings; and, of course, Crispus soon fastened his
attention upon her own name.
“Vashti is a Persian word said to mean beautiful,” she replied with a
little blush.
“You could not change it for one more appropriate,” remarked Crispus,
“unless it were----”
He paused. A wild suspicion had suddenly taken possession of him, a
suspicion that set his pulses thrilling with a delicious pleasure.
“What new name would you suggest?” asked Vashti with a wondering smile.
“What do you say to Athenaïs?” he asked, watching her keenly as he
spoke.
Was he mistaken, or did Vashti give a start as if she recognized
the hidden purport of the question? Her surprise, if such it were,
was quickly under control. She looked at him with eyes calm and
unfathomable in their expression.
“No true Hebrew maiden would like _that_ name.”
“Wherein doth it offend?”
“It is derived from the name of a Grecian goddess.”
“And therefore suitable for one as learned as Athene.”
Vashti smilingly shook her golden tresses at the compliment.
“I do not like the name,” she said, as she gently rocked Arad to sleep.
So far Crispus’ experiment was a failure. There was nothing in her
manner to suggest the hypothesis that she had been the veiled lady of
Beth-tamar. Still, there seemed to be a sort of shadowy connection
between her and the unknown Athenaïs. He reasoned thus:--Vashti was
very like the statue of one, Pythodoris; that statue was the gift of
Polemo; Polemo was he who had arranged the wedding of Athenaïs.
Crispus resolved to proceed warily.
“You appear to be well versed in Grecian history,” said he. “Can you
tell me who Pythodoris was?”
Vashti became lost in thought for a few moments, and then replied:
“There was a queen of Pontus who bore that name. She died about thirty
years ago.”
“Any relation to the present king, Polemo?”
“His mother.”
“Was she a beautiful woman?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” laughed Vashti. “Why do you ask?”
“There was a statue of her in the Prætorium.”
“Then if you’ve seen it you ought to know whether she were beautiful.”
“The statue was very like _you_.”
“Oh! then she wasn’t _very_ beautiful.”
“The statue was so like you that at first sight I thought it was meant
for nobody else till the name Pythodoris, carved on the pedestal,
corrected my error.”
Vashti’s eyes opened wide in wonder. She could assign no reason why the
statue of Pythodoris should resemble herself.
“And she was the mother of the present king, you say? Have you ever
seen this Polemo?”
Vashti replied in the negative.
“But he was present at the banquet of Florus.”
“Then I suppose I must have seen him without knowing him,” replied
Vashti; and, having succeeded in hushing her little brother to sleep,
she carried him gently from the room.
Something like a sigh escaped from Crispus as he realized that since
Vashti did not know King Polemo she could not have been the veiled lady
of Beth-tamar.
Next day when Crispus suggested that it might hasten his recovery if
he could breathe the purer air of the roof, Vashti and her mother,
lifting the cords at the head and foot of his pallet, carried it,
albeit with some difficulty, up the short staircase and deposited
it upon the flat roof beneath the shade of a trellis overhung with
vine-leaves, so placing the pallet as to prevent him from being
overlooked by the occupants of the neighboring houses; while at the
same time an opening in the parapet near by enabled him, whenever he
chose to raise himself upon his elbow, to observe a good deal of what
was going on in the streets below.
All Jerusalem was resounding with the preparations for war. Though the
aged and the wise might shake their heads gravely and hold aloof from
the revolutionary movement, the young and the unthinking, elated at
seeing the last vestige of Roman rule swept from the capital, flung in
their lot with the Zealots and spent a considerable portion of each day
in the performance of military exercises under captains appointed by
Eleazar and Simon. The city walls were being repaired and strengthened,
the very women and children laboring enthusiastically in the task. The
air rang with the beating of steel upon the anvil, the steel that was
to be dyed deep in Roman blood! At night Ophel was one red glow with
the light that came from the various forges.
“They have hewn down the golden eagle from the gate of the temple,”
said Vashti.
“They cannot take him from the sky, however,” replied Crispus, pointing
to a magnificent specimen that was sailing aloft with slow and majestic
motion. Suddenly, this eagle drooped its pinions, and, descending like
a plummet, alighted upon the parapet just above the head of Crispus.
Vashti started back with a little scream; then, by motioning with her
hands, she tried to make the eagle fly off; he took no notice of her,
however, but sat with unruffled plumage, the embodiment of majesty
and gravity. Try as she would Vashti could not get the eagle to stir,
but, finding that he remained quiet and showed no disposition to attack
either Crispus or herself, she relinquished her efforts and resumed her
conversation, timorously glancing from time to time at the eagle, which
kept its post as though it were some faithful sentinel appointed to
watch over the patient.
This little incident was not without significance for Crispus, whose
mind, in common with other minds of that day, saw an omen in anything
out of the common. At the very moment when Eleazar was threatening him
with death, he had appealed to sovereign Jupiter. Now, the eagle being
the symbol of that deity as well as of the Roman empire, he could not
help interpreting its presence as a heaven-sent assurance that Jove and
the legions would effect his safety. Aware, however, that Vashti had no
faith in his gods, he kept this opinion to himself.
In the evening the eagle flew off. The two watched till it became a
mere black speck upon the glowing gold of the western sky--watched till
it faded from view.
“It will return on the morrow,” said Crispus confidently.
Sure enough, next morning the eagle came winging its way eastward; and,
as before, it alighted upon the parapet above the head of Crispus, as
if bent on renewing its watch. Vashti, grown somewhat accustomed to its
presence, viewed it now with less apprehension, and made no attempt to
repel it.
“The money of the new government,” said she, with a sad smile,
exhibiting a shekel, one of those pieces known to the Jews of after
ages as “The money of danger,” and now, by reason of their rarity,
eagerly sought by numismatists.
“If their fighting prove no better than their coinage, it will go ill
with them,” remarked Crispus, who, on closely inspecting the supposed
shekel, saw that it was in reality a Roman coin that had recently
received in the Jewish mint a fresh stamp--namely, that of a palm
branch encircled with Hebraic characters, whose signification was,
“_The first year of the freedom of Zion_.”
So imperfectly, however, had the work been executed that the original
effigy, the head of Nero, with its Latin inscription, was discernible
beneath the Jewish impression.
“They try to efface Cæsar, but fail,” said Crispus. “Good! I accept the
omen.”
At eventide the eagle flew off, returning again next morning. On the
fourth day, however, it did not appear, nor on any subsequent day.
CHAPTER XIV
“THOU WILT NEVER TAKE THE CITY”
The moon of a lovely autumnal night silvered the sleeping Roman camp
that lay at the entrance of “the going up to Beth-horon.” Not a sound
disturbed the silence, save the light tread of the vigilant sentinels
pacing their rounds.
The array of black tents, glittering arms, and lofty standards,
occupied a vast area, square in shape, and defended on all sides by
an earthen rampart, and an outer trench filled with water from a
neighboring stream--defenses made by a three-hours’ labor with mattock
and spade, the whole army having toiled at the task. No matter how
short their stay in a place--and the camping on the present occasion
was for one night only--the Roman legionaries would never, at least in
a hostile country, take their sleep till they had secured themselves
from attack in the manner just described. Four gates, facing the four
points of the compass, gave entrance to the camp, whose countless
lines of tents crossing each other at right angles looked with the
intervening spaces like the streets and squares of a well-planned city.
This military force was under the command of Cestius Gallus, imperial
Legate of Syria, and its object was the restoration to Roman rule of
the rebellious city of Jerusalem, sixteen miles distant.
The tent of the general-in-chief, or, to employ the Latin term, the
prætorium, was pitched, according to immemorial custom, by the gate
nearest to the enemy, in this case the southern one, as being on the
side towards Jerusalem.
This tent, furnished in the simplest fashion and lighted by a lamp
pendent from the roof, contained but one occupant, the Legate.
He was a man of about sixty years, grave and soldierly; his face at
ordinary times had a look that showed him to be, in spite of his
military profession, a man of a humane and kindly disposition; but now,
and for many days past, there had been in his aspect something so stern
and cold that the soldier about to ask a favor of his general shrank
away, reserving the matter for another time.
The sudden entering of a man unannounced caused the Legate to look up
with a frown.
“Who comes here?” said he, shading his eyes with his hand.
“A wise man and a fool.”
“How can that be, royal Polemo?” said Cestius, smoothing his brows as
he recognized his visitor.
“He who is not a fool at times is never a wise man,” returned the
Pontic king, taking his seat with an air that proved him to be on
familiar terms with the Legate.
“You have returned from Achaia very quickly,” said Cestius.
“Twelve days on the sea going and coming. I doubt whether the double
voyage were ever performed in so short a time. I found the god”--this
with a sneer--“at Olympia.”
“You told him of the revolt?”
“All that I knew of it.”
“And his commands?”
Polemo drew forth a scroll of papyrus, secured with red wax and
impressed with a seal which Cestius knew to be that of Nero. Breaking
the seal, the Legate read the missive, first silently, and then, for
the benefit of Polemo, aloud.
“Our faithful servant, Cestius Gallus, is herewith granted full
liberty to deal with the rebellious city of Jerusalem in whatever
way he deemeth best for the interests of the Roman republic.
“Given on this, the eighth of the Ides of September, in the twelfth
year of our reign. NERO AUGUSTUS.”
“Liberty to deal with the city as I please?” exclaimed Cestius, a
fierce fire sparkling from his eyes and a color lighting up his
hitherto sallow cheek. “_Delenda est Hierosolyma!_ Not a man in it
shall live. Its women and children shall be sold into slavery. I will
give their temple to the flames and the city to destruction. Not one
stone of it shall be left standing upon another. Jerusalem shall be
blotted from the face of the earth.”
This threatened doom being the very end for which Polemo had been
clandestinely working during a space of many years was received by
him with secret rapture; nevertheless he could not help wondering why
Cestius, usually humane in his dealings, should have become animated
by a spirit so merciless. But now, as Polemo noticed, what he had not
noticed before, namely, that the Legate was wearing a black pallium,
the emblem of mourning, he was seized with a sudden suspicion.
“I am the last of my race,” said Cestius, answering the question
expressed by the other’s eyes. “There is no son to carry on my name.”
“Say not that Crispus is dead!” gasped Polemo, whose look of grief
could not have been keener if he, and not Cestius, had been the father.
“Crispus dead! Then my plan for the humiliation of--Oh, it cannot be!
How? When?”
“You shall learn. ’Tis the time for it,” said the Legate with a glance
at a clepsydra that stood on the table before him.
“The time?” repeated Polemo wonderingly.
“Every night at this hour I strengthen my spirit in its purpose of
vengeance by hearing anew from the mouth of an eye-witness the story of
a massacre wrought by the lying oath of a cowardly priest.”
Even as he spoke the curtain draping the entrance of the tent was
lifted, and there entered two spearmen leading between them a captive
whose dress and physiognomy bore unmistakable evidence of his Jewish
origin.
“A deserter from the city. Now, fellow, tell thy tale.”
Frequent repetition had made the captive fluent in his narration, so
with an unfaltering voice and in a simple style he gave a full account
of the calamitous ending to the brave defense of the Prætorium.
“Art certain that Eleazar’s was a fatal stab?” asked Polemo.
“It could not have been otherwise; he dealt stroke upon stroke,”
replied the Jew, who saw no reason why he should not heighten the story
of Eleazar’s cruelty. Lives there a man who can relate an event exactly
as it happened?
“Woe to Eleazar!” said Cestius. “’Twere better for him had he never
been born.”
“What became of the bodies of those that were massacred?” asked Polemo.
“They were taken outside the city to a place called Aceldama, where it
is the custom to bury strangers. A trench was dug, and the corpses were
flung into it, one upon another.”
“You saw the body of Crispus treated thus?”
And the man stating, not what had happened, but what he fancied had
happened, answered in the affirmative.
“Flung into a common grave! Lost to me forever!” murmured Cestius. “I
am denied even the melancholy consolation of taking home his ashes.”
* * * * *
With the morning light the Roman army, having breakfasted, prepared to
resume its march.
At the first shrill sound of the trumpet the tents fell flat to the
ground; at the second, which followed at a measured interval, they
were piled with other baggage upon wagons and beasts of burden; at
the third signal the march began, the vanguard filing off in stately
order, eight abreast. Soon the whole of the vast army was in motion,
winding like a glittering, scaly serpent up the mountain pass that
led towards Jerusalem. Mounted scouts pushed on ahead for the purpose
of forestalling those ambuscades which are the delight of an Oriental
people.
Cestius, who rode in the center of the host with King Polemo by his
side, became annoyed at the irregular movements on the part of the
columns composing the vanguard, who for a time would maintain a march
so brisk as to leave a long interval between themselves and the central
division, and then, without any apparent cause, would come to a dead
halt, moving on again a few minutes afterwards. At last a stop was
made of such duration that it brought the whole of the army following
to a standstill, thus tending to create a degree of confusion not
often witnessed in the Roman ranks. Unable any longer to control his
impatience, Cestius, setting spurs to his steed, galloped forward,
bent on administering a sharp reproof to the tribune in charge of the
vanguard.
On being questioned as to the cause of this long halt that officer
referred his angry general to the tall and stately figure of a priest,
standing a few paces in front of the first rank and bearing in his
hand the short _lituus_ or augurial staff. It was Theomantes, priest
of Jupiter Cæsarius, the one-time councilor of Florus, but now acting,
and that at Cestius’ own wish, as the official augur of the Roman army.
The Legate had a high regard for him, but when Theomantes, presuming on
this regard, ventured to check the advance of the whole army, he was
undoubtedly usurping the authority of the general, an act not to be
tolerated.
“How now, Theomantes?” cried Cestius angrily. “Why this delay?”
“Seest thou yon eagle?” said Theomantes, pointing to an eagle in front
of them, poised apparently motionless in the air.
“I see it. And what then?”
“’Tis the divine director of our march. When it advances, we advance;
when it stops, we stop; for so will it be to our advantage.”
“And when it retreats, I suppose we must retreat,” sneered Cestius.
“Shall a father, bent on the sacred duty of avenging his son, be stayed
by a fowl of the air? Fellow, thy bow and arrow,” he cried, addressing
a Cretan archer that stood by; and, having received what he had asked
for, Cestius fitted a shaft to the string, and, taking aim at the
eagle, let fly.
The shot was a good one; pierced by the arrow, the eagle dropped to the
earth like a falling stone.
“Fools!” exclaimed the Legate scornfully, as he noticed the dismayed
looks of the superstitious soldiers, “exercise your reason. If yon
eagle had the power of foreseeing the future, would it not have kept
far hence, and not have flown hither to meet its death by the arrow of
Cestius?”
“Cestius Gallus,” said the augur, solemnly, “thou hast slain the
messenger sent by Jove to direct our march. The wrath of the gods will
be upon thee for this. _Thou wilt never take the city._”
With this he broke his augurial staff in two, and cast the pieces at
Cestius’ feet; then, walking to the roadside, he seated himself upon
a crag; and, covering both head and face with his mantle, in token
of grief, he added: “Here will I abide till I see thee returning in
headlong confusion.”
“I will prove thee a liar,” said the Legate fiercely. “Forward!” he
continued, addressing the vanguard.
The Jews, gazing from the lofty ramparts of their city, beheld with
secret fear the drilled legions of Rome ascending and descending “the
hills that stand about Jerusalem,” and stationing themselves at every
strategic point; their eyes, turn them which way they would, saw
nothing but the glitter of the eagles; all retreat was cut off; the
city was girt with a ring of steel.
As the house of Miriam, widow of Hyrcanus, was one of the highest on
Mount Zion, and as Mount Zion was the highest of the four hills on
which Jerusalem was built, it follows that the military display outside
the city could not escape the notice of Crispus as he lay upon the
roof. The sight filled him with patriotic pride, a pride enhanced by
the knowledge that it was his father who led that mighty host; _he_
would not fail in the work; Rome would again vindicate her supremacy;
and Eleazar and the false, cowardly crew that had taken part in the
barbarous massacre of the garrisons would receive their merited doom. A
pity he, Crispus, must lie here, unable to join in the coming fight!
Beside his pallet sat the gentle Vashti, her eyes on the Roman host.
“Your father will not take the city,” said she quietly; “at least, not
at this time.”
Crispus, almost startled by her air of certainty, asked what reason she
had for her belief.
“There are in this city,” replied Vashti, “a multitude of Christians
over whom our Divine Master watcheth, for He is not dead but liveth
eternally. Think you that He will permit His saints to fall by the
sword of the Romans? I trow not; those guilty Jews who have hardened
their heart against Him will receive their just doom; but of His
disciples He saith, ‘There shall not a hair of your head perish.’ And
therefore that we might know when the time is come for us to quit the
city, He, while on earth, gave us this sign.” Vashti drew from her
bosom a scroll of papyrus written in Greek characters, and read from it
the following sentence: “‘_When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with
armies, then let them that are in the midst of it depart out._’”
“How can they depart out with a hostile army camping all round?” asked
Crispus, captiously.
“How, indeed? Therefore it is necessary that this hostile army should
be withdrawn for a time.”
“In order to give the Christians the opportunity to escape!” said
Crispus with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
Yes, that was her belief, and she had no other reason for it than a
supposed prophetical passage in a book she called the Evangel! This was
not the first time (for she had often talked to him about her religion)
that Vashti had sought to connect her Divine Teacher with the course
of contemporary events. In her view He was the central figure of the
world’s history; old times pointed to His coming; new times were to
flow from it. Present events were taking place for no other reason than
to advance the interests of the new religion. The general Cestius was
merely a passive instrument in the hands of the deified Galilæan; his
march to Jerusalem was not to vindicate the majesty of Rome, but to
serve as a Divine sign to the Christians, and, having played the part
allotted to him, he was to march back again without taking the city!
Crispus could scarcely listen with patience to a theory so fantastical.
A Cestius to retreat? Go to!
However, as Vashti quietly remarked in answer to his arguments, the
event would decide.
“Is your father a cruel man?” continued she.
“Quite the contrary; for a soldier he is said to be too merciful.”
“Yet he has vowed to slay every man in the city, and to sell the women
and children into slavery.”
“How know you that?”
“It is shouted at us by the enemy whenever they draw near the wall, and
not by the common soldiers only: the centurions mock us with the same
doom.”
“He thinks me dead, and hence his wrath. ’Tis a pity he should be in
error. How it would gladden him to know that I am alive! Is there no
way of communicating with him?”
Vashti reflected.
“I think,” said she, “I can contrive to let him know that you are
living.”
“How?” asked Crispus, eagerly.
“If you will write a letter I will try to have it conveyed to him. I
know a Christian youth, Heber by name, whom I have but to command, and
he will perform this service for me. His house is upon the city wall.
To get to the Roman camp he has but to lower himself by a rope. He can
carry your message, but whether he can bring one back----”
“No. ’Twill be a dangerous business to be seen returning. Let him
remain in the Roman camp. And tell him that whatever reward he likes to
ask for--in reason--my delighted father will give. And now for stylus
and papyrus.”
Vashti flew to procure writing materials, and Crispus, sitting up,
proceeded to indite the following epistle:
“To the most excellent of fathers, greeting.
“Cast off your black pallium, and make a sacrifice to Jupiter the
Saviour, for I, your son Crispus, am not, as you suppose, in Hades,
but am lodged with the widow Miriam, whose house is in the street of
Millo, abiding secretly for fear of the Zealots. That I have not sought
to escape to the Roman camp is due to my enfeebled frame, which would
not be living at all, but for the care and attention of a sweet maiden
named Vashti.”
“You must delete the word _dulcis_,” said Vashti.
But this Crispus declined to do.
“Therefore should you take the city”--he put this hypothetically in
deference to Vashti’s belief--“you must, as owing your son’s life to
her, deal leniently with the nation to which she belongs, and show the
mercy that pertaineth to an honorable Roman general. May we soon meet.
_Vale!_”
He added the date, together with a strange sign that puzzled Vashti.
“A private mark,” he explained. “’Twill convince him of the
authenticity of this little epistle.”
Later in the day Vashti went off with the letter; and, returning
after an interval of two hours, was able to announce that Heber had
undertaken the charge, but from due regard to safety he would not make
the attempt till after nightfall.
Evidently he kept his word, for when Vashti visited his house next day
his mystified kinsfolk declared that he had vanished during the night,
deserting apparently to the Roman camp, since they had discovered a
rope hanging from the window of his room.
Crispus from his place on the roof continued to watch with a lively
interest the doings of the Romans.
Three days were spent by the Legate in perfecting his arrangements for
the taking of the city; on the fourth day he advanced, delivering his
attack from the north.
For five days the fighting went on, very much to the advantage of
the Romans; at the close of the sixth day they had captured certain
strategic points--a capture that made it manifest, even to those
citizens least experienced in military affairs, that the morrow would
bring with it the fall of the city.
Crispus, who had watched the operations with the trained eye of a
soldier, remarked with filial pride: “My father will do in one week
what took the great Pompey twelve weeks.”
But Vashti shook her pretty head mournfully.
That same night the remnant of the Sanhedrim and the captains of the
Zealots met in the hall Gazith to deliberate upon their desperate
situation. There was scarcely a man among them but believed the doom of
the city to be a matter of a few hours only.
The once fierce Eleazar trembled now, remembering that it was _his_
hand that had struck down the Legate’s son. Though Cestius should be
never so merciful to the rebels, there was one person at least whom he
was certain not to spare.
Gloom and despondency marked every face but that of Simon; he alone
maintained a bold front.
“To-morrow about this time,” said he, “Cestius will be in full retreat.”
“Yes, if the Messiah should descend from heaven to help us,” said
Matthias, the high priest.
“Earthly means will suffice.”
“What is your plan, for you evidently have one?”
“Simply this; I shall go to Cestius and shall say to him, ‘Cestius,
withdraw your legions,’ and he will withdraw them.”
“Have we need of madmen?” said Matthias, turning scornfully to Eleazar,
“that you admit this fellow to our councils?”
CHAPTER XV
THE TRIUMPH OF SIMON
Night melted into the golden light of a lovely morning.
The Jewish multitude, pale-eyed and anxious, trooped to the city walls.
To their surprise the encircling lines of legionaries that had been
posted to the east, and to the west, and to the south, of the city were
all in motion, taking their way to the camp at Scopus.
Conjecturing what this new movement should mean, the Jews came to
the conclusion that Cestius was massing all his troops for the final
assault, to be delivered from the north.
This was likewise the opinion of Crispus; his father was purposely
leaving three sides of the city unguarded in the belief that the Jews
would fight with less desperation, as knowing that a way of retreat was
open to them both on flank and rear.
By noontide all the various sections of the Roman army were seen to be
concentrated upon the northern heights of Scopus. Not a cohort, not
a maniple, not a single legionary, was visible elsewhere. Even those
strategic points which on the previous day had been won at the cost of
so much toil and blood were all relinquished, the troops that held them
having withdrawn to join the common host.
This last movement was, in the eyes of the Jewish multitude, a very
mysterious one. What did it mean? They looked on in silent and
breathless wonder.
Suddenly, the shrill note of a trumpet rang out upon the morning
air. The distant notes were borne by the breeze in faint cadence to
the ears of Crispus. With a sudden thrill at his heart he listened,
doubtful as to whether he could have heard aright. Again the trumpet
sang out. The same strain as before. There was no mistaking its
meaning, and Crispus sank back with a groan of despair.
_It was the signal for retreat!_
The great army that had set out from Antioch burning to redeem Roman
honor by recovering Jerusalem was now actually moving off again, at
the very moment when it might have successfully accomplished its work;
moving off--to quote the contemporary historian--“without any reason in
the world!”[18]
Silently the people stared, scarcely able to believe their eyes. Then,
as each successive evolution made the truth more and more plain, there
burst from a hundred thousand voices a yell that seemed to rend the
very firmament.
“THE ROMANS ARE RETREATING!”
“It’s a stratagem to lure the Jews from the city,” said the bewildered
Crispus, trying to delude himself with false hopes. “They will follow,
and he will fall upon them.”
He was right in saying that the Jews would follow.
The gates of the city clanged wide, and an armed multitude, Simon at
their head, poured forth with intent to harass the retreating foe.
Crispus, watching with mournful and rueful visage, took his last look
at the soldiers of the Roman rearguard as they stood in glittering
splendor upon the sky-line. They had faced about on the very summit of
Scopus to discharge a flight of arrows at the foremost column of the
pursuing Jews; a few moments afterwards and they had disappeared behind
the heights.
Their parting shots had no effect upon the advance of the Jews, who in
a wild, tumultuous mass swept forward up the broad, white, dusty road
and over the brow of the hill; in course of time they, too, like the
Romans, became lost to view.
Crispus fully expected to see them ere long come surging back in
headlong flight; but no! Sounds as of tumult and fighting reached his
ears, but these sounds becoming more and more distant showed that it
was _not_ the Jews who were fleeing.
Sorrowfully he lay down, and while vainly trying--for he would not
accept Vashti’s explanation of the matter--to devise some theory to
account for a retreat so strange, he fell asleep. Vashti seized the
opportunity to steal quietly off, and making her way to the temple
turned into the Eastern Cloister or Solomon’s Colonnade. Here the
Christians of Jerusalem were wont to meet, drawn thither by the
knowledge that this place had been a favorite resort of their Lord
while upon earth. As Vashti made her way along this arcade she came
upon a little group--men, women, and children--whom she recognized
as adherents of the faith, the holy band that had survived the
persecutions alike of Jewish Sanhedrim and Roman procurator. Their
air, sad yet sweet, and the character of their attire--for they were
habited as if for a long journey--told her that they were taking their
last farewell of the temple. Some were gazing wistfully around, as well
knowing that they would see the place no more; a few knelt reverently
upon the pavement, and kissed the stones that had once been trodden by
the hallowed feet of the Saviour.
Among them, exercising a mild and paternal authority, there moved one,
dignified and saintly in aspect, Simeon, son of Cleophas, revered as
being the cousin, according to the flesh, of the crucified Master. A
pillar of the church, and a witness of the truth, he had already lived
seventy years, and was destined, either from the pure and temperate
character of his life or from being specially favored by heaven,
to live yet fifty more, terminating his long life by a glorious
martyrdom.[19]
It was his hand that had baptized Vashti, whom he now greeted with a
gentle smile.
“You are quitting the city?” said she, sorrowfully.
“Even so,” returned Simeon; “at intervals, and in small groups, that
we may not attract the attention of our enemies. We have seen the sign
foretold by the Lord while He was yet with us: ‘Jerusalem compassed
with armies.’ Therefore do we obey His voice and hasten our departure,
lest the Zealots should return to intercept our flight. The door is
open; who can tell how soon it may be shut? We have a further sign in
the Messianic fountain of Siloam that has withdrawn its waters from
this wicked city.”
“And whither are you going?”
“Beyond Jordan to the city of Pella among the mountains. My daughter,
are you not going with us, seeing that upon this city, that hath shed
the blood of the saints, there is coming utter destruction?--yea,
‘_Tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this
time; no, nor ever shall be._’”
There was in the bishop’s words that which set Vashti’s heart thrilling
with a nameless fear. She yearned to accompany the little band to
Pella, but durst not run contrary to the will of her mother, who, she
well knew, would never be persuaded to quit the city. And there was
little Arad. And the good but heathen Crispus, for whose conversion she
daily prayed, occupied also a place in her heart. No! she could not
bear to part from these, and so she resisted the persuasive words of
her new-found friends.
“Why will you make me weep?” said she. “If it be the will of the Lord
can He not protect me here equally as well as at Pella?”
“Daughter, thou hast well said,” returned Simeon. “Is it not written:
‘Who ever perished, being innocent? or when were the righteous cut
off?’ We leave thee in His hands. Be sure that we shall not fail to
pray for thee daily.”
“Your blessing, father,” said Vashti as she knelt upon the pavement.
“You have it, my daughter,” replied the good bishop, laying his hands
upon her head.
The little band now turned sorrowfully away, casting many a lingering
look behind. Vashti, gazing from the pillared arcade, watched them as
they quitted the Shushan or Beautiful Gate, and made their way down the
hillside to the brook Cedron. Crossing the dark stream by a bridge they
ascended the leafy slope of Olivet; arrived upon its summit they paused
to take one long, last look at the city, and then, disappearing one by
one over the brow of the mount, they became lost to view.
With a sense of desolation at her heart, such as she had never before
known, Vashti went home again to find Crispus awake and chafing because
the Jews had not yet returned in headlong flight.
But the Jews did not return that day; no, nor yet the next! A whole
week passed, a week filled with strange rumors of Roman defeat and
Jewish success.
On the eighth day the Jewish multitude reappeared, chanting songs of
victory.
Their entry into the city took the shape of a triumphal procession,
made resplendent with chariots and horses, with arms and standards, all
captured from the enemy!
When Simon, the hero of the fight, appeared riding in an ivory
car, whose front and sides were decorated with the gory heads of
slain Romans, the delighted citizens greeted him with the waving of
palm-branches, as though he were the very Messiah. Young maidens flung
flowers before his chariot, and men cast down purple mantles.
“Hosanna to the son of Giora!”
“Hail to the Scourge of the Romans!”
It was a great day for the Zealot chief, too great in the eyes of the
jealous Eleazar, who was beginning to fear that Simon had ambitions
inconsistent with his own supremacy.
“We must clip the wings of this eagle ere he fly too high,” he muttered
darkly.
As for Crispus, the procession seemed to him like some hideous dream.
Could it be that a fine Roman army, commanded by his own father, had
suffered defeat at the hands of an undisciplined horde of Oriental
barbarians?
It was even so; Vashti that evening told him the whole story as she had
gathered it from others.
Simon’s followers, keeping to the heights that overhung the Pass of
Beth-horon, had followed the Romans day by day, attacking them in
front, flank and rear, but never venturing an open engagement. The
Roman legionaries, demoralized by the retreat, seemed to lack even the
spirit to defend themselves. At last, when more than five thousand of
his men had fallen in this guerilla warfare, Cestius, to avoid further
disaster, was compelled to resort to a stratagem of despair. Having
with studied pomp and display formed and fortified a camp, he stole
off quietly in the dead of night, leaving the tents standing and the
watch-fires burning, so as to deceive the enemy for a time. The trick
answered; and Cestius, gaining a few hours’ start, succeeded by forced
marches in bringing his panic-stricken troops to Antipatris, behind
whose ramparts he was secure from attack. As for the camp with its
standards, furniture, and military stores, this was, of course, seized
and plundered by the delighted Jews.
Not since the day when the German barbarians, under Arminius, had cut
to pieces the legions of Varus in the depths of the Teutoburg forest,
had a disaster so great befallen the Roman arms.
Had this defeat happened under any other commander, the shame of it
would have touched to the quick the patriotic pride of Crispus, but
that this defeat should have been brought about by the bad generalship
of his own father----!
Filial affection seemed for the moment to die within Crispus.
“Doth my father still live?” he muttered moodily. “Had he no sword to
fall upon? He hath made the name of Cestius synonymous with coward.”
That day, the first time for several weeks, Crispus was able to rise
from his bed and assume his Roman garb.
And now came the momentous question as to how he should get safely out
of Jerusalem, a question that was settled in a very remarkable manner.
Miriam’s house, like all the larger houses in Jerusalem, was built
around a square court paved with tiles, and adorned in the middle with
a fountain.
One afternoon, Vashti was sitting alone in this court, and thinking,
as she was always thinking, of Crispus, when a heavy footstep caused
her to look up. The thing that she had been fearing during many weeks
had come to pass at last. There, a few paces distant, stood Simon
of Gerasa! Only by a great effort was she able to keep herself from
fainting at sight of the dark and terrible Zealot.
“Interpret me this riddle,” said he. “Into the house was seen to go
that which never came forth again.”
She knew that he was alluding to Crispus, and her heart almost ceased
beating.
“To be more plain, doth not Crispus the Roman abide here?”
In defiance of the teaching of Simeon the bishop, that a falsehood is
never justifiable even when its purpose is to save human life, Vashti
was tempted to deny all knowledge of Crispus.
“Why should you think that?” she replied in a trembling voice.
“You do not deny it? Take me to him.”
Vashti did not stir.
“Come, girl,” exclaimed Simon, growing impatient, “delay not, or I
summon my Zealots to search the house, and if these patriots once
enter,” he continued with a grim smile, “they’ll leave little of value
behind. I seek the Roman to do him not evil but good. I swear it.”
“_You_ swear!” flashed out Vashti, her indignation getting the better
of her fear. “You, who broke your oath and massacred the Roman
garrison! What is _your_ word worth?”
The Zealot laughed unashamedly.
“When a man, desirous of hanging a dog, lures the creature to him by
a tempting bait, do you call him wicked? And what are the Romans but
dogs, unfit to live.”
“Then Crispus, being a Roman, is a dog?”
“He is; but he is the best of the dogs, and therefore am I minded to do
him a service.”
Compelled to yield, Vashti led the way, wondering what Crispus would
think of her action in bringing the Zealot upon him.
She found him in an upper chamber, sitting at a table, reading a Greek
scroll of one of the gospels, and frowning at what he considered its
bizarre style. Upon the same table lay a drawn sword.
“‘_And they shall lay thee even with the ground_,’” read Crispus. “Now,
I trust that this man may prove a true prophet, for--ah! who comes
here?”
His eye, lifting, had caught sight of Simon. Familiarized with sudden
perils, Crispus kept an unmoved countenance.
“How fares the noble patient?” said Simon, sardonically.
“Why, as to that, you may test his strength, if you will,” replied
Crispus, laying his hand upon the sword.
But though he spoke thus boldly, and longed to slay the man who had
helped to massacre his fellow-Romans, he felt himself, in his present
state of convalescence, to be as weak as a babe. It was all over with
him if the Zealot took him at his word.
“Tush!” responded Simon, with folded arms. “Do you not see that I am
unarmed. I come as a friend. Were I thy enemy and desired thy death
should I have sought to save thee from the hand of Eleazar?”
“And why that attempted grace on your part?” asked Crispus, laying down
his weapon.
“Were you not the first to rise at my trial and condemn the dastardly
Florus?”
“My condemnation of Florus was not meant as the justification of Simon.”
“Be that as it may. Let me state my errand. You are surrounded by
enemies, who, if they did but know that you are abiding here, would
break in and slay you. Be it mine to save you. I am here secretly to
offer you a safe conduct to your Roman friends at Antipatris.”
“’Tis scarcely credible,” said Crispus.
He was amazed, as well he might be, at the offer. Why should Simon be
willing to undertake this enterprise, which, if detected, would put him
at feud with Eleazar and the whole body of the Zealots?
“My reason for this course I reserve till to-night,” was the only
answer Simon would give to Crispus’ questioning.
“But if you are willing that I should get safely from Jerusalem, why
not let me arrange my departure in my own way?”
“Do so, and die. You cannot escape in the daytime, and at night no one
can leave the city without a signed order from Eleazar. But should you
succeed in evading the sentinels at the gates you will find the public
roads leading from Jerusalem patrolled by armed Zealots, who slay all
whom they detect escaping from the city. ‘Jerusalem,’ they say, and
rightly, ‘hath need of all her sons, and he who deserts her at this
crisis shall receive a traitor’s doom.”
How Vashti rejoiced that the Christians had seized the first
opportunity to escape!
“Your safety,” continued Simon, addressing Crispus, “lies in my
escorting you; apart from me you will be stopped, interrogated, slain.”
“I will avail myself of your offer,” said Crispus. “But I forewarn you
that when the Roman army comes again from Cæsarea, as come it will, I
shall be found within its ranks, and if we meet in battle look to no
sparing from me.”
“Be it so,” said Simon coldly. “To-night at the sixth hour be ready for
the journey. I will bring two steeds with me. But a word of caution.
Exchange that Roman costume for the Hebrew caftan and abba, if you
would be safe.”
With that Simon took his departure, directing his steps to the temple,
where he found to his surprise that the Sanhedrim were holding a
meeting in the hall Gazith, a meeting to which they had not thought fit
to invite him.
The object of their deliberations, so it seemed, was to appoint
military governors for the various toparchies or districts, of not only
Judæa, but also of Galilee, Idumæa, and Peræa, these three provinces
having decided to throw in their lot with the Jewish cause.
As the Sanhedrim, having dispatched this business, were departing,
Simon encountered Eleazar on the threshold of the hall.
“A council, and I not invited?” he said in an injured tone. “But there,
let be! How have matters sped?”
“Joseph ben Gorion and Ananus have been appointed rulers of Jerusalem.”
“Priests both,” commented Simon.
“_I_ am a priest,” returned the other.
“Were these two like thee I would rejoice,” replied the Zealot, who
recognized the military abilities of Eleazar.
“Rejoice, then, that I am made ruler of Idumæa.”
“Why, so I do. What more?”
“Josephus hath rule over the two Galilees.”
“Another priest, and a smooth-tongued, double-faced Pharisee; not to be
trusted.”
Eleazar proceeded to enumerate other appointments, few of which met
with Simon’s approval.
“It seems,” said the Zealot, when the other had finished his list,
“that the Sanhedrim hath no need for my services.”
“Your name was not brought forward in connection with any office.”
“Not even by you?” Eleazar was silent. “Who was the first to enter
Antonia? Not a Sanhedrist, I trow. Who promised to free Jerusalem from
its siege, and did so? Not a Sanhedrist. Who was foremost in the attack
on the retreating legions of Cestius? Not a Sanhedrist. And now do they
pass me by, and distribute the rewards of victory among themselves?
Verily, you have not done well, Eleazar, son of Ananias.”
And Simon stalked wrathfully away.
* * * * *
As night drew on Crispus’ feelings became a curious mingling of
pleasure and regret--pleasure at the thought of freedom, regret at
having to part from Vashti, whose companionship had grown dear to him.
In this hour of parting as they sat in the upper chamber by the light
of a silver lamp, Vashti gently sought, as she had frequently sought
before, to bring him over to her faith.
Crispus shook his head.
“Your creed is an impossible one,” said he. “A religion that tells us
to love our enemies would be the ruin of states. Where would the Roman
empire have been had we followed that doctrine? The world will never
be ruled by love, but by _this_.” Taking his sword by the point he held
it aloft.
“Look!” said Vashti, gently.
Crispus looked where she pointed, and lo! upon the chamber wall was a
shadow cast by the light of the lamp, and that shadow had _the shape of
a cross_!
He who had not started at Simon’s sudden advent started now. He lowered
the sword and sheathed it with a thoughtful air. Upon him who was
so much disposed to catch at omens that little incident made more
impression than all Vashti’s discourses.
“The time of your departure is at hand,” she said sorrowfully. “You
must kiss little Arad before you go, and say farewell to my mother.”
When the sixth hour of the night had come, Crispus, disguised in Jewish
garb, descended to the door of Miriam’s dwelling. Vashti was with him,
and looked cautiously forth. Under the radiance of the full moon the
street of Millo was half in silver light and half in ebon shadow. Out
of the latter emerged the tall form of Simon leading two horses by the
bridle.
As Crispus beheld Vashti’s eyes eloquent with the sorrow of parting, he
longed to take her within his arms and press her lips to his. He knew
that this maiden loved him, as well as he knew that he loved her. But
between them there lay the shadow of the unknown Athenaïs; and even
should Crispus, invoking the law, repudiate his consort, he would be no
better off as regards Vashti, whose Christian faith, dearer to her than
earthly love, forbade her to marry one that had put away his wife.
With the words “Farewell, sweet Vashti; may we soon meet again!” he
mounted the horse, and, in company with Simon, rode slowly away,
pausing for a moment at the street corner to wave with his hand a final
adieu.
They drew nigh to the gate Gennath, where a guard was stationed.
Simon’s well-known face procured a ready passport both for himself and
his companion.
“Who is he that rides with thee?” asked the captain of Simon.
“In his way as good a patriot as myself,” was the answer.
The two passed through the gate and galloped off in the moonlight, the
sense of freedom and the rapid motion through the night air causing
Crispus to tingle with exhilaration.
It was well that Simon remained with him. Twice they were stopped by
bands of Zealots, who speedily withdrew on recognizing the “Scourge of
the Romans.”
Crispus, though in a way grateful for Simon’s protection, did not feel
much disposed to talk with him; the Zealot, on his part, was moody and
taciturn, and so the strangely-assorted pair rode side by side with
scarce a word till in the first faint light of an Eastern dawn the
distant towers of Antipatris rose to view.
At about a hundred yards from the gate Simon drew rein.
“We part here.”
“Good! And now why this friendly act on your part?”
“My bringing you here is a proof that Simon the Black can sometimes
keep faith. I pledged my word to your father, Cestius, to conduct you
safely to Antipatris. He will tell you the story,” added the Zealot,
turning as if about to ride off.
“I prefer to hear it now, and from you,” said Crispus, a suspicion of
the truth beginning to dawn upon his mind.
“Well, since thou art curious, listen. On the night following Cestius’
investment of the city, a youth was seen descending the wall by a rope.
I dispatched a party, who brought him back. Upon him I found a letter,
whose contents I kept to myself. On the sixth night of the siege our
affairs being, as you may remember, a little desperate, I went to the
Roman camp, and was admitted to the presence of Cestius. ‘Your son
is alive,’ I said, ‘as this letter plainly shows; but he shall die,
unless you immediately withdraw your troops.’ He threatened to hang
me for daring to come with such a message. ‘As you will,’ I answered,
‘but know this, I have left behind me the order that if I am not back
in the city within three hours Crispus is to be brought forth upon the
battlements and crucified.’
“That stayed his hand. He fell to thinking, and the end of it was that
love for his son triumphed over his duty to the state. But I made it
my condition not to surrender you till he had entirely withdrawn to
Cæsarea.”
“And you broke your promise. My father pledged his word to retreat, and
you attacked him during that retreat.”
“Nay, I broke no promise, for I warned Cestius that if he retired
I should be unable to check the Zealots from following. ‘Let them
follow,’ were his words. He welcomed the idea of pursuit, thinking to
give us over to the sword, but he found he had to deal with men that
could fight.”
“Aye, from the safe covert of the hill-tops. Your courage stopped with
the open plain.”
“I may not talk longer with you, for I see soldiers issuing from
the city-gate, and I have no desire that my head shall decorate the
battlements of Antipatris. I have fulfilled my word to Cestius, and now
I return. We shall meet again under the walls of Jerusalem.”
So saying, Simon turned his steed and galloped off by the way he had
come.
Looking towards Antipatris, Crispus saw a small body of foot soldiers
advancing from the gate; at their head was a mounted officer, none
other than Terentius Rufus, who came spurring forward with all speed,
as if bent on learning the business of the two Jewish-looking horsemen.
“Hold, fellow!” he cried, reining in his steed, as he drew abreast
of Crispus. “Who art----?” And then, his voice suddenly changing, he
exclaimed, “By the gods, ’tis Crispus.”
His quick look of delight was instantly succeeded by one of gravity.
“Turn from the city,” said he, “and ride back a little way, lest you
should be recognized by my men. Five thousand aurei are a strong
temptation to mercenary natures.”
“How mean you?”
“There is a price on your head.”
“Ah! what have I been doing to deserve it.”
“’Tis said that when Cestius had invested Jerusalem you wrote a craven
letter imploring him to raise the siege, or your life would be forfeit.”
“I would that I had my hand on the throat of the man that invented that
lie.”
“Think not that _I_ ever believed it. Unfortunately, however, this
slander hath reached the ears of Nero, who, in his rage, hath decreed
that the lives of the two Cestii, father and son, are forfeit to the
state.”
Confounded by this tidings, Crispus could do nothing for a few moments
but stare blankly at his friend.
“What has become of my father?” said he, finding his voice.
Rufus’ hesitation told its own tale.
“Speak!” said Crispus, growing pale. “How did he die?”
“Like a Roman; he fell on his sword.”
Crispus paid to his father’s memory the tribute of a brief and pitying
silence. It was a bitter thought to him that if he had not written
that letter Cestius might now be living, the conqueror of Jerusalem,
to be greeted at Rome like a second Pompey with the title, “Noster
Hierosolymarius.”
“Go not to Antipatris, or to any town where you are known,” said Rufus,
“since any man may lawfully slay you. The streets of Cæsarea are posted
with tablets offering five thousand aurei for the head of Crispus.”
“I need scarcely ask what has become of my father’s estates?”
“Confiscated,” replied Rufus, laconically.
That he had toppled down in a moment from his high office of Secretary
to the Legate of Syria; that he had lost his patrimonial estates--nay,
even the fact that he had been doomed to death--was to Crispus as
nothing in comparison with the thought that he was now deprived of all
opportunity of returning to Jerusalem in company with legions to avenge
the massacre of the Roman garrisons.
Gone, too, was his hope of a kingdom. The doom pronounced upon him
was a proof that Nero had revoked his purpose of ratifying Polemo’s
intended disposal of his crown. And his wife, the mysterious Athenaïs?
Was it likely that she would remain faithful to him on learning that
the Roman noble whom she had wedded was now a pauper, and that a
proscribed one?
“Who commands in this war, now that my father has gone?”
“Old Flavius Vespasian, with his son Titus as second in command.
Titus,” continued Rufus, with a wry mouth, “our equal once. Now he’ll
hold his head high above us both. Perhaps my lady Berenice will smile
on him now, seeing what a great man he has become.”
“Berenice? ah!” said Crispus in a curious tone. “Of course she hath
heard of my disgrace. How doth she take it?”
“One of the proscriptive tablets directed against you hangs upon her
palace-wall at Cæsarea, whence it may be inferred that your fall is not
a matter of much concern to her.”
Crispus wondered whether Vashti would suffer a placard dooming him to
death to remain upon the wall of _her_ house.
“You must live in concealment,” advised Rufus, “till Nero be persuaded
to revoke his unjust decree; or, it may be, that your freedom will
come in another way, for if all the rumors circulated be true, our
present Cæsar is like ere long to lose his throne, if not his life,
so outrageously doth he shock public sentiment; in which case all his
acts will be annulled by his successor, and thus your patrimonial
estates may return to you. The question is, where will you hide in the
meantime?”
“I will go,” replied Crispus, his mind still under the singular
impression evoked by the shadow of the cross, “I will go to a people
that will suffer death rather than betray a suppliant; I will go to the
Christians of Pella.”
CHAPTER XVI
THE AMBITION OF BERENICE
More than two years and a half had now passed since the disastrous
retreat of Cestius, and during all that time no Roman legion had come
within sight of Jerusalem.
Vespasian, the successor of Cestius, had first directed his arms
against Galilee, almost every city of which was in a state of rebellion.
Thanks to the spirit and activity displayed by the warrior-historian
Josephus, as well as to the situation of the Galilean cities, most of
which were built upon hill-tops and almost inaccessible crags, the
campaign was prolonged for more than a year.
Then came a long interval of inactivity, due to a series of revolutions
taking place at Rome, the seat of the government. Within the space of a
single year the throne of the Cæsars was occupied in turn by a series
of ambitious generals, the self-murdered Nero having been succeeded by
Galba, by Otho, and by Vitellius.
During these political crises Vespasian was under the necessity of
having his position as commandant in Judæa successively recognized and
confirmed by each new Cæsar, and as this was a matter requiring much
time, it led to frequent pauses in the campaign, a state of affairs
very much to the advantage of the revolutionary factions in Jerusalem.
The Roman army destined to act against the holy city had formed a huge
camp upon the seashore at a point a few miles to the north of Cæsarea,
and here day by day with unfailing regularity the iron warriors of
Rome went through those evolutions and exercises that had made them the
masters of the world.
This similitude of war naturally attracted crowds from the neighboring
region. It became quite a custom with the fashionable Greeks of Cæsarea
to take their morning promenade along the seashore for the purpose of
witnessing a spectacle as thrilling almost as the contests at Olympia
or the combats of the amphitheater.
One fair, sunny morning in the month of June, just as the legions were
beginning their daily drill, under the personal inspection of Vespasian
and his son Titus, there drove up a magnificent chariot, which, by the
grace of the lictors, was given a place considerably nearer to the
exercising troops than was allowed to the ordinary spectator, for the
occupant of the chariot was none other than the fair princess Berenice,
who was paying her first visit to the Roman camp.
No sooner had Titus detected her presence upon the field than he at
once made his way to her side. His look and voice alike told how much
he was enamored of the fascinating princess, who at the age of forty
had, like Cleopatra, all the grace and beauty of youth.
“Princess, you seem sad to-day,” said he, after an interval of silence.
“Of what are you thinking?”
“Perhaps,” she replied, with a tantalizing little sigh, “perhaps of
Crispus.”
“Why do you torment me with the name of a rival who is dead?”
“_Is_ he dead?” said Berenice. “True, nothing has been heard of him
since he parted from Terentius Rufus at Antipatris.”
“And that is more than two years ago. The ban put upon him by Nero has
been revoked. If he be alive why does he not show himself, since he has
nothing now to fear?”
“Except the being claimed by a wife whom he does not like,” said
Berenice with a silvery laugh, and a glance at the house called
Beth-tamar, which, seated on a lofty crag, was plainly visible from the
camp.
“Princess,” said Titus, with a tender look, “if Crispus should ever
return it will mean to me----”
Berenice raised her finger with a witching smile.
“Ah me! Now you are going to make love again. We shall never be
friends, if you do that. Let me watch your Romans. They interest me.”
The air at that moment was all alive with the crisp, sharp commands of
tribune, and centurion, and decurion.
The exercises performed by the Romans comprehended feats in running,
leaping, wrestling, swimming, sword-play, hurling the pilum--everything
in short that could add strength to the body or tend to success in war.
Here, Cretan archers, having set up their targets, were demonstrating
the deadly accuracy of their aim. There, Balearic slingers were
discharging their leaden bullets, which not infrequently melted with
the heat engendered by the swift rush of the missile through the air;
here, a body of soldiers was busily engaged in bridging within a given
time a broad sheet of water; there, a group were vigorously occupied in
storming a wooden fortress, whose defense was as vigorously maintained
by a garrison of fellow-Romans.
“Why, it is like war itself,” said Berenice, fascinated by the
spectacle.
“So like, that it is the fashion of the soldiers to call the exercise a
bloodless battle, and the battle a bloody exercise.”
“Where are these men going?” she asked as a certain cohort tramped past
at full speed.
“They are marching to Dora and back.”
“That is not very hard work.”
“You think so, princess. But mark that each soldier is carrying the
full equipment customary in war time, consisting of various utensils,
as well as victuals for fifteen days, the whole amounting to sixty
pounds’ weight, not including arms, for the Roman soldier considers
these, not as a burden, but as a part of himself. Weighted thus, he is
to march in this burning sunlight to Dora and back, the double journey
being a distance of twenty miles, and he is to do it within five hours.
If this be not hard work, what is?”
“And supposing they should take more than five hours?”
“Terentius Rufus, who rides at their head, will see to that.”
“But if they should fail?”
“He will punish them.”
“And what will the punishment be?”
“It takes various shapes. Yon cohort, as is shown by the carrying of
the eagle, is the First Cohort of the legion. They may be degraded by
being compelled to resign the eagle, and to take the second place; or
their diet for the week may be barley bread instead of wheaten; or they
may be excluded from their tents, and made to sleep at a distance from
the camp.”
“How often do the troops practice these exercises?”
“Every day of the year.”
“But when a soldier has learned his work?”
“He goes on practicing just the same. Let a man have been forty years
in the army, that fact will not exempt him from the daily exercise. And
mark this: every weapon you see in use now, every helmet, breastplate,
and shield, is double the weight of those used in actual warfare.”
Berenice opened her eyes in wonder.
“Why, a battle must be an easier matter than the daily exercise!”
Titus laughed.
“The soldier would much prefer a battle,” said he.
Berenice spoke no more for a long time; so long that Titus began to see
from her rapt expression that some momentous thought was occupying her
mind.
“I am thinking,” said she, in reply to his questioning, “I am thinking
what _I_ would do with these troops, were they mine.”
“And what _would_ you do with them, princess?” asked Titus with a smile.
Instead of replying directly to this, Berenice put a question.
“Is not your father Vespasian a skillful general?”
“He hath no equal in the art of war; it is not I only who say this, but
others.”
“And he is liked by all the legions, near and far?”
“Liked is but a feeble word to express his hold over them.”
“But he is somewhat lacking in ambition?”
“Ambition is apt to die with the sixtieth year.”
“But his son Titus is ambitious, and being so, and having great
influence over his father, should act as a spur to his mind.”
“Princess,” said the puzzled Titus, “to what does all this tend?”
“I am thinking,” said Berenice, watching him keenly from beneath the
dark fringe of her half-closed eyelids, “I am thinking what a pity it
is that the great Vespasian should be serving Cæsar, when he might be
Cæsar himself. The present emperor Vitellius can show no hereditary
title to the imperial throne; an ambitious general, he gained the
purple by fighting for it. Why should Vespasian not do the like?”
It was a startling suggestion, so startling as almost to deprive Titus
of breath. He glanced at the charioteer, who stood by the horses’
heads--glanced in fear lest the man should have overhead Berenice’s
treasonable remarks, despite the low tone in which they were spoken.
“When Titus can call himself Cæsar’s son,” she whispered, “then will
Berenice listen to his love--not till then. Go,” she added, with a
little peremptory wave of her hand. “Ponder it well!”
Left to herself, the princess, sinking back upon the silken cushions of
her chariot, indulged in a pleasing reverie.
“The idea is new, and it frightens him,” she murmured with a somewhat
contemptuous smile. “But he will grow used to it. I have sown the seed
in his mind, and it will grow and bear fruit.”
Daringly original in all her ways, Berenice had often embarked upon
some political enterprise which, pronounced by her more sober-minded
brother Agrippa to be impracticable, had nevertheless met with
brilliant success. Would she succeed in this, a more daring venture
than any she had hitherto dreamed of? Why not? All things are possible
to the brave, and why should not the brave Vespasian, the idol of the
legions, prevail against the feeble-minded Vitellius, whose follies
were daily alienating the loyalty of the nations?
The chief obstacle in the way was honest old Vespasian himself; he
might refuse to listen to the voice of the charmers, Berenice and
Titus, charm they never so wisely. But, if otherwise, and if the
enterprise succeeded, what glory would be hers!
Even now it filled her with pride to think that she was, in a manner,
the mistress of all the troops she saw exercising before her. Recover
Jerusalem they might, and would; but destroy it--never! Thanks to her
influence over Titus, the holy city would be spared from dilapidation,
the temple preserved from the torch. She was the new Esther destined to
save the Hebrew nation from destruction--destined, too, if Titus would
but exercise his ambition, to be the empress of the world, the mother,
it might be, of a line of Cæsars, all adherents of the Jewish faith!
And if Cæsar were once the disciple of Moses, the conversion of the
world would follow.
In the midst of these brilliant dreams her ear caught the sound of a
quiet footfall; and, turning her head, she saw--Crispus!
She gave a start, as was natural in one who supposed him dead, or at
the least to be hundreds of miles away. Crispus, keenly attentive,
fancied he could detect on her face an expression akin to dismay; at
any rate it was an expression very different from her tender, lovable
look in the Prætorium when she had avowed her wish to stay and die with
him.
“I have startled you, princess.”
“You are as one returning from the dead,” she said with a faint smile.
“And the dead are not always welcome visitors.”
Then for a brief space there was a silence, during which both seemed to
be reflecting.
“What do you here?” she asked.
“Would it surprise you, princess, were I to say that I am seeking my
wife?”
“Your wife?” repeated Berenice, in her eyes an odd look as of fear, at
least that is how Crispus interpreted it. “Your wife?”
“You did not perhaps know that I had a wife?”
“If you keep the matter a secret from the world how is one to know it?
What is her name?”
“You do not know it?”
“How should I?” replied Berenice with a touch of impatience in her
voice.
“I cannot tell you her name, seeing that it is unknown to me.” This
answer seemed to afford some satisfaction to Berenice. “Nay, I have
never yet seen my wife’s face.”
“You are telling me strange things,” laughed Berenice. “I pray you, my
lord Crispus, mystify me no farther, but speak plainly.”
“Why, so I will.”
Leaning with folded arms upon the broad brim of the chariot, and
looking directly into the eyes of Berenice, who seemed helplessly
fascinated by his gaze, Crispus proceeded to relate the story of his
marriage.
“As,” concluded he, with a glance at the distant Beth-tamar, “as it was
in this neighborhood that I first met Athenaïs, I naturally turn to
this neighborhood in the hope of again meeting her here.”
“And you do not really know who this Athenaïs is?”
“I do not. As you doubtless know, King Polemo died suddenly, a year
ago; and, unfortunately for me, died without revealing the secret. But
the three years’ limit is now past, and it is therefore permissible for
Athenaïs to reveal herself by sending me the ring.”
“And if she chooses _not_ to reveal herself, you may never know whom
you wedded.”
“That is so.”
“I greatly fear,” said Berenice with a grave shake of her head, “that
your unknown bride will prefer to keep herself hidden from you.”
“Why should she so act? She was not coerced into the match. She
accepted me of her own free will.”
“True, but reflect that you are not the great Crispus of her
anticipation. She wedded you in the hope of sharing the crown of
Pontus, and that hope is now extinguished, Pontus having become annexed
to the empire.”
“Your opinion then is that a woman should take for her husband one
well endowed with material advantages, and that should he, through
misfortune, lose these advantages, the woman is justified in discarding
him?”
“Though woman may not profess that doctrine with her lips,” smiled
Berenice, “she’ll carry it out in practice. But answer me this: should
you, by happy chance, discover your wife, would you keep her against
her will? Would you not grant her a divorce, if such were her desire?”
Crispus gravely shook his head.
“She cannot part from me, nor I from her, for be it known to you, O
princess, that I am a Christian, and a Christian can be separated from
his wife by death only.”
Tidings so unexpected caused Berenice to draw a sharp breath. Her look
of horror could not have been greater if Crispus had suddenly announced
himself as a deadly leper.
“_You, a Christian!_” she gasped.
“The name is displeasing to you, I know; so it was once to me. If you
will hear me----”
She cut him short with an imperative gesture.
“I have had the chief exponent of Christianity, Paul of Tarsus,
lecturing in chains before me; where _he_ failed, _you_ can hardly hope
to succeed. Go!” she exclaimed, disdainfully waving him away with her
hand as though he were a slave or some other inferior creature. “Yet
stay! one question I will ask,” she continued with a certain uneasiness
of manner that did not escape Crispus’ notice. “In what light do you,
as a Christian, regard the holy temple?”
“As an obstacle to the progress of Christianity,” he replied
significantly, as he turned on his heel and walked quietly away. “Veni,
vidi, _non_ vici,” he murmured sorrowfully.
Berenice watched him with a strange fear at her heart.
“A Christian,” she murmured; “and one who hates the temple! Now, if he
should accompany the legions to Jerusalem how easy for him, when they
are camping against the holy house, to fulfill his dream by throwing a
lighted torch through its windows. If _that_ be his aim, I will foil
it. He shall not be permitted to take part in the siege. Titus shall
prevent him from joining the army. I have but to say the word and
Vespasian will banish him from Palestine.”
Meanwhile, Crispus, suspecting something of Berenice’s intentions
towards him, and resolving to forestall her, walked along the shore
intent upon finding Vespasian, with whom he had always been a great
favorite.
He found that general joining in the exercises like a common soldier,
one of the ways by which he maintained his popularity with the troops.
A burly, bluff, red-faced man he looked less like a warrior than some
honest old farmer who had just for sport’s sake put on the scarlet
paludamentum of a general.
He greeted Crispus right heartily, and wanted to know where he had been
hiding himself so long, a question which by the way Berenice had not
thought of asking. So Crispus related how upon his proscription he had
taken refuge with the Christians first at Pella and then at Antioch,
and how, whenever he was in danger of being detected by the minions of
Nero, the brethren would convey him by devious routes to some other
Christian community; and how, in the end, convinced by infallible
argument that theirs was the true and only religion, he himself had
joined the sect.
“A good soldier marred!” growled Vespasian, on hearing this last.
“My cousin Flavius Clemens is a Christian. An excellent character
once, but now look at him! Takes no interest in state affairs or
military matters. This world is nothing to him. A woman and no man!
mild-mannered, lacking in spirit and backbone.”
“There is no reason, sire, why a Christian should not be a good
soldier. As a matter of fact, I have come hither to ask for a place in
the army that is to be sent against Jerusalem; I care not how humble
the post so long as it puts me in the forefront of the battle.”
“Now, that’s the way to talk,” cried Vespasian delightedly. “A place in
the army? You shall have it. There’s a post waiting for you. The First
Cohort of the Twelfth Legion hath lost its tribune.”
“Dead?” asked Crispus.
“Dead! No! Degraded! ’Twas but a few days ago he received his baton.
Yesterday he came to me, reeking with perfumes. Ye gods! is it a
soldier’s business to be perfuming himself. ‘I would rather you had
smelled of garlic,’ I cried. ‘Return to the ranks.’--You shall captain
that cohort. You have heard of the Twelfth Legion before, eh? ’Twas one
of those that fled at Beth-horon. They are longing to redeem their lost
character. You shall show them how. You accept the post? Good! Come
with me and let me show the First Cohort its new tribune.”
As they made their way along the shore two figures came walking
slowly towards them. One was a legionary, wearing an armlet to which
was attached a chain, two cubits in length, its other end being
fastened to a similar armlet clasped round the wrist of a somewhat
distinguished-looking personage.
It was a Jewish captive and his Roman guard.
The prisoner saluted Vespasian; and, as if well acquainted with
Crispus, gave him a friendly smile.
Crispus gazed, and then suddenly recognizing the captive he there and
then tendered him a warm thanksgiving; for the captive was none other
than Josephus, the man who had been instrumental in saving his life by
begging his supposed corpse from Eleazar.
When Josephus had resumed his walking, Vespasian remarked:
“Of all the rebels who fought against us in Galilee that man was the
most valiant. When he was taken prisoner I had much ado at first to
keep our soldiers from killing him.”
“I deemed him to be more of a scholar than a warrior.”
“He can handle both pen and sword, and he hath also prophetical gifts.”
Crispus was naturally somewhat surprised at this last observation.
“What prophecy hath he made?”
“Why, this. Though he so bravely defended Jotapata against us, he
nevertheless told its inhabitants that the city was destined to be
taken on the forty-seventh day of the siege, and so it came to pass.
Oh!” he continued in answer to Crispus’ look of skepticism, “I know
it to be true, for I made careful inquiry among the captives, and all
testified that from the very beginning Josephus had foretold that
Jotapata would fall on the forty-seventh day.”
What was very wonderful to Vespasian seemed simple enough to Crispus.
If Josephus, as was very likely, had formed the secret purpose of going
over to the Roman side, it would not be difficult for him to prolong
the defense of such a rock-fortress as Jotapata till the forty-seventh
day. The character gained as prophet on this occasion might stand him
in good stead with the Roman general; in point of fact it had already
so served him. Crispus could not help thinking that the man to whom
he had so much reason to be grateful, was, nevertheless, a somewhat
ambiguous character.
Glancing along the shore, Crispus saw that the “prophet” had halted in
his walk by the chariot of Berenice, and was now conversing both with
that princess and with Titus. As the three were holding their heads
close together it may be inferred that the conversation was a very
important one.
Its purport became apparent to Crispus ere many hours were past.
CHAPTER XVII
THE MAKING OF AN EMPEROR
Crispus had the high honor of dining that night in the tent of
Vespasian with a select company of tribunes, Terentius Rufus being of
the number.
Titus was, of course, present. His office of second in command, added
to the glory gained by him in the Galilæan campaign, had disposed
him to adopt a somewhat lofty air towards his former friends and
acquaintances; but Crispus had acquired the Christian grace of
humility, and the patronage that he might have resented in his pagan
days now afforded him matter only for a little quiet amusement.
Let Titus receive his just due, however; though Berenice had earnestly
pressed him to persuade Vespasian to exclude Crispus from the army
intended to act against Jerusalem, he had declined the task as an
ungenerous one. “If Crispus wishes to play the soldier, I am not the
man to prevent him,” he said, an answer that considerably mortified the
proud princess, as showing that Titus was not quite the plastic clay
she had thought him.
The fare provided by Vespasian for his guests was simple, as became the
tastes of the general, and they sat to it.
“I hate the effeminate habit of reclining at meals,” said he.
The conversation at table naturally turned upon the war, and Crispus,
who knew little of the then state of Jerusalem, received some
enlightenment from Vespasian.
“True is the saying,” said he, “that those whom the gods wish to
destroy they first make mad. Listen to what is happening at Jerusalem.
“Simon of Gerasa, disgusted that his great services should be passed
over by the Sanhedrim while Eleazar was rewarded with the government of
a province, retired from Jerusalem; and, collecting a numerous body of
followers, took to brigandage again.
“Whilst Eleazar was administering the affairs of Idumæa, a certain
ambitious Zealot seized the opportunity to make himself master of the
temple; by a singular confusion of names this new captain is called
Eleazar.
“In the meantime that fierce Zealot, John of Giscala, defeated by us
in Galilee, fled to Jerusalem, where, becoming powerful, he played the
tyrant, putting the rich to death, and seizing their wealth.
“The high priest Matthias sought to free the miserable people by
calling in the aid of Simon; he came, but was unable to expel John.
“The result is that the city is now groaning beneath the tyranny of
three factions.
“Simon rules in Zion, with the Tower of Phasaelus for his palace; John
holds the Lower City, and the outer courts of the temple; Eleazar keeps
jealous guard over the Sanctuary.
“These three Zealots, each aiming at sovereignty, wage war with one
another by night and by day.
“Titus would have me march to Jerusalem at once, but why should I, when
they are doing our work so effectually? At sight of us, faction would
disappear; they would unite their arms against the common enemy. No;
let them go on with their internecine warfare till two of the factions
are exterminated, and then we will deal with the survivor.”
“Sound policy!” commented Rufus.
Crispus, with his Christianized way of thinking, could not help
seeing in the terrible state of the city the working out of a Divine
retribution. The people that had cried, “Not this man, but Barabbas,”
desiring that a murderer might be granted to them, were now delivered
over to the rule of murderers. “The assassin’s dagger was to sway the
last councils of their dying nationality.”
Rufus now added _his_ contribution to the story of Israel’s degradation.
“And, that they might not have a moralist perpetually rebuking them
for their misdoings, the Zealots of Eleazar’s party deposed the high
priest Matthias; and, calling for the register of priests, they broke
through all precedent by casting lots for the office. The lot fell upon
an obscurity named Phannias, a rustic so illiterate as scarcely to know
what the high priesthood meant. Yet, they brought him from his native
village; and, putting the sacred vestments upon him, instructed him how
to act, finding matter for laughter and sport in the many blunders that
he made.”
Again the finger of Divine retribution! The high priesthood, that had
mocked at the Crucifixion, had itself become a subject for mockery, a
thing of scorn.
Somewhat to his surprise, Crispus discovered that Vespasian at the end
of his day’s labor would sometimes find relaxation in listening to the
discourses of Josephus upon Jewish history and Jewish philosophy. He
chose to do so on this present occasion; and, accordingly, after the
repast was over, a centurion was dispatched to bring in the captive.
He came, linked as usual to the guardian soldier, and advanced with
an air meant to be solemn and dignified, but which in Crispus’ view
was pompous only; nay, contradictory as it may seem, beneath this air
of importance there was lurking an undercurrent of obsequiousness and
servility that set Crispus against him. If ever man was sycophant this
man was!
“We have sent for you,” began Vespasian, “to hear you discourse for a
time upon the history and laws of your nation.”
“Sire, thou honorest our holy books by wishing to derive instruction
from them. But, to-night--to-night, I would speak, not of the past, but
of the future.”
“Of which he knows no more than you or I,” whispered Rufus to Crispus.
“Sire, when the Almighty created the seventy nations of the earth he
gave to each its peculiar gift; to the Roman, sovereignty in war, and
to the Greek, supremacy in art; to the Egyptian, depth in wisdom,
and to the Hebrew, the power of prophecy. To us are granted at times
glimpses of the future, prevision denied to other races. Did I not show
the knowledge of the seer by declaring that Jotapata would fall on the
forty-seventh day of the siege? And now again do I lift the veil that
hides the future. The God of our fathers hath revealed to me that great
thing which shall come to pass.”
He advanced a step, accompanied necessarily by the soldier; and,
falling on his knees before Vespasian, he touched the ground with his
forehead, saying, as he made this Oriental salutation:
“HAIL, CÆSAR THAT IS TO BE!”
As if a chasm had suddenly yawned at his feet, Vespasian started back
in an amazement so obviously genuine as to show plainly that this
treasonable notion was being sprung upon him for the first time.
Crispus shared in Vespasian’s amazement, as did most of the other
officers present. Titus was the only one that showed no surprise; one
might have thought that he had been expecting something of this kind;
he sat with his eyes keenly attentive to his father’s face.
Crispus could not help thinking that this little tableau was not a
spontaneous ebullition on the part of Josephus, but a premeditated
piece of acting, primarily due to the scheming brain of Berenice, and
seconded by the ambitious hopes of Titus.
The deep silence was broken by the voice of Vespasian, who spoke with
stern indignation.
“No more of this. Thou talkest treason--treason to the reigning
emperor.”
Titus’ face became clouded.
“If it be treason to declare the will of God, then am I talking
treason,” said Josephus.
“Peace! I and the legions have sworn to uphold the throne of Vitellius.”
“They took the oath with great reluctance, however,” observed Titus,
“and are repenting of it. Their dissatisfaction grows from day to day.”
“Their dissatisfaction shall not divert me from the path of duty.”
“Seek not,” said Josephus, “to resist your destiny. Cæsar you will be,
in spite of yourself. For so is it written in our sacred scriptures,
that one arising in Judæa shall obtain the empire of the world.”[20]
Crispus, in spite of the debt he owed Josephus, could not conceal his
scorn at this amazing perversion of Messianic prophecy, a perversion
that showed to what depth of sycophancy the soul of this priest and
Pharisee could descend. That the sacred predictions of Isaiah should
receive their fulfillment in the elevation of a heathen soldier to
the throne of the Cæsars was to the Hebrew mind an interpretation so
blasphemous that if Josephus had ventured to assert it among a circle
of his own countrymen he would most assuredly have been torn to pieces.
On the present occasion, however, he was safe from such a fate; and if
he himself did not believe in his own statement what mattered, if the
lie could but accomplish his purpose?
“Rise,” said Vespasian sternly, for during all this time Josephus
had been kneeling. The captive arose; and Vespasian, turning to his
officers, asked in a tone of pleasantry: “How shall I punish this knave
for urging me to treason?”
Rufus answered him.
“Give him his freedom on the day that you become Cæsar. If he hath
prophesied truly his freedom is bound to come, and if not----”
Vespasian slapped his thigh with a hearty laugh.
“By Castor, a just sentence! As thou sayest, so shall it be.”
A close observer might have detected in the “prophet’s” expression
a certain uneasiness suggestive of the idea that he was by no means
confident of the fulfillment of his words.
“Retire,” said Vespasian, whose desire for Hebrew history had vanished.
“I will hear thee no more to-night.”
So Josephus departed; but when Titus began to comment upon his
vaticination, Vespasian forbade him with so stern an air that Titus at
once dropped the subject; and when, later, a centurion looked in to ask
the watchword for the night, Vespasian wrote upon the tessera the word
“FIDELITAS.”
* * * * *
The throne of the Cæsars!
Despite Vespasian’s repudiation--a repudiation made at the time in all
sincerity--it became evident within the space of a few days that the
seed sown in his mind by Josephus was beginning to germinate.
Under the haunting spell of a new and splendid ambition, he became
moody, restless, uneasy. Shunning the daily exercises of the army
he took long walks, communing with himself in lonely woods. Deep in
thought, he would stare vacantly when addressed; one had to speak twice
or thrice ere he understood. At times he was heard to murmur, “I will
not do this thing,” and his officers would look at each other, well
knowing what thing was meant.
One morning, as if wishful to escape from his vexing thoughts, he
mounted a horse and rode mile after mile along the shore towards
the point where the long ridge of Carmel, intercepting the maritime
road, thrusts a rocky bluff into the sea. In this wild gallop he was
attended by his staff-officers, Crispus and Rufus being of the number.
Arrived at the foot of the mount, Vespasian, either as wishing to take
a survey of the country around, or moved perhaps by a desire to show
what the agility of a man of sixty could accomplish, resolved to make
the ascent; and soon he and his staff were toiling on foot up the
craggy path that wound through forests of pine, oak, and olive to the
point
“_Where Carmel’s flowery top perfumes the skies._”
The glorious panorama presented by the mountainous landscape and
the dark-blue sea well rewarded them for their climb. The officers
were particularly interested in pointing out to Crispus the various
hill-fortresses of Galilee--Giscala, Tabor, Jotapata--subdued by their
arms in the campaign of the previous year.
As the staff moved first this way and then that, following the steps of
Vespasian, they turned the corner of a crag, and came suddenly upon a
stately figure in a flowing white robe, who with folded arms was gazing
silently and pensively seaward. Obviously, he was a priest, since there
was in attendance upon him a young boy holding in his hands what seemed
an acerra, or box containing incense. Near by, formed from a number of
rough unhewn stones, was an altar, upon which lay a few dried shavings
of cedar-wood.
The man was not quite a stranger to Crispus; he had seen him, or rather
had caught a fleeting glimpse of him, on the previous evening, holding
converse with Titus in a lonely spot at some distance from the camp.
Crispus had come upon the pair unawares, and it seemed to him that
Titus was not altogether pleased at being detected in company with this
priest, though what there was to be vexed at it would be hard to say.
On hearing footsteps the priest turned, and caught sight of the armed
men.
“Who art thou?” he asked of Vespasian, as being evidently the chief of
the band.
“I am Flavius Vespasian.”
“I know not the name.”
“And this is fame?” smiled Vespasian. “To be unknown after so many
victories in this Galilæan province!”
“Hast thou dropped from the moon,” asked Rufus, “not to have heard the
name of the great Vespasian?”
“Content with my grotto,” said the priest, pointing to a cave
in the face of the rock, “and with this altar, I stir not from
Carmel,”--Crispus, remembering where he had seen him last, wondered at
this speech, but held his peace,--“hence I know nothing of the affairs
of men. If thou art some great one of the earth, the gods teach thee to
use thy power well.”
“To what deity is this altar erected?” asked Vespasian.
“To the god Carmelus, the tutelary genius of this mountain.”
“Hath he no image nor temple?”
“None. This altar--’tis composed of twelve stones--is alone acceptable
to him. Such hath been his worship from ancient days.”
“Thou art about to offer incense to thy god, I perceive. We will join
in thy worship. Offer on our behalf as well as on thine own.”
And with that the superstitiously devout Vespasian doffed his helmet,
in which act he was imitated by the rest, save Crispus, who drew aside
from a ceremony incompatible with his Christian faith.
Rufus, observing that the priest apparently lacked the means of
kindling a fire, offered him his own flint and steel, but they were
waved aside by the priest.
“Our rites forbid such method,” said he. “The wood must be kindled not
by ordinary means, but by the pure fire of heaven.”
So saying, he produced a thick glass lens, with which he proceeded to
focus the sun’s rays upon the cedar-wood.
Crispus, whose Christian training among the learned brethren of Tarsus
and Ephesus had embraced the study of the Greek Septuagint, murmured to
himself:
“Mount Carmel? an altar of twelve stones? fire from heaven? This deity
Carmelus is none other than Elijah in a heathen guise!”
It was not long ere the wood began first to smolder and then to break
into a flame. The feat was one as common in that age as in this, but
being new to Vespasian, he looked on as though it were a miracle.
The attendant boy now held forth the acerra, and the priest, taking
from it some grains of incense, cast them upon the fire.
As the strong fragrance became diffused around the priest began the
chanting of an invocation which fell with a somewhat weird effect upon
the ears of the Romans, being delivered in the Phœnician, a tongue not
understood by them.
“Now, how know we that this fellow is not cursing us?” muttered Rufus.
From time to time the priest continued to cast fresh incense upon the
altar. It seemed that the sacrifice was scarcely acceptable to the god
Carmelus, for the fire was dull and smoky, always deemed a bad omen.
Then, all in a moment, there was a change.
A tongue of flame sprang up, high and brilliant, and lasting for
several moments.
At the first leap of the fire the priest turned and stared hard at
Vespasian, as though that general had become suddenly invested with a
new and strange interest.
“Vespasian--if that be thy name--whatever project thou now hast in thy
mind, whether it be the enlargement of thy house, the augmentation of
thy lands, or the increase of thy slaves, the Fates are preparing for
thee a splendid seat, a large territory, a multitude of men.”[21]
The Roman officers, aware of the thought that was then paramount in the
mind of their general, looked significantly at each other.
“What is thy name?” asked Vespasian.
“What thine shalt be--Basilides.”
Now this name is, by interpretation, a king; and therefore Vespasian
was not a little startled to find this Phœnician seer hinting, and
that not obscurely, at the same high destiny assured him by Josephus.
Surely, since there had been no previous concert between them, that
must be true which was prophesied by Hebrew priest and by Phœnician
priest alike?
During the course of the long ride back to camp, Crispus had ample time
to review the incident that had just happened, and he saw in it not
the hand of the gods, but the trickery of man, the man in this case
being Titus, who by subtle devices was luring his father on to make an
attempt for the imperial throne.
Vespasian on the previous evening had announced his intention of
visiting Carmel on the morrow, and it had therefore been a very easy
matter for Titus to obtain the collusion of the priest Basilides for
the purpose of playing upon the superstitious feelings of Vespasian.
The sudden springing up of the flame upon the altar was a result easily
obtainable by concealing a grain of fat among the incense. Titus was
the real source of this “divine sign,” as well as of the ambiguous but
significant oracle delivered by Basilides.
Crispus hesitated whether to enlighten Vespasian as to how he was being
duped into believing himself to be a recipient of divine signs, but
finally resolved to hold his peace. What mattered it how Vespasian
was induced to revolt, whether by necessity, reason, or superstition,
so long as he _did_ revolt? The rule of Vespasian would be infinitely
preferable to that of the bestial Vitellius. And when Crispus, further
reflecting that should a Flavian dynasty be established, and should
Titus and Domitian--both at present childless--die without issue, the
next heir to the throne would be Flavius Clemens, an adherent of the
faith, he began to wonder whether a Christian Cæsar might not be among
the possibilities of the near future.
So here was Crispus wishing, like Berenice, to see Vespasian upon the
throne, though for a different reason--_she_ hoping to promote the
cause of Judaism, _he_ hoping to promote the cause of Christianity.
The course of the next few days furnished additional proof that subtle
art was being employed to make Vespasian accept a position almost akin
to that foretold of the Messiah.
“Do I look like a god?” said he with a caustic smile, entering the tent
of Rufus, who chanced to be alone.
Truth to tell there was little in the homely, and even vulgar, aspect
of Vespasian to suggest kinship with the Olympian divinities, but
naturally Rufus did not say so, contenting himself with asking the
general to explain his meaning. Then Vespasian, sitting down, proceeded
to tell a strange story.
“There hath been wont to sit at the fountain beside the gate of Cæsarea
a blind man. This morning as I was passing by the gate I saw a little
crowd gathered there, and among them this blind man. Guided by two
friends, he drew near, and, kneeling at my feet, implored me to cure
his blindness, declaring--and the two that were with him said the
same--that if I would but anoint clay with my spittle, and put the clay
upon his eyes, he would there and then recover his sight.
“I held my laughter and tried to reason him out of this belief, but
the more I argued the more earnest he became, and so I left him still
kneeling. But as I walked away, the poor fellow’s lamentations became
so pitiful that I could not help turning back, determined by making the
actual experiment to convince the man of his folly. But, lo! as soon
as the clay was washed from his eyes and I had pronounced the Hebrew
word ‘_Ephphatha!_’--for it seems these spells are more efficacious
when spoken in a barbarous language--the man cried out in an ecstasy of
delight that he could see![22]
“‘A miracle! a miracle!’ cried the crowd.
“‘So shalt thou give light to a dark world, O Vespasian,’[23] cried a
voice which I recognized as that of the priest Theomantes.
“As for me, I doubted whether the man _had_ recovered his sight, but he
gave proof of it by telling what number of coins lay on my palm, and
though I changed the number several times he did not once err.
“There must be some divine efficacy in my touch became the opinion of
the crowd. The news flew from mouth to mouth, and as I stood amazed at
my own deed, there came to me a man whose right arm, as if paralyzed,
hung stiff and motionless at his side.
“‘I was a mason,’ said he, ‘earning my livelihood by my hands. I pray
thee that thou wouldest make this arm whole like the other, that I may
not basely beg my bread.’
“Compliant with his will I clasped his right hand firmly in my own, and
after a few moments he cried out that he had recovered the use of the
withered limb, and gave evidence of his words by freely gesticulating
with it. Now, Rufus, how explainest thou these marvels?”
These feats of healing, so analogous to those recorded in the gospel,
as to suggest to the mind of more than one historian the suspicion that
they were purposely counterfeited with a view of investing Vespasian
with a sort of Messianic character, offered no difficulty whatever to
the pagan mind of Rufus.
“It is clear to me, sire,” said he, fully believing in the truth of
his own words, “that the gods wish to point you out to mankind as one
distinguished by their special favor and destined to attain a dignity
and splendor beyond that of ordinary mortals.”
And the perplexed Vespasian, though the least conceited of men, was
gradually driven to adopt this opinion in view of these strange
happenings.
A few days afterwards, Mucianus, the Legate of Syria, arrived at
Cæsarea, having come direct thither from a brief visit paid to Rome.
He was accompanied by Tiberius Alexander, the prefect of Egypt. A
Jew by birth, a nephew, in fact, of the brilliant theologian Philo
Judæus, Tiberius Alexander had deserted his ancestral faith for Grecian
paganism, a conversion unique in the annals of Judaism.
Vespasian at once hastened from the camp to Cæsarea to pay his respects
to Mucianus, who, besides being his lifelong friend, was also his
superior in office.
The two illustrious visitors had accepted the hospitality of Berenice,
and it was in the palace of that intriguing princess that Vespasian
and Titus met them in a consultation upon which hung the destiny of an
empire.
“The senate of Rome,” began Mucianus, “loathes the rule of the bestial
Vitellius and his brutal soldiery. Shall I tell you what are likewise
the secret whisperings of the people in the forum? ‘Would to the gods
that Vespasian would deliver us from this glutton, who has already
spent seven million sesterces upon his stomach!’ Vespasian, you have
but to proclaim yourself Cæsar here in Judæa, and Rome--yea, and all
the provinces, will rise in your favor. I have here a list, and ’tis
a long one, of Roman patricians who have sworn to me that they are
willing to risk their lives and fortunes in your cause.”
Vespasian, having listened to all this, and much more of like import,
showed his indifference to the imperial throne by offering it to
Mucianus! A plain, sensible man, and a born soldier, Vespasian cared
little who was Cæsar so long as he himself should hold the chief
military command.
But however much Mucianus may have desired the purple he knew that
his chances of obtaining it were infinitely small, and he therefore
continued to press its acceptance upon Vespasian.
“Syria and its four legions are with you,” said he.
“And I can promise you Egypt,” observed Tiberius Alexander. “As soon as
you are proclaimed Cæsar I will cause the legions of Alexandria to take
the oath of allegiance to you.”
“And then your first act must be to stop the corn-ships from sailing,”
said Berenice, who was taking part in these deliberations.
“A wise policy!” commented Titus.
The possession of Egypt, as the conspirators well knew, was extremely
important from a political point of view, the populace of Rome being
almost dependent for their existence upon the supplies of grain
exported from Alexandria. Famine at the heart of the empire would not
be favorable to the cause of Vitellius.
“With Syria, Palestine, and Egypt on your side,” pursued Mucianus,
“you will occupy a continuous and united territory. Your rear you must
secure by an alliance with the Parthians. As to your front, by land it
is accessible only by way of the Taurus mountains; occupy the Syrian
and Cilician Gates, and you can bid defiance to any attack coming from
that quarter. As to your sea-front we have in Phœnicia the finest race
of seamen in the world, and in the cedars of Libanus an inexhaustible
supply of timber for shipbuilding. Phœnicia falls within my province.
Bid me do it, and ere two months be out you shall have a fleet of
triremes that shall guard all coasts from Cilicia to Cyrene. Thus
secure, we may advance to attack Vitellius, or await him here, as may
best seem convenient to us.”
But Vespasian, prudent and cautious, still delayed his final answer.
Accordingly, after his withdrawal the remaining conclave, at Berenice’s
suggestion, determined to force the hand of the reluctant general, that
princess propounding an ingenious scheme for the purpose.
“You, Titus,” said she, “must persuade all the soldiers in the camp to
salute Vespasian with the title of Cæsar.”
“They want no persuading. The difficulty is that he’ll refuse to listen
to them.”
“He will be compelled.”
“How so?”
“Vitellius will hear of it. He cannot with dignity pass over such
treason. He’ll demand that these disloyal legions be punished. In
declining this task--for how can he punish a whole army?--Vespasian
will become an object of suspicion to Vitellius. He’ll be summoned
to Rome; to go will be certain death. Therefore, if the legions here
persist in crying ‘Hail, Cæsar!’ whenever Vespasian appears, he must
either accept the title or be prepared for immediate ruin.”
“Princess, you have it,” cried Mucianus admiringly. “The plan cannot
fail. Now, Titus, do your part, whilst Alexander and I hasten to set
our provinces in order.”
The conspirators departed to put their plan into operation.
It succeeded admirably.
On the third of July A.D. 69 Vespasian was proclaimed emperor by the
legions of Cæsarea. His elevation was everywhere received with delight.
Embassies from various cities and provinces hurried to Cæsarea,
bringing addresses of congratulation and crowns of honor; within a
month Vespasian had received the submission of all the East, with the
exception of Jerusalem and its immediate neighborhood.
And the prophecy, long current in the East, not only among the Jews,
but likewise among other nations, that one coming from Judæa should
obtain the empire of the world, was thought to have received its
fulfillment at last!
It was decided at a council composed of Eastern statesmen and Roman
warriors that Mucianus should proceed by land against Italy, that Titus
should carry on the war against Jerusalem, and that Vespasian should
retire to Alexandria, and there await the issue of events.
“And now, O father,” said Titus, delighted at having attained the
rank of Cæsar--for to be scrupulously exact that was his title as
heir-apparent, the reigning emperor being called Augustus--“now, O
father, remember your promise and release Josephus from his bonds, else
will it be a shameful thing that the man who told beforehand of your
coming to empire, and hath been the minister of a divine message to
you, should still be retained in the condition of a captive.”
It was in the camp at Cæsarea that these words were spoken. So
Vespasian sent for Josephus, who came still wearing the chain that
bound him to the guardian soldier.
The new emperor gave orders that the captive should be set at liberty;
and accordingly the soldier was about to loose the chain when Titus
intervened, suggesting that the chain should be _cut_ from him, this
being the Roman method with such as were bound without just cause.
This advice being agreeable to Vespasian, a smith was sent for, a
fellow strong and dexterous of arm, who cut the chain to pieces.
“Josephus, thou art free,” exclaimed Vespasian, “and the citizenship of
Rome is thine.”
“Call me no more Josephus,” said the liberated one, boldly venturing to
assume the name of his imperial patron. “Henceforth let all men know me
as Titus Flavius.”
“Titus,” said Vespasian, referring to his son, “Titus has the glory of
being Cæsar. Josephus has----”
“Flavius, sire,” murmured the adopter of that name, remonstratingly.
“Flavius, then, to please you. Flavius has received the honor of the
citizenship. What honor,” he continued, turning to Crispus, “what honor
shall we confer upon you?”
On the point of replying that the emperor’s friendship was of itself a
sufficient honor, Crispus paused, suddenly seized by a happy idea.
“There is one favor I would ask, sire--a very simple one.”
“Name it.”
“’Tis of a private nature. I prefer to state it before you and Titus
only.”
Vespasian looked surprised. He gave a nod, and Josephus and the others
withdrew from the tent.
“Now, Crispus, for what do you make request?”
“It may not be known to you, sire, that I have a wife.”
It certainly was news to Vespasian, as his looks plainly showed.
Crispus proceeded to relate in as few words as possible the story of
his wedding at Beth-tamar.
“Eh! what is this?” said the old general, turning with a chiding air to
Titus. “You were Crispus’ paranymph, and yet you have never told me of
it. Fie on you! But what has this to do with the favor you would ask?”
continued he, addressing Crispus.
“You, sire, as emperor, are supreme in matters of the law. ’Tis yours
to see that the terms of a contract be fulfilled. Therefore I ask
that when I discover this woman she shall be made to keep her nuptial
pledge.”
“Find her, and if you want her, you shall have her, be she never so
reluctant,” said Vespasian, smiling grimly. “Who is _she_ to refuse my
bravest tribune?”
In that immoral age fidelity to a wife was a rare virtue, and one that
commended itself to honest old Vespasian.
“You swear it, sire, that no man shall be permitted to take her from
me?”
Vespasian was painfully impressed by the tense, earnest look of Crispus.
“By the gods, it shall go ill with the man, if any such there be. He
who dares to take your wife from you shall be hanged on high--yea,
though he were my own son.”
“Take it not amiss, sire, if I ask for that promise in writing.”
While Vespasian, surprised yet compliant, was putting his promise into
documentary form, Titus stood silent in the background.
His face at that moment was a study, and confirmed Crispus in the
suspicion he had long entertained.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE PRELIMINARIES OF A GREAT SIEGE
It was the spring of the year A.D. 70, nearly nine months after the
elevation of Vespasian to the imperial throne, and still the Roman
legions, now under the sole command of Titus, tarried in their
encampment at Cæsarea-by-the-sea.
The self-confident Zealots of Jerusalem began to doubt whether the
enemy ever _would_ come within sight of the city again.
In the intervals of their internecine warfare they were much interested
in watching the progress of a new planet or comet, fiery red in color.
It first appeared in Pisces, the constellation which, in the astral
lore of that age, was supposed to be connected with the fortunes of
Judæa. Night after night it mounted higher, and ever higher, in the
sky, seeming to be making for a point directly above the holy city.
At the very first sight of it the multitude had cried with one voice,
“_The star of the Messiah!_” Ere long it became so distinct and bright
as to be plainly discernible in the daytime, and crowds gathered
at street corners to stare at what they devoutly believed to be a
heaven-sent sign.
The glorious day foretold by the prophets was at hand when the Jews,
with the assistance of the heavenly powers, should reign supreme over
all the nations of the earth. And when the star, growing more plain,
was seen to take the shape of a sword[24] with its blade pointing in
the direction of the Roman Camp at Cæsarea, who could doubt that it
portended the doom of those who were threatening the holy city?
“There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of
Israel.”
Such was the text upon which Rabbi Simeon ben Gamaliel proposed to
give a midrash or sermon, an announcement that attracted to the Royal
Synagogue a congregation larger than any previously seen within its
walls.
Devout joy was at first the prevailing keynote of the assembly; but,
after the preliminary prayers, a strange uneasiness fell upon them
when it was discovered that the prescribed parashoth or lesson for
the day--and there could be no omitting it!--was that section of the
Pentateuch containing the solemn and thrilling words addressed to the
nation by the great Hebrew lawgiver on the eve of his death.
As the chazan began his reading the sunlight without became clouded,
and a gloom pervaded the edifice, a gloom that seemed to deepen with
each successive moment.
It was, of course, customary to receive the reading of the Law in
reverential silence, but a silence so tense as the present had never
been known in this synagogue. With bated breath and with eyes fastened
on the chazan’s face they listened to the voice of the divine lawgiver
sounding down to them through the corridors of time.
“The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of
the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou
shalt not understand. A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not
regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young.... And he
shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls
come down, wherein thou trustedst.... And thou shalt eat the fruit of
thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, in the
siege and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress
thee.... In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at
even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine
heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which
thou shalt see.”
At this point the assembly, hitherto as motionless and as silent as the
dead, impulsively started to their feet, with fear stamped upon their
faces.
It was not, however, the words of the Law, awful though they were, that
had moved the worshipers, but a tumult coming from the streets in the
vicinity of the synagogue.
During the previous few moments the air had resounded with the running
of feet intermingled with the sound of voices.
Those voices, confused at first, had now become clearly audible.
Rolling upward to the skies in accents of surprise and fear there
pealed again and again the startling cry:
“THE ROMANS! THE ROMANS!”
The sight of the Roman vanguard, glittering upon the northern
heights of Scopus, though it might put fear into the hearts of the
common people, served only to evoke the scorn of the Zealots. Their
astonishing victory over Cestius, and the fact that for three years
no attempt had been made to recover the city, had given them an
exaggerated notion of their own prowess.
The Zealots of Galilee might yield; those of Jerusalem were invincible!
“They are the same sheep,” scoffed Simon, “but with a new shepherd.”
For a long time the Zealots and the people, massed upon the northern
wall of the city, continued to watch the distant host, who seemed to be
occupied in forming an encampment. Suddenly a shout arose. Something
was seen to separate itself from the common body, and to move forward
quickly towards the city amid a cloud of dust. That something on a
nearer approach proved to be a detachment of cavalry, six hundred
strong, led by Titus in person, who, coming not to fight but merely to
reconnoiter, rode bareheaded, having left both helmet and breastplate
behind. By his side rode that Jewish apostate, Tiberius Alexander,
who, having at one time been procurator of Judæa, was in a position to
explain to Titus the topography of the city.
A sea of faces glared at them along the whole extent of the northern
wall; the battlements of Antonia, the porticoes of the temple, the
distant ramparts of Mount Zion were similarly crowded; in all the wide
city there was neither wall nor tower, neither roof nor window, but
showed a cluster of human beings. Their excited cries blending together
came to the ears of Titus like the restless murmur of the sea.
“How many people doth the city hold, think you?” he asked of Alexander.
“My spies report the number to be a million--yea, and a hundred
thousand beyond that. ’Tis the eve of the passover, and Jews from every
province of the empire have come up to worship.”
“A million? Ye gods! Has this nation appointed a rendezvous for its own
destruction? But as to the fighting men?”
“All will fight, even children, if it be to defend their city and
their religion. The women and girls will weave their hair into ropes,
if ropes be needed. The priests themselves will arm should the war
approach the temple.”
“Little care I for such foes. My concern is with those who have any
knowledge of actual warfare.”
“Why, as to that, Eleazar guards the holy house with 2,400 Zealots;
John, your old opponent in Galilee, keeps the cloisters with 6,000. But
Simon, who holds Mount Zion, is the man to be feared. He hath 15,000
fierce spirits, so fanatically devoted to him, that each would fall on
his own sword did he but command it.”
“Twenty-three thousand fighting men? Well, we have more than double
that number with us.”
“Your number may be tenfold theirs, but such superiority avails
nothing in view of their impregnable position.--As you see, O Cæsar,”
he continued, pointing first to the city, and then to a map that he
carried, a map drawn by the hand of Josephus, “Jerusalem occupies the
southern tongue of a rocky plateau; on the east, on the west, on the
south, its walls look down upon ravines and valleys whose slopes are
too steep to be scaled by an army; it is from this quarter only that
the attack can be made.”
Titus recognized the fact at a glance. The city, the real city--namely,
the stronghold of Zion--was assailable only from the north, but the way
to it was barred by huge ramparts.
Three gigantic lines of masonry were drawn east and west across the
plateau.
First, there was the wall directly facing them, called by the Jews the
Third Wall, as being the latest built.
This, when breached or surmounted, opened the way into the northern
suburb of Bezetha or New-town. Marching through Bezetha, the Romans
would come to the Second or Middle Wall, which, when taken, would admit
them to Acra or the Lower City; passing through Acra, they would find
themselves staring helplessly up at the scarped cliff of Mount Zion or
the Upper City, whose edge was surmounted by a wall so lofty that the
Titans themselves might have despaired of scaling it.
But ere any attempt could be made upon Zion, it would be necessary
first to take the towering rock-citadel of Antonia, and, secondly, the
lofty temple-fortress, otherwise while besieging Zion they would be
continually exposed to a flank attack from these two strongholds.
“You have to deal,” said Tiberius Alexander, “not with one city, but
with five cities. A fivefold siege lies before us.”
As Titus glanced with the eye of a trained soldier from point to point,
and took in the nature of the defenses, natural and artificial, he
began to realize the stupendous nature of the task imposed upon him.
Haughtily enthroned upon its mountain-rock, this Oriental city with its
girdling _enceinte_ of walls, towers and bastions, seemed as if built
with set purpose to triumph over every device that could be brought
against it by the military science of the West.
There was no doubt about it: it was THE STRONGEST CITY IN THE WORLD,
and if adequately provisioned, and defended with due care, was
absolutely impregnable.
“And I have wagered Mucianus,” said Titus grimly, “that I’ll take it
within seven weeks.”
Alexander gravely shook his head.
“Twice seven weeks will pass--yea, and three times seven weeks--ere the
eagles fly over Zion.”
In the midst of this reconnoitering, a gate by the Women’s Tower
opened, and the Zealots poured forth in such numbers that the little
Roman band, after holding their ground for a time, deemed it prudent to
beat a retreat.
Great was the delight of the Jews. Cæsar himself had been seen to fly!
It was the promise and presage of more glorious victories.
Early next day the Roman army advanced to within a mile of the northern
wall of the city, and there began the construction of two huge camps.
The forces of Titus consisted of four legions, the fifth or
_Macedonia_, the tenth or _Fretensis_, the twelfth or _Fulminata_
(memorable for its flight under Cestius), and the fifteenth or
_Apollinaris_.
In imperial times the legion usually consisted of 6,000 men, all
Roman citizens, none other being admitted to its proud ranks; but as
each legion was always accompanied by an equal number of auxiliaries,
levied from the subject nations, together with 300 cavalry; and as
several petty kings of the East (including Agrippa) had joined in the
expedition, each bringing with him his own little army, the forces
arrayed against Jerusalem must be stated at a figure considerably in
excess of 50,000.
Flashing in the morning sunlight, the various squadrons of this vast
host, horse and foot, heavy-armed and light-armed, deployed into
never-ending lines upon the brow of Olivet and upon the descent of
Scopus; and as the Jews gazed from their walls upon the long array of
eagles and standards bearing the letters S.P.Q.R., they realized the
full meaning of the expression “terrible as an army with banners.”
As the battering-rams and other ponderous machines used in sieging
were mounted upon wheels, whose revolution required a comparatively
even surface, the first work of the legionaries, after forming their
camp, was to level the ground between their lines and the foot of the
northern wall.
This fore-suburb, ere the Roman engineers set to work, was a scene of
sylvan beauty, consisting of groves and watercourses, gardens and fair
mansions.
Now all was ruthlessly swept away: the trees fell before the ax; the
watercourses were destroyed; the houses demolished; even the deep and
shady glens were no more, being filled up with the picturesque crags
that were wont to overshadow them.
While some of the troops labored at the rocky ground with iron
instruments, others were employed in bringing up from the valley of
Cedron countless baskets laden with pebbles and earth; these were used
in filling up the inequalities of the surface, the soldiers stamping
the materials firmly with their feet.
In spite of a cloud of missiles discharged at them from the ramparts,
in spite of the sudden and daring sallies made by Simon and his men,
the Romans contrived, in the course of a few days, to transform the
picturesque fore-suburb into a dreary, uniform level.
While the Roman operations were proceeding without, the Jews within the
city were preparing to celebrate the passover, memorable as being THE
LAST IN THEIR HISTORY as a nation; memorable, too, for the armed fray
that accompanied it.
On the fourteenth of Nisan, Eleazar and his party opened the gates
of the upper temple to admit those bringing the paschal lambs. The
cautions previously exercised by him to exclude the Zealots of the
other two factions seem to have been wanting on this occasion. Members
of John’s party, with weapons concealed beneath their garments,
contrived to enter in company with the multitude of foreign pilgrims,
and drawing together in a compact body, they suddenly flung off their
outer robes and appeared in the panoply of war. At this sight Eleazar’s
faction flew to arms, and a fierce mêlée took place around the golden
house, innocent pilgrim and guilty Zealot alike falling fast. When
the fray ended, John of Giscala was master of all the temple. Eleazar
having fallen, the survivors of his party consented to be absorbed in
that of the victor; and thus the three factions in the city were now
reduced to two, the Johanneans and the Simonians.
To these Johanneans Simon now made appeal.
Standing on the bridge that connected Mount Zion with the temple-hill,
he called for John, and when that chief appeared he thus addressed him:
“Shall a house stand that is divided against itself? Why do we fight
each other, making fine sport for the foe? We are, it seems, valiant
against ourselves only, content to let the city be taken by our love of
faction. Let us lay aside our enmity, and join in opposing the common
foe.”
“Thou art a subtle knave, Simon,” replied John. “Thou desirest me and
my forces to go with thee to the Wall of Agrippa that thy men in my
absence may seize upon the temple, for all know of thy desire to make
thyself tyrant of the city. However, I will so far assist thee that
such of my men as are so minded may go with thee, but as to myself and
certain other, we will remain behind to defend the temple.”
Availing themselves of the permission thus given, hundreds of John’s
men came forth from the temple to join with the Simonians in the
defense of the city.
The Romans, having cleared the ground from all obstructions, were
now occupied in erecting opposite the northern wall a series of
lofty banks, upon which to set the engines used in discharging
missile-weapons, for the higher the position of these engines the more
accurate and the more deadly their aim.
Each bank or agger was made of earth strengthened by beams of timber.
During the erection of these banks, the Zealots were not content to
look idly on. Preceded by a veritable rain of stones discharged from
the ramparts, they poured forth by hundreds, armed with long poles
terminating in iron hooks; with these they sought to pull apart the
beams composing the agger, with intent to bring down the whole mass.
In these sallies the Zealots came on with the rush of a whirlwind, each
man ready to sacrifice his life provided only he could kill one of the
enemy, or do but the least damage to the agger.
Not for a moment, however, could they stay the progress of the work.
The Roman guard stationed in front of the banks drove back every onset;
and at last the Jews, despairing of accomplishing their object, kept
within their walls, and sallied forth no more.
Each embankment, when finished, presented a vertical front to the
city, but the other side was inclined at a very low angle, in order
to facilitate the mounting of the military engines: and gaps were
purposely left in it to permit the passage of the battering-rams and
the movable towers.
* * * * *
The shrill réveille pealed through the Roman camp, rousing the
legionaries from their slumber.
Every man on waking turned his eyes towards the tent of Titus, and
every face gleamed with a grim satisfaction at sight of the scarlet
mantle hoisted above it, the sign that the day was to be one of battle.
As the Roman host gazed upon the holy city rising fair and stately in
the golden light of an Eastern dawn, they were fain to confess that it
was a city worth fighting for.
From its walls the tocsin of war was sounding in the shape of a
six-foot brazen gong, whose deep, sullen tone reverberated monotonously
on the morning air.
The whole northern rampart was alive with a multitude of Zealot
warriors moving to and fro, their shining armor obscured at times by
faint columns of blue smoke.
The Romans knew well what that smoke meant.
Behind those battlements burned fires, over which were slung cauldrons
hissing with scalding water, boiling pitch, and molten lead!
At sight of this smoke the Romans merely smiled; but at sight of the
military engines, disposed at due intervals along the wall, they burned
with secret rage, being reminded of their tarnished honor, for these
engines represented a triumph over Romans, having been captured, some
from the camp of Cestius, and others from the Tower of Antonia and the
Prætorium of Florus.
Moving everywhere along the ramparts, now giving an order here, and
now a caution there, was seen the form of that brawny Titan, Simon the
Black, the very soul of battle, hatred of the Roman looking out from
his wild, dark eye. Over his armor he wore a wolfskin mantle with the
shaggy side turned outwards, a mantle that suggested to his followers
the prophecy (for he came of the “little” tribe), “Benjamin shall ravin
as a wolf.”
Even those among the Romans that were most given to the despising of
Hebrew valor, were obliged to admit that in Simon they had a warrior
worthy of their steel.
It was a lovely morning, giving promise of a sultry noontide; a
dazzling sun shone from a sky of deepest blue; far away on the horizon
hung a pall of pearly white mist.
As a hush precedes the desert sandstorm, so upon the two armies there
lay a strange stillness.
It was a sublime and thrilling spectacle this, of two nations
facing each other in arms--nay, an act in a Divine drama, the true
significance of which was understood by none present, except by Crispus
and the very few that were of like faith with him. The struggle
was more than it appeared upon the surface; it was not merely the
subjugation of a revolted city, but a battle betwixt two religions; the
religions, not, as might be thought, Judaism and Paganism, but Judaism
and Christianity. The legions of Titus, though they knew it not, were
truly soldiers of the Cross, continuing the work to which they had been
divinely pre-ordained--_the work of the Church!_
For the Romans, by uniting the nations of the civilized world under one
government, by establishing a universal peace--the “_Romana pax_” that
was the just boast of their orators; by clearing the sea of corsairs,
and the land from banditti; by linking all parts of their empire with
a series of splendid roads; by diffusing among their provinces a
knowledge of the Greek language; had created conditions such as had
never before existed in the world’s history: conditions that were
absolutely essential, if the Church were to make quick progress;
conditions that enabled the evangelist, knowing one language only, to
travel in safety and preach the faith from the banks of the Euphrates
to the Pillars of Hercules.
The Roman legionaries, paradoxical as it may sound, were the coadjutors
of the apostles. They were now about to put the final touches to their
work by demolishing the temple, whose further existence was an obstacle
to the free development of Christianity; and by acting as the sword of
the Lord against those who had cried, “His blood be on us and on our
children.”
A.D. 70 was the necessary sequel of A.D. 29; and he who refuses to
see a Divine Judgment in the fall of Jerusalem has yet to learn the
elements of history.
Ignorant of the high mission assigned to him, Titus, distinguished
by a purple mantle and by the splendor of his gilded arms, had taken
up his station upon the central agger. Beside him, and clothed in a
magnificent white robe, gold-embroidered, stood Theomantes, the priest
of Jupiter Cæsarius, presiding at an altar of unhewn stones, upon which
there flamed a sacrificial ox. Titus and the Romans in the immediate
vicinity of this altar were standing bareheaded in reverential attitude.
The Zealots upon the wall, keenly attentive to this religious ceremony,
noticed that Theomantes, as he stood with his arms raised in prayer to
some deity, kept his eyes fixed throughout upon their holy temple.
A sudden suspicion fell upon them. They strained their ears in the hope
of catching his utterance, though distance might well forbid that hope.
Fortune favored them, however. A breeze blowing from the north at that
moment wafted to their ears the word--JEHOVAH!--a word so sacred that
it was seldom uttered even by the Jews themselves, and never in the
presence of a Gentile.
How came this pagan priest to know the true name of God, and why was he
praying to Him?
Then the full meaning of the scene was borne in upon them. It was the
ceremony called by the Romans the Evocation.[25] It was the custom of
that people at the beginning of a siege to invoke the tutelary deity of
the invested city, inviting him not to be made a prisoner, but to come
forth and take up his abode among the divinities of the Roman Capitol.
Without such ceremony they would be fighting against the gods--an
impious deed!
The ceremony, ludicrous or blasphemous, according as one may view it,
was at all events unnecessary on the present occasion. The tutelary
angels _had_ quitted the city, and Crispus was of those who had heard
their departing voice.
To the Jews upon the wall, the affair was as blasphemy. Jehovah was
their own peculiar heritage! That the heathen should dare pray to Him,
above all that they should call upon Him to quit the place where He had
chosen to put His name forever, was a thing not to be borne.
Calling for their most expert archer, they bade him shoot down the
impious Theomantes.
But the action was observed by the quick-eyed Rufus, who interposed his
shield between the priest and the oncoming arrow.
A moment afterwards Titus tossed his baton high in air.
At that sight--the signal for battle--there rolled down the Roman lines
a shout that seemed to shake the very towers of the city, the thrilling
war-cry of “ROMA! ROMA!” and with that each man flew to his appointed
work.
The greatest siege in the world’s history had begun!
CHAPTER XIX
THE FIRST DAY’S FIGHT
On the very edge of each agger there leaped up, as if by magic, a cloud
of archers and slingers, who, setting up iron screens in front of
themselves, proceeded to direct their missiles upon the defenders of
the battlements.
Expert as were these archers--Cretans all, a nation famed from Homeric
times in the use of the bow--they were surpassed in accuracy of aim by
the slingers. These, natives of the Balearic Isles, had been trained to
their work from very childhood, when their daily meal, set upon some
high point, could not be obtained, unless brought down by themselves
with the sling. Hence a force of Baleares formed an adjunct to every
Roman legion. Their missiles, consisting both of stones and leaden
plummets, were discharged by a triple whirl of the sling; with a force
so powerful that headpiece, breastplate, and buckler afforded little
protection; with a motion so swift that the leaden plummet, glowing in
the air, sometimes melted; with an aim so true that the slinger could
not only hit the face of a distant enemy, but could even hit whatever
part of the face he chose. Not infrequently the missile bore some
insulting inscription; and Simon, picking up a stone that had very
nearly brained him, found it marked with the message: “ΔΕΞΑΙ--Take
this!”
The slingers and archers were aided in their death-dealing business by
the workers of the catapults, machines which, framed somewhat upon the
principle of the medieval crossbow, discharged gigantic javelins and
beams headed with iron.
The Jews did not remain passive under this attack. In the use of the
bow and the sling they were almost as well skilled as their opponents,
and returned the fire of the besiegers with a fire equally brisk.
The fray became more deadly as soon as the Romans had got their balistæ
into action.
These were huge machines, whose working part consisted of an
arrangement of levers and ropes, which, when forcibly drawn back and
let go, produced a tremendous recoil, sufficient to hurl ponderous
stones to a distance of three furlongs, and farther.
These stones were discharged mainly for the purpose of carrying away
the battlements, turrets and parapet of the wall, so that, deprived of
cover, the defenders would be compelled to quit the ramparts, since to
remain there open and exposed would mean certain death at the hands of
the archers and slingers. The withdrawal of the defenders would be the
signal for the escalade.
More than fifty of these balistæ were now at work, making terrible
havoc, not only with battlement and parapet, but also with the lives
of the Jewish people. Some of the stones hurled aloft exceeded three
hundred pounds in weight, and had force sufficient to kill six men, if
taken in file. Josephus describes how he saw a man’s head struck clean
from his shoulders and carried to a distance of three furlongs! Anyone
standing within a yard of such stone as it swept past was certain to be
flung to earth by the accompanying rush of air.
Such was the effect of the ponderous rocks that now went whirling over
the ramparts, fifteen or twenty at a time, into the suburb of Bezetha,
crashing through the roof and wall of many a private dwelling, and
tumbling it into ruins amid the wild shrieking of its hapless occupants.
To this artillery Simon sought to reply with the captured Roman
balistæ; but the Zealots, for lack of skill and practice, bungled so
miserably at the task as to evoke the laughter of the enemy.
While this terrific fusillade was going on, a party of Romans began
to push forward a pluteus--a sort of iron shed open at both ends and
running upon wheels. As it moved along, the Romans walked beneath its
roof, and were thus effectually screened against the missiles showered
at them from the battlements.
As soon as the pluteus touched the foot of the wall, the party within,
kneeling down upon the ground, set to work vigorously with lever and
crow, endeavoring to loosen the lower courses of the masonry.
Stones and darts were powerless against a machine of this kind. But
Simon’s fertile brain had devised a plan for defeating its operations.
Liquid bitumen, in immense quantities, was flung upon the pluteus,
and when all the ground beneath it and around it was flowing with the
liquid, lighted torches were thrown down. In a flash the interior of
the pluteus as well as the air above and around became a flaming fire.
With terrible howlings the miserable Romans, their hair, beard, and
garments alight, rushed forth into the open, only to be shot dead by
the Jewish archers.
What Simon had done once he was likely to do again. Titus, therefore,
when informed of this incident gave orders to keep the plutei in
reserve and to push forward the battering-rams.
One of these, by reason of its hugeness, excited the wonder, if not the
fears, of the Zealots.
It was a wheeled tower, consisting of several stages, the topmost one
rising high above the city wall. Through an opening in the lower story
there projected the gigantic brazen head of a ram, forming the forepart
of a wooden beam, 120 feet in length, a beam poised upon ropes, and of
a weight so great as to require the united strength of two hundred men
to put it in motion. The different stages in the tower were for the use
of archers, whose business it was to clear the enemy from that part
of the wall directly facing the ram. A little turret at the top of the
structure afforded a coign of vantage for a sentinel to observe and
report to those below the doings of the besieged.
This structure, which was under the charge of Rufus, bore the Greek
name of Nico, or the Conqueror, for although its powers had not yet
been tested, it was confidently believed that no wall, however strong,
could long withstand the repeated shocks of the ram.
As soon as this heavy machine was brought within striking distance of
the wall, two hundred brawny legionaries, grasping a multiplicity of
ropes, began slowly to draw the gigantic beam as far back as it would
go; then, at a given signal, every man simultaneously relinquished his
hold, and the released beam, darting forward with lightning speed, came
with terrific impact full tilt against the wall.
At that mighty stroke the masonry shivered from parapet to foundation.
But more appalling than the shock itself was the thunder-boom
accompanying it. The sound ran through the length and breadth of the
city, terrifying Vashti in her distant home on Mount Zion; it was
echoed and re-echoed from all the hills around; it filled the breasts
of even the most stouthearted of the Zealots with fear; while from
every quarter of Bezetha there came shrieks of terror from women and
children, for all who were not near the spot made sure that the wall
had fallen in, and that the enemy were entering the breach.
Again that terrifying boom! and yet again!
Dreadful as was the sound, the agony of waiting for it was even more
dreadful. Some women, unable to bear the strain, stopped their ears
with their fingers; others fled to cellars and underground places to
escape from the terror.
The whole Roman army was now in working order; forty thousand troops
arrayed against the northern wall, and not a man idle among them.
It was a terrific spectacle, both within and without the city. The
groaning of the wounded, and the shrieking of the women; the twanging
of the catapults, and the whizzing of darts and arrows; the peculiar
hum of the swift-flying stones slung from the balistæ; the crash of
falling masonry; the shout of the combatants hurling defiance at each
other; and, above all, the thunder-boom of the brazen rams, as they
smote against the wall--all contributed to form a scene that transcends
the power of the pen to describe.
All in a moment there was on the part of the Jews a simultaneous
cessation of activity; their archers stopped firing; their engines
ceased playing; the whole force stood mute and motionless. A sight so
surprising caused a temporary suspension of hostilities on the part of
the Romans, who were wondering whether this Jewish attitude implied the
wish to surrender.
The mystery was soon explained.
From the temple--that temple where priests were falling dead or wounded
from the stones cast by the engines of the Tenth Legion, stationed upon
Mount Olivet, there came the piercing clangor of the silver trumpets.
It was the time of the morning sacrifice.
The trumpet-peal was followed by the lifting of every Jewish sword, and
along the whole length of the ramparts there rolled one sublime shout,
a shout flung in defiance at the polytheism of their opponents, a shout
expressive of the grandest truth ever proclaimed to mankind:
“HEAR, O ISRAEL, THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD.”
With that they flew to the fight with renewed ardor. And now in the
occasional lulls of the fray could be heard a voice, far off at first,
but drawing gradually nearer, a voice that by the space of eight years
had never ceased its melancholy ditty:
“Woe, woe, to Jerusalem!”
Along the rampart, winding in and out among the ranks of the fighting
Zealots, who received him with black looks and angry murmurs, came the
weird form of Jesus, the son of Hanan, clad, not as was his wont in a
garment of camel’s hair, but in a long robe of white linen, such as
might be used to enshroud the dead.
“A voice from the East, a voice from the West, a voice against
Jerusalem and the holy house!”
“Now, what doeth this madman here, putting fear into the hearts of
brave men?” muttered Simon, eying the other darkly. But, as Jesus
approached, there was in his looks something so awe-inspiring that
the Zealot chief, who was minded to do the “madman” hurt, lowered his
weapon and let him pass on.
The wild figure, with its lifted arms outlined against the sky, was
plainly visible to the enemy.
Now, there prevailed in those days the belief that it was possible for
a soothsayer to paralyze the efforts of a hostile army by the utterance
of magical spells; and hence, the Romans being too far off to catch his
words, even if they had been able to understand his Hebrew language,
mistook him for a priest engaged in the task of cursing them.
“His curses shall fall upon his own pate,” muttered an angry
balistarius, directing his assistants to slew the head of the machine
round so as to bring its aim to bear athwart the line of the moving
figure.
“Woe to the city! Woe to the people! Woe to the holy house! _Woe, woe,
to myself also!_”
Scarcely had this last utterance left his mouth when the stone prepared
from all eternity for the purpose, smote him so that he fell to rise no
more.
The Zealots gazed at the horribly mangled form in fear and awe. This
man, who had prophesied the moment of his own doom, had prophesied
likewise the doom of the city; since his word was true in the one case,
why should it not be true in the other?
Leave musing for the night; the day is for action, and the Zealots
flew to obey the orders of Simon, who was growing somewhat concerned at
the shaking of the masonry caused by the strokes of the ram Nico.
He directed that gabions or huge sacks stuffed with chaff, should be
lowered in front of the ram in order to weaken the effect of its blows.
But the simple device was defeated by one equally simple. Projecting
horizontally from each side of the tower in which the ram hung were
iron mantelets or screens, under cover of which stood a number of
Romans armed with long poles ending in sharp scythes, and with these
they severed the ropes from which the gabion hung, and when the
defenders substituted a chain for the rope, the Romans fell upon the
gabion instead, so that through a score of rents the chaff came pouring
out, leaving the gabion to flap emptily against the wall.
“Why this waste?” said Rufus sarcastically. “They’ll be glad of this
chaff for food before the war be over.”
A third gabion was lowered. This time a soldier bolder than his
fellows, breaking cover, ran forward, and with a lighted torch fired
the lower end of the gabion. Instantly there shot upwards a column of
blinding smoke and dazzling flame, whose heat drove the holders of the
gabion backwards; in their confusion they let go the chain, which thus
fell into the hands of the Romans, who punctuated their capture with an
extra loud boom of the ram.
“No more burnable stuff. Fill the sacks with earth,” said Simon. For
a few moments he looked on, watching the destruction of gabion after
gabion. His brow frowning at first began gradually to clear.
“What will you say, Ananus,” said he, turning to one of his fifty
captains, “if I prophesy that within a little space the brazen head of
yon ram shall be hanging over the gate of the temple, an offering to
Jehovah?”
“If Simon says it, ’twill be so,” replied the other, who had unbounded
faith in his chief.
“Tie one end of this rope round my waist,” said Simon; “securely--for
hereby hangs my life.”
It was done.
“Now bring levers.”
When they were brought Simon directed the attention of his followers to
a block of masonry which formed part of the battlement that directly
overhung the head of the charging ram.
“When I lift my hand heave the stone over, and lower me with all speed.”
Like a watchful lion waiting to swoop upon its quarry stood Simon, his
eye upon the ram, which at that moment was being drawn back by four
hundred arms fresh to the task, for the Romans wisely worked in relays
and a new body of men had just been put on.
The released beam shot forward, humming through the air.
Simon gave the signal, and the huge stone was instantly levered over
and fell plump upon the forepart of the ram with such good effect
that the brazen head snapped clean off amid a mighty splintering of
woodwork, and lay on the ground beside the fallen stone.
But it lay there for a moment only.
A figure suspended at the end of a rope shot down with lightning
speed, grasped the great brazen head in both arms, and was drawn up
again; and, almost before the astonished Romans could realize what had
happened, there was Simon on the ramparts above triumphantly holding
aloft the trophy he had so daringly won.
“Simon, thou art a lion, and the son of a lion,” said Ananus admiringly.
A flood of curses broke from the Romans; the ram was useless till the
damage had been repaired, and as this repairing could be effectively
done only at a distance from the walls, there remained nothing for it
but to drag the machine away amid the mocking laughter of the Jews.
Simon now turned his attention to a terrible danger approaching
the wall in the shape of a _turris ambulatoria_ or movable tower,
seventy-five feet in height, made of wood, mounted upon wheels, and
provided with a drawbridge by which when lowered the besiegers hoped to
leap upon the battlements.
This great tower was under the charge of Crispus.
It would go ill with the Zealots, as Simon well knew, if Crispus and
a body of well-disciplined Romans should succeed in establishing
themselves upon the ramparts.
Projecting from the rear of the tower, and at a height of about
four feet from the ground, were six long beams, each provided with
crossbars; one hundred and twenty men had their shoulders set hard
against these crossbars, but in spite of their efforts the rate of
progression was infinitely slow, owing to the ponderous weight of the
tower.
The Zealots made vigorous attempts to set the structure on fire by
means of flaming darts; these were wooden shafts, a cubit in length,
the head being armed with a triangular steel barb to which was affixed
a lump of bitumen or other combustible matter; the dart, when set
alight, was hurled with great force into the side of the tower;
wherever it fixed itself in the woodwork little jets of flame spurted
forth.
The interior of the tower presented at this moment a scene of
excitement. At every window of every story were seen soldiers repelling
the attack, some by discharging javelins at the casters of the fiery
darts, others by pouring water upon the hissing flames, which as fast
as they died out in one part leaped to life in another.
Crispus, moving from story to story, directed the operations.
“Water, here!” he cried, on seeing a dense volume of smoke ascending
from one side of the tower.
“The supply has run out,” replied the decurion in charge of the water
department.
Had Crispus not left his pagan days behind him he would have run the
fellow through for his supposed negligence.
“With six water-carts, and the Serpent’s Pool but a furlong distant,
you dare to say----?”
“The Serpent’s Pool hath been so well drawn upon by us and by others
that it has become exhausted.”
“Ha! sayest thou so?” exclaimed Crispus, relenting somewhat at this
explanation. “Well, since water be denied us, hang out the raw hides,”
he cried, for every tower carried a supply of these to be used as a
protection against fire. “And bring up sand and earth to drop upon the
flames.”
By these means Crispus contrived, not indeed to quench the fire, but to
keep it somewhat under control.
As soon as the giant tower had been pushed to a point sufficiently near
for the lowering of the drawbridge, the toiling troops, letting go the
beams, grasped their weapons; and, losing for the moment something of
their Roman discipline, scrambled pell-mell into the tower, all eager
to be foremost in the attack, for among the Romans the soldier that
was first to mount the ramparts of an enemy’s city received--if he
survived--the gift of a Mural Crown, a prize that shed a glory over the
recipient to the end of his days.
The way out upon the drawbridge, when it should be lowered, led
from the fifth story; it was into this chamber, therefore, that the
storming-party was now crowding. The drawbridge, standing bolt upright
before the doorway, acted as a screen, but when it fell they would be
facing a storm of arrows and javelins. It was almost certain death to
the men who should be foremost to run out upon the drawbridge; yet,
despite the peril, each soldier was striving with his fellow for the
honor of being second, the first place being claimed by Crispus himself.
“A Cestius lost the city; a Cestius shall recover it,” said he. “Stand
by me,” he continued, addressing the aquilifer, “we’ll plant the eagle
on the ramparts, or die in the attempt.”
For the eagle, though no longer an object of worship with Crispus, was
still sacred in his eyes as the emblem of a glorious empire.
It was a thrilling moment. As they stood there in a mass so dense that
each could scarce lift his arms, they could hear the never-ceasing
thud-thud of the fiery darts falling upon the outer walls.
At each side of the doorway, awaiting the signal to lower, stood
two brawny legionaries, their hands upon the ropes that worked the
drawbridge.
“All ready, men?” said Crispus, with a glance at the set faces behind
him.
The question met with an eager response.
“Guard your faces well. Now!”
Up went the ropes, and as they swirled fast over the creaking pulleys,
the upper end of the drawbridge falling away from the tower began a
rapid descent upon the city wall.
The sight was seen from near and from far, and both armies set up a
simultaneous roar, the one in dismay, the other in exultation, a roar
so tremendous as to drown even the thunder-boom of the battering-rams.
Titus, who knew that Crispus was in charge of this tower, slapped his
thigh with a fierce joy.
“By the gods, Crispus hath opened a way into the city!” he cried.
Thousands on both sides paused in the fray to watch the contest upon
the drawbridge. Of what use was it to continue the fight elsewhere, if
once this part of the wall should be seized and held by Crispus and his
band?
The fate of Bezetha at least, if not of all Jerusalem, hung upon the
issue of the next few moments.
As the drawbridge fell with a mighty thud upon the ramparts, Crispus,
sword in hand, and with buckler held before his face, leaped out upon
the shivering timbers, followed by a crowd of warriors.
The sequel was appalling!
They found themselves amid a blinding, whirling hurricane of arrows and
darts, javelins and stones, coming from the front, from the left, from
the right. Obedient to Simon’s orders every Jewish marksman, far and
near, from turret, battlement and loophole, shot thick and fast at the
devoted band upon the drawbridge. In such numbers and with such fury
did the missiles smite upon helmet and breastplate, shield and greave,
that the little band were absolutely unable to advance; they staggered
to and fro as though struck by lightning; they fell, dead and dying
from the bridge.
Crispus, preserved from death by the superior temper of his armor,
took several wounds, nevertheless; three arrows were quivering in
his sword-arm; two hung from the calf of his leg, though the fierce
excitement of the moment prevented him from feeling them.
For one bewildering moment he stood irresolute; then, gathering himself
up for a mighty effort, he darted forward all alone across the bridge.
Twenty missiles striking him at one and the same time, caused him to
reel like a drunken man.
Then came the end!
Simon had not seen the advance of the ambulatory tower without making
due preparation for its reception.
The moment the drawbridge touched the battlement there sprang up
before it four of his strongest captains, each armed with a mighty
ax; and, while Simon with the keen edge of his scimitar severed the
ropes by which the drawbridge had been lowered, his four captains
plied their axes with such good effect that ere the Romans could come
rushing across to prevent it, the whole bridge, cut clean off from
the battlement, swung downwards, and its living freight were hurled
precipitately through forty feet of air to the rocky ground below,
where they lay a struggling, helpless mound of heads, arms, and legs,
which in the next moment bristled all over with arrows shot at them by
the delighted Jewish archers.
“Bring on your next tower,” cried Simon mockingly, “and we’ll deal with
it in like fashion.”
Among the few who contrived to limp painfully away to a place beyond
reach of the enemy’s fire was Crispus, bruised, dizzy, white-faced,
with a dozen arrowheads embedded in his flesh.
Sitting down, he proceeded to extract these barbs, and, the means being
at hand, he anointed his wounds and bound them with linen swathings, in
which task he was engaged when Titus came up.
“Now, the gods be praised, you live. But you are wounded; there must
be no more fighting for you to-day. Hither, two of you! Lay the noble
Crispus upon a buckler, and carry him back to camp.”
But Crispus vowed he was not so hurt as to necessitate his immediate
removal.
“Mere flesh-wounds, though I confess I am somewhat dazed by my fall.
Let me rest for an hour in this cool shade, and I’ll be ready for the
fray again.”
“Well, as thou wilt. Farewell awhile. I am beginning to like this
Simon; he is a foe worth fighting.”
Simon’s admirable tactics seemed to have a discouraging effect upon the
legionaries. At any rate the attack began to languish. The noontide sun
was now streaming directly upon the faces of the Romans, dazzling the
eyes of the archers and slingers, and marring the accuracy of their
aim. The heat of the day, the clouds of dust, the toil of war had
produced among the besiegers the agony of a raging thirst, a thirst
which they had no means of quenching. The _posca_--the water, sharpened
with vinegar--which every soldier was wont to carry with him in a
leathern bottle, had long since been drained to the last drop, and no
further supply was at hand.
Crispus, still faint and dazed, reclined against the agger.
“O, for water!” he murmured.
“There is none in all the host,” remarked a soldier standing by. “Men
are offering a gold piece for a cup of water.”
“And the enemy have become aware of our want,” said a second soldier.
“See! they are holding up vessels of water, and wastefully spilling it
in mockery at our distress.”
Titus with a troubled face came up at that moment.
“We are in rueful strait,” said he. “Our men are fainting for lack
of water. The Serpent’s Pool is exhausted; Cedron hath run dry. Our
engineers cannot sink a well, the rocky ground forbidding it. Where are
we to look for water?”
“There is a pool called Siloam, on the south side of the city,” replied
Crispus. “It may not be dry.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Titus, with new hope. “But,” he added doubtfully,
“whoever goes thither must pass under the eastern wall exposed to the
fire of the enemy.”
“But is not the Tenth Legion stationed on Olivet ready to repel any
sortie from that quarter? Give me the water-carts and a convoy of two
hundred horsemen, and I’ll engage to return with water enough for the
whole host.”
“Take three hundred, and good fortune go with you.”
Ere many minutes were past there went clattering down the Vale of
Cedron a long train of wagons, whose drivers were escorted by a
detachment of mounted soldiers, three hundred strong.
High above their heads hummed and whizzed volleys of stones and darts
slung from Olivet by the balistæ and catapults of the Tenth Legion,
who sought in this way to protect the movements of the water-seekers.
Looking forth from the eastern wall, John of Giscala and his Zealots
caught sight of the Roman horsemen, and vainly tried to stay their
progress by flights of arrows.
On dashed the convoy, past the olive grove of Gethsemane, and now they
were in the deepest part of the Black Glen; far above them on their
right was the temple, towering aloft in the sunlight to the height of
nearly five hundred feet; on, past the wall of Ophel, and, rounding its
southern end, they swung westward. Here, where the glen of Tyropæon
opens out into the Vale of Cedron, was a picturesque spot known from of
old as the King’s Garden, and watered by a streamlet from Siloam.
To his great joy, Crispus found that the Pool of Siloam--a long,
rectangular basin, excavated in the solid rock for the reception of the
outflow of a spring--was full of cool, limpid water.
By a coincidence, too timely to be regarded as fortuitous, Siloam,
whose waters had been “sealed” for nearly four years, _had started
flowing again upon the coming of the Roman army_![26] To the Jews the
Messianic fountain seemed to be playing the part of a traitor. The
water, so long withheld from them, was now flowing for the enemy. What
did it mean? they darkly asked, failing to see in this acted parable
that the Divine kingdom was being taken from them and given to the
Gentiles.
The thirsting Roman band, springing from their steeds, first refreshed
themselves, and proceeded next with all speed to the filling of the
water-carts.
When the Jews, who were looking on from the wall of Ophel, realized the
object of this sudden dash on the part of the Romans, they gave vent to
indignant and wrathful cries.
What? Must the unclean and uncircumcized heathen be permitted to carry
away for his profane use the water used in the sacred rites of the
temple? In the name of Elohim--no!
Wide clanged the Fountain Gate, and out poured a tumultuous crowd of
fierce-shouting saber-brandishing Zealots, led on by John of Giscala.
“To horse!” sang out the Roman trumpet; and instantly the troops
mounted and swung into line. Crispus’ question, “Shall we give them
battle?” met with an eager affirmative. Not a man among them but
thrilled with joy at the prospect of a hand-to-hand engagement with the
enemy. For many hours they had been waging an unsatisfactory warfare
against flying missiles, but here was something more substantial,
something they could flesh their steel upon!
With the spirit of his fighting ancestors dancing in his veins, Crispus
cried, “Why wait we here? We’ll go to meet them. _Charge!_”
He put his steed to the gallop, and the whole three hundred, knee to
knee and sword in air, went racing after him up the valley of Tyropæon.
Faster and faster they whirled towards the foe, gathering momentum with
every yard. The thundering hoofs and flashing steel made a sight so
nerveshaking that the crowd of onrushing Zealots came to a dead halt.
“Stand fast!” yelled John to his followers.
The next moment he was hurled to the earth, as the head of the Roman
column went crashing with irresistible force into the midst of the
Zealots.
The contest was short and sharp. John’s men lacked the fire of Simon’s;
for a moment only they fought, then turned tail and fled; and the
delighted Romans chased and slew up to the very gate of the city, all
but entering with the foe.
“John of Giscala hath escaped us,” growled a centurion, as he turned
away from the gate at which he had been savagely kicking.
“He is reserved for another day,” answered Crispus.
Laughing over their easy victory the little band galloped back to their
water-carts, and, as they clattered again up the valley of the Cedron,
they cast gibes at the discomfited Zealots upon the wall.
With the arrival of the water the thirsting Roman army imbibed fresh
energy, but though they toiled hard till nightfall they failed to open
a way into the city.
Thus ended the first day’s fight.
CHAPTER XX
CIRCUMVALLATION
On the fourteenth day of the siege the repaired ram Nico, or the
Conqueror, justified its name by effecting a breach in the northern
wall; and Simon, seeing his position no longer tenable, fell back upon
his second line of defense.
This was the first great step in the siege.
The Romans, entering Bezetha on the fifteenth day, proceeded to
demolish the greater part of this suburb, the demolition being
necessary in order to clear the way for the advance of the
battering-train.
Nine days more, and the Romans had penetrated the second wall, and were
now masters of the suburb of Acra, which they proceeded to treat in
like fashion with that of Bezetha.
This was the second great step in the siege.
“Bezetha taken in fifteen days, Acra in nine,” exulted Titus. “We are
getting on.”
Tiberius Alexander, to whom the remark was addressed, shrugged his
shoulders.
“Mere outworks, Cæsar. What we have done is child’s play compared with
what remains to be done.”
Titus began to be of the same opinion as he stood amid the fast
dismantling Acra, and surveyed a long chain of defiant fortresses.
Before him as he looked southwards rose the rugged escarpment of Mount
Zion, forty feet high, its edge surmounted by a lofty wall, whose
circuit included those magnificent towers, Hippicus, Phasaelus, and
Mariamne, each a citadel in itself. Above him, on his left hand,
soared the temple-fortress, and adjacent to it the Turris Antonia, this
last standing on a rock, which rock was not only seventy-five feet
high, but had its perpendicular sides cased with smooth marble!
After deliberating with his staff Titus resolved to make a simultaneous
attack on Mount Zion and on Antonia.
But how to reach these strongholds elevated in mid-air?
There was but one way, by the raising of banks--a stupendous operation!
But the Romans were familiarized with such tasks, and, animated by the
same resolute spirit as their general, they set to work with a fiery
energy that nothing could daunt. Owing to the scarcity of earth, timber
and fascines were largely used in the erection of these works, to such
an extent indeed, that not a tree remained within sight of Jerusalem.
The sylvan beauty of the landscape vanished; the Jewish people, looking
far and wide from the city walls, could see around them nothing but a
treeless and desolate waste. On the seventeenth day a huge embankment
faced the northern side of Antonia, but just when the engines planted
upon it were beginning to play, the Romans, to their consternation and
dismay, found the whole mound slowly beginning to sink. As the rate of
subsidence varied in different parts, chasms began to yawn, the rams
and towers rolled this way and that, crashing into each other with
destructive effect; men found themselves entangled among the machines,
overwhelmed with earth, suffocated with dust; a prodigious quantity
of smoke burst forth from the embankment, followed by darting tongues
of flame. It was death to remain longer upon it, and the amazed and
affrighted Romans, running in all directions, leaped from the mound.
The cause of it all soon became clear. John of Giscala and his Zealot
crew, toiling underground with an energy almost superhuman, had
driven a vast mine beneath the Roman agger, a mine whose roof and
supports were formed of timber, daubed with bitumen, sulphur, and other
combustibles. The ignition of these supports caused the engulfing of
the bank, and the complete destruction of the engines.
“Seest thou what John hath wrought?” cried Simon to his followers.
“Shall we be outdone by him?”
Now a similar bank was facing Zion, and two days later, at eventide,
just when the Romans had retired to their camp, leaving the customary
force to guard this bank, the gates of Zion opened, and from each
issued a crowd of Zealots, every one carrying either a lighted torch or
a vessel flaming with combustibles, and every one under a _cherem_ or
curse, not to return till he had seen the Roman engines and the Roman
bank in a blaze.
Coming forth, not by hundreds, but by thousands, they poured down
the craggy descent like a flood, wave upon wave, and swept up to the
embankment; some, fighting like fiends, impaled themselves upon the
points of the Roman spears, and so died; others, equally brave but more
fortunate, broke through the guard, scaled the embankment, and, running
hither and thither, set the engines alight, and finished the work of
destruction by firing the embankment itself, so that by the time Titus
and the rest of the army came up, the huge platform of earth and timber
was a roaring sea of unquenchable flame!
Now, for the first time during the siege, the spirit of despair fell
upon Titus. He began to think with the murmuring and superstitious
legionaries that the fiery comet which, in the shape of a sword, shed a
red gleam nightly over Jerusalem, was directing its malignant influence
not against the Jews but against the Romans.
His mood was shown by the letter directed jointly to his father
Vespasian and the Roman Senate; the dispatch omitted the customary
formula: “I rejoice if all is well with you and your children; with
myself and the army all is well.”
All was _not_ well with him and the army. The tactics of Simon and John
had caused the entire disappearance of his battering-train.
Was there no other course left him than to order the Greek engineers
of Cæsarea to construct a new set of military machines, an order that
would require several weeks for its fulfillment?
Many and various were the suggestions put forth at the council held in
the tent of Titus.
The plan of massing the whole strength of the legions against a
selected part of the wall, and of continuing the assault night and day
with testudo and scaling-ladder, regardless of the loss of life, till
the place should be finally stormed, was rejected as impracticable,
as was also the proposition to tunnel a way through the rock into the
heart of the city.
Tiberius Alexander rose to speak.
“By all means send to Cæsarea for new engines,” said he. “In the
meantime we’ll turn the siege into a blockade, and make famine our
chief weapon. Food within the city is already running short, even among
the Zealots themselves, so much so that, if the stories of deserters
be true, these same Zealots are robbing the people of their bread, and
torturing those whom they suspect of concealing it.
“But if the city is to be effectually starved, we must close up every
avenue of access. Now, hitherto, we have kept but an ill watch upon the
western and southern sides of the city, with the result that certain
merchants, despising the Roman power, and eager to coin wealth out of
Jewish necessities, are in the habit of stealing nightly to the city to
supply its wants. Tyrians bring fish, and Egyptians corn; Arabs purvey
dates, and the Nabatæans supplies of bitumen from the Dead Sea, that
fiery bitumen whose effects we know so well. Unless these doings be
stopped, the siege will be prolonged indefinitely. Now, my counsel is
that we encircle the city with a wall to be patrolled night and day; so
shall we cut off the enemy from all outside help.
“And since the more mouths there are in the city the more quickly will
food vanish, do you, O Cæsar, who have hitherto dealt kindly with
deserters, make it known that henceforth crucifixion shall be the lot
of those who come to us for pity.
“In six weeks’ time they will be eating each other, and victory will be
ours; for we shall be contending, not with strong men, but with gaunt
and famished weaklings, scarce able to lift spear or shield.
“Fasting is a part of their religion,” this renegade Hebrew concluded,
with a sneer. “Let them be made to keep such a fast as they never
before kept in all their history.”
The counsel of Tiberius Alexander prevailed, as Crispus knew that it
would prevail, even before the prefect had made an end of speaking.
Vain was it for others to propose a different plan, when, forty years
previously, a Divine voice had said: “_Thine enemies shall cast a
trench about thee, and compass thee around, and keep thee in on every
side._”
The next day witnessed the beginning of the fatal circuit.
Around the doomed city was drawn, over high hill and down deep ravine,
a double wall; one, the contravallation, designed to repel sorties from
the city; the other, the circumvallation, to repel attacks coming from
without.
Each of these investing lines was defended on its outer side by a
deep trench, and at every third furlong rose a castellum or fort, the
station of a garrison.
The whole of the army, 50,000 strong, was employed upon the work, which
was completed at the end of three days; a marvelously quick feat, even
for Romans, accustomed, as they were, to trenching and embanking.
The Zealots affected to view these operations with unconcern, casting
gibes at Titus, whenever he came within earshot.
Some of these gibes had reference to Berenice, who was known to be the
object of his adoration.
“The fair one at Cæsarea is lonely,” they cried. “The daughter of
Agrippa looketh out at a window, and crieth through the lattice, ‘Why
is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariot?’”
Other gibes were directed at Titus’ plebeian origin.
“Thy father was once a horse-doctor,” cried one. “Why not return to the
old trade, Titus? for plainly thou art no warrior. Depart, seeing that
thou canst not take this city.”
At this, Terentius Rufus, growing fierce for the honor of Cæsar, lifted
up a plow that by chance was lying near, and swore a memorable oath.
“Hear now the vow I make, O ye rebels! With this will I plow Zion as
one ploweth a field!”
A flight of arrows caused him to retreat, but he kept to his plow.
“Take this to my tent,” said he to a soldier, “and there let it be till
the day when I call for it. Terentius Rufus will keep his word.”
On the first night after the completion of the investing lines Titus
himself, accompanied by Crispus, went the round of the watch. Often
did the eyes of Crispus turn towards the city, now sleeping peacefully
beneath the light of the stars. The reduction of the place by famine
was doubtless justifiable from a military point of view, but he could
not help thinking of the fearful anguish that would fill ten thousand
homes; above all, he thought of Vashti. He pictured her, tormented by
all the agonies of slow starvation, dying by inches, her sweet and
graceful beauty all gone, a hollow-eyed thing of skin and bone, with
brain crazed for the lack of food, and he scarcely a mile distant with
bread and to spare, yet unable to pass her so little as a crust.
When the city should be taken, would she be living or dead? It was a
point which, strangely enough, had not occurred to him before that, if
living, she would be, according to the rights of war as practiced in a
brutal age, a captive doomed to slavery. He resolved there and then to
claim her freedom from the only man capable of granting it.
“When you take the city, Cæsar, there is one whose life and freedom I
would fain crave.”
“’Tis granted, provided that the object of your request be not a
descendant of David.”
“Why that exception?” asked Crispus in great surprise.
“The orders of my sire Vespasian are that I am to make search for all
that are of David’s line with a view to their extirpation.[27] The Jew
is convinced that a descendant of this ancient royal house is destined
to attain universal empire, a belief which has given rise to this
present revolt; therefore, destroy all that are of David’s line, and
you extinguish this vain Jewish dream.”
How Crispus rejoiced in the thought that the saintly bishop Simeon, and
the remaining Desposyni--relatives of the Master--were at that moment
in distant Pella!
“She for whom I would make request,” said he, “is one Vashti, daughter
of Hyrcanus.”
Titus gave a start of surprise.
“She to whom you gave the golden zone at Cæsarea?”
“The same,” replied Crispus, conjecturing that Titus’ knowledge of this
incident was derived from Berenice.
“What is this maiden to you?” asked Titus with a keen glance.
“Much, seeing that but for her I should no longer be living,” replied
Crispus, relating the circumstances of his recovery from Eleazar’s
sword-thrust.
Titus seemed genuinely troubled. Crispus had distinguished himself so
well in the siege that it was hard to refuse him this favor.
“Gladly would I grant your request, but that it comes too late. The
Princess Berenice is desirous of obtaining possession of that damsel.”
Crispus at that moment looked more dazed than when he fell from the
drawbridge.
“Berenice!” he murmured. “What would _she_ with Vashti?”
“The princess likes to have pretty and graceful maidens about her. She
made me promise that out of the spoils of the city I would give her
this Vashti.”
“And you will?”
Titus shrugged his shoulders.
“She was not content with an oral promise. She holds a parchment signed
by my hand empowering her to claim Vashti as her slave.”
In Crispus’ opinion it would be better, far better, for Vashti to die
of slow starvation than to fall into the hands of the jealous Berenice,
whose only object in this enslavement was to gratify her spirit of
revenge.
He said no more, knowing the uselessness of interceding, but he had
quite made up his mind what he would do; and he could do it, too, in
all good conscience.
“Let Cæsar’s parchment bond say what it will,” said he within himself.
“I will save Vashti from the doom intended for her, though it cost me
my life.”
CHAPTER XXI
THE DYING CITY
The gaunt specter of famine was stalking through Jerusalem.
On the very first day of the siege the price of food had mounted so
high that a bushel of wheat could not be had for less than a talent
of gold,[28] but as soon as the Roman wall had cut off the Jews from
all external supplies ten times ten talents could not purchase even a
handful of grain.
Then from ten thousand homes there rose up the cry for bread; but the
heaven above was as brass; the God that had shed down manna upon their
forefathers remained cold to all the wild wailings in the synagogues.
He who had laid up food for himself was not certain of benefiting by
his forethought, for the Zealots broke into whatsoever house they
pleased, and upon those suspected of concealing food they inflicted
torments so horrible as to seem rather the invention of fiends than of
men.
Among those hitherto preserved from the visits of the Zealots, though
living in daily dread of such visits, were Vashti and her mother.
The two dwelt all alone, since Miriam, in expectation of famine, had
dismissed her handmaids at the beginning of the siege.
Vashti had never known a more unhappy time than the present, and
she had begun to doubt whether it would not have been wiser to have
followed the counsel of the holy Simeon by escaping while it was
possible from the doomed city.
It was not the gnawing pangs of hunger that distressed her so much as
the knowledge that she had altogether lost her mother’s love. Miriam
treated her with an unkindliness that seemed to increase with each
succeeding day. She was forever reproaching Vashti as being a Christian
and a lover of the Romans.
“But I love you, too, dear mother, more than all the Christians, or
would I have remained here with you, when I might have retired safely
to Pella?”
Her mother took no notice of this pertinent argument, but began to
inveigh against Crispus, whose conspicuous valor during the siege had
inspired the Jews with a hatred almost equal to that felt for Titus
himself.
“Why did you nurse him back to life? He is a serpent repaying our
kindness by doing all the hurt he can to the holy city.”
Not wishing to vex her mother, Vashti refrained from argument, and went
with aching heart to survey their fast diminishing store of provisions.
The slender stock of meal, figs, and dried grapes would last but a few
days more, and then----?
The two women contented themselves with a few mouthfuls a day in order
that little Arad might have sufficient for his wants. He was now
between five and six years of age, and was idolized at least by his
sister, if not by his mother. The child could not help observing how
little they ate.
“It is all through the Romans,” answered his mother fiercely, adding,
“say, ‘God curse the Romans!’”
The little fellow repeated the words.
“Now you say it, Vashti,” said he.
But Vashti, believing that the Romans were God’s ministers, tearfully
shook her head, and this produced a fresh outburst of wrath on the
part of Miriam, who seemed to take an unholy pleasure in setting the
child against Vashti, saying so many bitter things that Vashti withdrew
weeping.
At last came the time of starvation.
For two days the women fasted, giving to Arad what remained of their
store; and, as Miriam watched him eating, there was in her eyes a look
that Vashti did not like to see, a look as if she were begrudging the
child its food.
On the third day he, too, had to fast.
His pitiful questionings and sobbings gave additional pangs to Vashti’s
own anguish. But where was she to look for relief? To solicit food from
her friends and neighbors would but provoke them to mocking laughter,
if indeed the power to laugh remained in them. If they had food, would
they part with it, when such act would be but to hasten their own end?
What was Arad to them? they would say. Had they not dying children of
their own? Why prolong Arad’s sufferings? The quicker death came to him
the better. Such were the answers Vashti would receive, as she very
well knew.
As for Miriam, she had grown neglectful of the boy; faint and
dizzy, she restlessly tottered with feeble step from room to room,
looking into every corner, probing behind every piece of furniture,
emptying every chest of its contents, in the hope of lighting upon
something--anything--that could satisfy for a time the gnawing pangs of
hunger. But vain was her search.
The two women passed the third night foodless. Arad cried himself to
sleep. Vashti spent the dark hours in a state between slumbering and
waking; when she dreamed, it was of delicious banquets, from which with
a sudden start she would wake to the dreadful realities of her position.
And now dawned the fourth day of her fast, and Arad, waking again, set
up his piteous cry for food, a cry that went to the heart of Vashti.
Must she sit idly by, and watch the child die?
A sudden thought set all her nerves thrilling with joy. Looking around
and finding her mother absent, she knelt beside his pallet, and
whispered to him, “Don’t cry, Arad. Lie still, and be good, and I’ll
bring you something to eat.”
Pacified somewhat by this announcement the little fellow became quiet.
On passing into the next chamber Vashti saw her mother crouching in a
corner upon the floor, her head bowed down upon her knees. She seemed,
as if having once sat down, to lack all power to rise again. As Vashti
drew near, Miriam feebly raised her head, and stared in moody and
dull despair at her daughter. She made no inquiries as to Arad; not a
word passed her lips; she had reached the stage when speaking becomes
painful and irritating, the stage when all interest in outward things
ceases, the stage where one sits on the ground silently brooding,
waiting for the slow approach of death.
Vashti’s youthful frame contained more life and energy than her
mother’s, but soon she, too, unable to drag her limbs along, must sit,
brooding, silent, dying.
Vashti said nothing to her mother. What could she say? Cheering words
would be but a mockery.
She climbed the stairway, and passed out upon the roof.
A few weeks previously Arad had taken there a large cake of bread with
a view of amusing himself by tossing crumbs up into the air in order to
attract the attention of pigeons and sparrows. For some reason or other
he had not carried out his purpose, and the bread instead of being
carried down again was placed by him within a hollow under a tile to
be reserved for the sport of some other day. That day had never come,
however; and there it had lain forgotten by Vashti till this moment.
Was it still there? she wondered. Yes, there it was, large enough to
serve little Arad for one meal. A great temptation came upon Vashti
to fix her teeth into it there and then, and gnaw away till nothing
remained; but the thought of Arad controlled this selfish prompting.
The bread was as hard as iron, but a little soaking in water would soon
render it soft and palatable.
Concealing the precious fragment within her bosom, Vashti descended the
stairway, passing by her mother again, who looked at her with the same
listless, mechanical stare as before. Under that dreadful look Vashti
felt like a traitress. A struggle began in her breast. Was it right to
conceal this discovery from her mother? Was she not entitled to a share
of the crust? Yes, if she would be content with a share, but supposing
in her fierce hunger she should seize upon the whole? _There_ was
Vashti’s fear. Affection bade her choose between her mother and Arad,
and the latter prevailed. It went to her heart to leave her mother
dying there, but it would go to her heart still more to see little Arad
robbed of his last morsel by the mother who bore him.
As Vashti entered the chamber the little fellow turned his eyes eagerly
upon her.
She stole to his pallet.
“See! here is a large cake of bread; but it is hard, and must be
softened before you can eat it.” And then, dreading lest her mother’s
ears should be caught by these doings, she added in a whisper, “Hush!
do not talk, darling. Lie still, and you shall have it soon.”
Having rendered the bread eatable by moistening it with water,
tormented the while by a fearful longing to devour it herself, she
handed the whole to Arad.
There were many fathers among the besieging Romans outside, men of
humane disposition, despite their warlike calling. Could they have
witnessed the joy with which the little fellow swallowed the not very
palatable morsels, they would surely have loaded their balistæ, not
with stones, but with loaves, and have rained them upon the roof of
Miriam’s dwelling.
“Eat slowly,” said Vashti, “or ’twill do you hurt.”
She had scarcely said this when a scream broke from her. Between her
and Arad there had suddenly dropped a skinny hand, a hand that clutched
greedily at the bread, a hand belonging to the figure whom Vashti had
thought to be still crouching upon the floor of the next apartment.
Arad, instinctively divining that he was about to be robbed of his
meal, crammed one end of the crust into his mouth.
“Give it to me,” shrieked Miriam, tugging at the other end with such
force as to drag the child from off his pallet.
Arad hung with his teeth upon the crust; it suddenly parted, and
Miriam, securing her own piece, swallowed it with a wolfish gusto
dreadful to witness, while Vashti looked on in fear and trembling.
“Oh, mother! mother!” she gasped. “How could you do it?”
Arad, frightened almost to death by his mother’s deed and look, clung
to his sister, who strove to soothe his grief.
“It is as I have suspected,” said Miriam. “You are hiding food from me
to satisfy yourself and Arad, while I, your mother, may starve.”
“Not so, mother.”
“Will you deny what mine eyes have seen? Show me the way to your secret
store.”
“I have no secret store.”
“Whence, then, did you obtain this bread?”
Vashti explained, but all to no purpose. Miriam persisted in declaring
that Vashti had secreted provisions somewhere in the house, and
announced her intention of watching henceforth all her daughter’s
movements.
Vashti, weak before, was now almost ready to collapse under the shock
of this rude encounter, but for Arad’s sake she bravely bore up.
Her indignation against her mother passed away after a time, giving
place to pity; in taking Arad’s food Miriam had been doing only what
she herself had been terribly tempted to do. Though tormented within
by a gnawing pain that grew greater with each hour, Vashti, hiding it
all under a cheerful mien, sought to make Arad forget his sorrows;
she brought out his toys (for children had toys in those days as in
these) and played with him; she procured parchment, ink and pens, and
drew letters and objects and little pictures for his diversion; she
told him simple stories and sang some of the psalms known to him that
he might chime in with his little voice. Those psalms recalled the
happy twilight hours spent with Crispus, and she sang with a quaver
in her voice and tears welling from her eyes, till at last she broke
down entirely and sobbed aloud. Seeing his sister cry, Arad naturally
cried, too; and, the pangs of hunger asserting themselves, he began his
piteous wail for something to eat.
“Give us of your store,” said Miriam.
“Mother, I have no store.”
“Then, find us food,” returned Miriam, raising her voice to a shriek.
“You see me and the child starving, and yet you sit idly by doing
nothing to prevent it. Are we to die? I am too weak to stir abroad,
but you have strength left. There must be food somewhere in the
city. Go and find it. Take money, your jewels, your golden zone.
Buy--beg--steal, if need be, but bring us food.”
In Vashti’s opinion Miriam’s words were mere raving. Of what use was
it to wander through the city offering to buy food from a starving
populace? He who had bread, would he not keep it?
Suddenly she bethought herself of one with whom she had always been a
favorite, the benevolent Johanan ben Zacchai, whose two daughters had
been her lifelong friends.
She would go to their home in Ophel, and, if they should be the happy
possessors of food, beg a little of it for the sake of Arad. Kissing
him passionately she laid him down, and went forth on this dubious
errand.
* * * * *
The setting sun was tingeing with a golden glow the higher parts of the
city as Vashti unbarred the gate of her dwelling, a gate that had not
opened for many weeks.
The first thing that impressed her was the strange stillness that
prevailed around, “_a deep silence and a kind of deadly night_,” to use
the language of the contemporary historian. The street was empty; every
house, like her own, was shut and barred.
Significant fact! What silent tragedies, what scenes of anguish, were
taking place behind those closed doors and latticed windows?
As she stepped out into the street her eye was caught by a startling
object. Hanging by a rope from a hook fixed into an adjacent wall was
a shriveled and mummified corpse, that of a man, who, doubtless unable
longer to endure the agonies of slow starvation, had chosen to hasten
his end by suicide. The thought that before her journey’s end she was
likely to see other sights like this, or even more ghastly, almost
drove her within the house again, but her mother’s wrath and Arad’s
hunger spurred her on, and she walked away as quickly as her weakness
would let her.
A few paces, and she saw lying within the entrance of a narrow archway
the body of a woman but recently dead, a woman with a frame emaciated
by famine, the skin tightly drawn over her bones, the veins on her
shriveled neck showing like sinews. Pillowed upon her arm lay an infant
whose hand convulsively grasped his mother’s withered breast, twisting
it with his fingers, and uttering feeble little cries of anger at
finding himself deprived of sustenance. Pity for the mother, a greater
pity for the babe, put Vashti in a state of hesitation. To leave the
infant dying there was an unnatural act; on the other hand, where was
the good in taking it to her own home? Neither she nor her mother had
the means of preserving its life. It might as well die under the open
sky as under a roof; and so, steeling her heart, Vashti went slowly on.
But she got no further than the end of the street; beginning to feel
like a murderess, she turned back, only to find the infant breathing
its last.
Leaving mother and babe Vashti went on her way, seeing with a pitying
heart other sights equally grim. The Apocalypse, but recently written,
had not yet come to her knowledge, or she might have recalled the
passage, “_Their dead bodies shall lie in the streets of the great
city._”
She entered a silent square, seemingly empty, but a second
glance around showed her on its southern side a group of human
figures--perhaps twenty in all--men, women, and children, clustered in
various attitudes upon the steps of the Royal Synagogue. They took no
notice of her approach, though her footsteps sounded unnaturally loud
in the strange stillness.
Vashti stopped short, absolutely appalled at their aspect. Though
terribly wasted herself, Vashti was plump compared with these figures.
With limbs attenuated to those of a skeleton; with eyes deep sunken in
their orbit; with cheek-bones projecting hideously; with complexions
darkened by famine, they looked like weird beings from another world.
More dreadful than all was the look of unspeakable anguish stamped upon
their features; it was the look of men who would never smile more in
this world. They had come to this spot because from it their beloved
temple could be seen; and they would fain die with their glazing eyes
fixed to the last upon the lofty golden pinnacles of the white marble
shrine that stood out in all its loveliness against the calm blue sky
of evening.
Dead and dying they lay, stretched athwart the steps. “Those who were
just going to die looked upon those that were gone to their rest
before them with dry eyes and open mouths.”[29]
Suddenly a sound became audible; distant at first, it grew painfully
loud, and at last, with a rattle and a clang, a dozen armed Zealots,
belonging to John’s party, came marching into the square, their
well-preserved physique affording a striking contrast to the ghastly
group on the synagogue steps. Famine had not yet laid its finger upon
_them_.
Seemingly in the best of spirits they talked and laughed in rude
fashion, indifferent to the suffering that met them at every point.
As a matter of fact, they had come out purposely to add to the city’s
sufferings. Four of their number carried a small battering-ram,
intended to force open the doors of such obstinate citizens as were
bent on keeping their own provisions.
Vashti noticed that these Zealots were taking the way that led past the
synagogue. Not wishing to attract their attention, she crept to the
side of the building, and hid herself behind a buttress, contriving the
while, however, to keep watch upon the approaching group.
As they drew nearer she saw to her surprise that the more youthful of
them were _dressed as women_ in all the bravery of finely dyed garments
and golden anklets that tinkled as they walked; their long, flowing
hair was decked with the _suffa_, a gauzy network, that, attached to
the headdress, hung down over the shoulders as far as the waist; red
coloring glowed on their cheeks, while their eyes, to make them appear
larger and more lustrous, were painted round with _kohl_, and their
eyebrows arched and darkened with the same preparation.
Their appearance thrilled Vashti with a mysterious and nameless horror;
she wondered what this feminine garb should mean, not knowing in her
innocence that the temple had become, under John of Giscala, the seat
of infamies that caused the seer of Patmos to brand the once holy city
with a fearful name.
The Zealots in passing glanced at the silent throng, whose dying
anguish provoked only their savage mirth.
“More victims for the dead-cart,” laughed one. “Aha!” he continued,
stopping in his walk, and pointing to a ghastly stiffened figure lying
supine upon the stairs, “whom have we here? Asenath the harlot, as I
live. One can scarce recognize in her the one-time favorite of old
Ananias. How she stares! Is she living or dead?”
“Dead!” replied another Zealot.
“I’ll wager ten shekels she’s living,” cried he who had spoken first.
“And I’ll wager the same that she’s dead,” answered the second.
“Good! you hear,” said the first, addressing the rest as desiring them
to be witnesses of the wager.
The Zealots had a way of their own--and for sport often practiced
it--of ascertaining whether a body were dead.
Drawing his blade the first ruffian pulled aside the woman’s robe and
pierced her breast with the point of the weapon, an act followed by a
faint moan, and a slight writhing of the figure.
“Thou hast lost thy bet, Malchus,” laughed the first ruffian. “She’s
living.”
“She’s dead now, at any rate,” answered the second; and, furious at
losing the wager, he drew his sword and stabbed the woman to the heart.
At this a dying man beside her spoke in hollow tones.
“In the name of God be merciful, and do the like by me. Thrust me
through that my anguish may have an end.”
“Thou wishest to die? Then thou shalt live,” replied Malchus; and,
sheathing his blade, he moved off with the rest of the Zealots, who
laughed as though the affair were a merry jest.
When silence had descended upon the square again Vashti crept fearfully
forth, and, after hesitating whether or not to return home, she resumed
her slow and trembling way to Ophel, and arrived without further
adventure at the house of Johanan ben Zacchai. It was a humble dwelling
situated in a street that, like all others in the city, was as quiet as
the tomb.
Vashti found the gate, as she expected, barred.
Before knocking she listened, and detected coming from within a sound
that caused her heart to leap with hope, for it was a sound like that
produced when corn is ground between two millstones.
Even in her dazed and frightened state of mind Vashti could not but
think it imprudent to be grinding corn within hearing of the street, a
street that might be traversed at any moment by ruffianly, food-seeking
Zealots.
The household of Johanan were evidently not without grain; surely they
would spare her just a little from their store?
She knocked at the gate, and the sound of the grinding, if such it
were, instantly ceased.
“They think I am a Zealot,” she said with a wild little laugh.
She knocked a second and a third time, but received no reply; she
called out her name so loudly that those within must have heard who the
visitor was, but they made no response. A dead silence prevailed within.
Vashti withdrew to the middle of the street, and turned her despairing
eyes towards the lattice over the gateway. No friendly face looked down
at her; no face at all.
She turned sorrowfully away, but came again presently, and this she
continued to do at intervals, beating piteously upon the gate, but all
to no purpose.
Then did hope die within her. If Johanan ben Zacchai would not listen
to the voice of a suppliant, there was none other in the city that
would.
Nothing remained for her but to return home; but how could she,
empty-handed, face the despairing gaze of her dying mother, the
fearful, famishing eyes of little Arad, who quite expected to see his
sister come back laden with food.
Loth to return home she wandered slowly and aimlessly through the
streets and squares of the star-lit city.
In the Xystus that faced the half-burned palace of Agrippa she came
upon a group of men, all bearing the signet-mark of famine--the
skeleton limbs, the dark complexion, the sunken eyes of unnatural
luster with the scared look in them.
Leaning upon staves they were listening to one of those self-deluded
fanatics, so numerous at that time in Jerusalem--fanatics whose dream
no reverses could destroy, the dream namely of a coming universal
empire for the Jews; the darker and the more hopeless the situation
seemed, the more fervent and enthusiastic became the faith of these
false prophets, who did not relinquish their hopes till they saw the
temple sink into everlasting night, and the plow drawn over the soil
where once the palace of Zion had stood.
Vashti paused for a moment to listen to his wild harangue.
“Think you that Jehovah will let the place in which He has chosen to
put His name fall into the hands of the uncircumcized heathen? Men,
brethren, there is no contradiction in the Divine nature, and therefore
He who decreed that the temple should be built can never decree that
it shall be destroyed. Take heart and rejoice! The time foretold by
the prophets is at hand: the heavens shall open, and the Messiah shall
descend therefrom--yea! it is but a matter of a few hours now--to
avenge His people. His feet shall stand upon Olivet, and with the
breath of His mouth will He slay the host of Titus even as He slew the
host of Sennacherib.”
And so speciously did he argue by texts drawn from the prophetical
scriptures that his famishing auditors, with scarcely strength to
stand, became as hopeful as the orator himself; they forgot their
present sufferings; their faces brightened, and they turned their
glance upward to the comet gleaming red in the sky, half-expecting to
see it launch forth fiery death at the girdling hostile line that,
“hushed in grim repose,” was patiently waiting the slow but certain
doom of the city.
With a sigh Vashti passed on, and coming to a street corner beheld the
emaciated figure of a man kneeling, in his hand a drawn bow with an
arrow fitted thereto. Never had she seen eyes so fiercely wild, or an
expression so painfully eager and expectant. Following the direction
of his glance she saw that he was aiming at a pigeon which had just
alighted upon the ground only a few yards distant. “Food, food! Life,
life!” was the thought that frenzied his brain.
But Vashti could see what he could not, namely, that much nearer to the
bird, and crouching down within a gateway was the skeleton figure of
a woman, whose manner showed that she was waiting to snatch the prize
from the archer. And so it proved. As the shaft flew true to the mark
the woman tottered feebly from her hiding-place; her eyes sparkled with
wild glee; she gave a demoniacal chuckle as she pounced upon the slain
pigeon, and ghoul-like tore greedily at the raw flesh with her teeth.
At that sight there broke from the man a cry of surprise and despair,
of agony and rage, a cry horrible yet pitiable to hear. “Thief! bitch!
accursed!” he screamed. “Give me what is mine. Ah! she would devour it
all! In the name of God give me a mouthful, a morsel, that I may live,
and not die.”
As the speaker lurched forward in the endeavor to get at the thief his
legs gave way beneath him, and he fell heavily to the ground; feebly
struggling to his feet he staggered on again with intent to wreak
vengeance upon the spoiler.
Outraged nature did the work for him.
The eater gorging herself to the full, and being long unused to the
taking of so great an amount of sustenance, became suddenly convulsed,
dropped to the ground in horrible contortions, and there and then died,
her end being greeted with mocking laughter by the weakling pursuer,
who, seemingly undeterred by her fate, knelt down, and plucking the
remnant of the bird from the dead woman’s teeth began to gnaw it with
his own.
Vashti, shuddering, turned away, and retracing her steps to Ophel,
sought once more the house of Johanan ben Zacchai. But she stopped
aghast ere reaching it.
Its gate was wide open now, hanging wrecked upon its hinges, with the
battering-ram that had done the work lying within the entrance.
From the house came the cries as of an old man in pain.
“Give his limb another twist,” cried a voice that she recognized as
that of Malchus the Zealot. “We’ll soon make the old graybeard tell
where he has concealed his corn.”
At the same moment there broke forth from an upper chamber the
thrilling screams of Johanan’s two daughters, painly calling upon their
aged father to deliver them from the hands of the lewd and laughing
Zealots; for John’s followers made it their boast that if there were a
virgin in any house they entered there would be none there when they
left.
With the blood about her heart congealing to ice Vashti fled, lest a
like fate should befall her; fled, not knowing whither she went, not
caring; fled, till she suddenly found herself facing a great black mass
that rose up into the starry night. It was the wall of Zion, the huge
rampart of masonry that lay between the Romans and victory, that lay,
alas! betwixt herself and Crispus. She was near the Valley Gate, whose
approaches as she saw were guarded by a small party of Zealots, while
on the battlements above them slow-pacing sentinels kept their watch.
Hastily Vashti retreated within the shadows ere she should be seen.
By the gate stood Simon the Black. An unpleasant odor, so palpable that
one could almost taste it, hung in the air; and this was doubtless his
reason for holding in his hand a perfume box whose fragrance he inhaled
from time to time.
At intervals there came from beyond the city walls weird, plaintive
cries, mysterious voices as of human creatures in pain; the sounds,
borne on the wings of the night, seemed to come like arrows to the
heart of Vashti, thrilling her with an unknown fear. The strange odor
and the eerie sounds--what did they mean? The apparent unconcern of the
men about the gate showed that to them at least these were familiar
things.
Conversing apart with Simon was a somewhat sad-eyed man, by name
Manneus, the scribe appointed to take note of all the dead carried
forth through the Valley Gate; for be it known that the bodies of the
dead as being like to create a plague if allowed to remain in the city
were collected at night by paid agents of the Sanhedrim, thrown upon
carts, and carried out to be promiscuously flung, without funeral rites
and without burial, into the ravines that surrounded Jerusalem; all
which matters were as yet unknown to Vashti.
“How many, think you, up to yester even have been borne forth from this
gate?” asked Manneus of Simon.
“Twenty thousand, perhaps,” replied the Zealot, hazarding a guess.
“_One hundred and fifteen thousand, eight hundred and eighty_,”[30]
returned Manneus, consulting his tablets.
Even Simon, little prone to emotion, was staggered by these figures.
“Fire of Gehenna!” he muttered. “And this is but one gate! How many
from each of the other gates? Our Jewish brethren from foreign lands
whose wish it is to be buried at Jerusalem seem to be having their
wish,” he added grimly. “But, ah! whom have we here?”
This last question was caused by the action of Vashti, who, moved by
some uncontrollable impulse, came tremblingly forward, and addressed to
him a pitiful plaint for bread.
“Bread?” repeated the Zealot. “Why comest thou to me?”
“Because you are as a king in this city.”
“Captain,” said one of the Zealots, recognizing Vashti, “this damsel is
of the Nazarenes, who were forever preaching the doom of the city. She
is, moreover, the ward of Josephus, that traitor, who is high in the
councils of the enemy.”
“A Nazarene, true. Yet,” answered Vashti, eager to seize upon any
argument that might influence the Zealot chief in her favor, “yet did
I not quit the city, when the Nazarenes left it, but have remained
behind to share the fate of my fellow-citizens. In the name of God,”
she continued, addressing Simon, “give me bread. I ask not for myself,
but for a dying child. Give me but one loaf, and on the resurrection
morning, when all deeds will be brought to light, this shall be counted
to you for righteousness.”
“You shall have a loaf,” said Simon, moved strangely by her words, “you
shall have a basket ... a basket filled with bread.” The bewildered
Vashti could scarcely trust her hearing. “But ere you return home you
must eat a morsel yourself, or you will faint by the way. Come with me.”
Vashti, loth to go with him, yet not daring to refuse, accompanied
Simon to the tower adjacent to the Valley Gate. Entering the first room
that he came to, the Zealot chief peremptorily ordered out of it three
or four of his followers who were sitting there occupied with dice and
wine.
“Here,” said he, addressing Vashti, when the men had withdrawn, “here
are six dried grapes, a fig, and a morsel of bread. No more at present.
Put a curb upon your appetite, if you would live.”
To Vashti’s mind there was something selfish in eating while thousands
of her fellow-citizens were dying of want--doubly selfish, when she
reflected that this food had perhaps been wrung by violence from the
famishing people. Natural appetite, however, prevailed over sentiment;
and with a strange feeling towards Simon, a feeling compounded of
gratitude and repulsion, Vashti began the slow eating of what was to
her a repast more delicious than that in the banquet-hall of Florus,
though her enjoyment was somewhat marred by the unpleasant odor that
seemed to cling around everything in this vicinity. That she did not
know its cause seemed to surprise Simon. Perceiving that her ignorance
was real and not feigned, he rose, and said, “Come with me, if you
would learn.”
Vashti began to regret her curiosity, being all-anxious now to return
home with the promised loaves. Not wishing, however, to offend the
Zealot she followed him up a stone staircase, and through a doorway
that opened upon the ramparts.
Simon, first handing her his perfume box, bade her look down over the
battlements.
And Vashti looked.
It was a moonless night, but the sky was jeweled with stars whose
faint light was just sufficient to give her a glimmering of what lay
below. It was the light required for such a scene: the full blaze of
the noonday sun would have made it a horror too great to be endured by
human nerves.
“_They shall look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed
against me!_”
Vashti, peering down, could dimly see that the deep and shadowy
ravine of Hinnom--that ravine already regarded in Hebrew theology as
the type of hell--was filled with the remains of the dead, who were to
be counted not by hundreds, but by tens of thousands. The bodies lay,
piled promiscuously, some clothed, some naked, in every possible stage
of decay, from that of the newly dead to that of the whitened skeleton
glimmering ghastly through the gloom.
The air that hung above and around the ravine was tainted with an
effluvium so gross as to be all but palpable to the touch, and so
loathsome that but for the perfume box Vashti would have sunk to the
ground overpowered.
More dreadful still, from every part of the gloom came significant and
horrid rustlings, intermingled with sounds like to the tearing of flesh
by some sharp instrument.
“Mark!” said Simon.
He flung over a stone; at its sudden and startling descent a black
cloud of ravens and vultures, gorged with human flesh, rose on the
wing, high above the battlements, their slow-sailing shadows darkening
the face of the sky.
Vashti, as they passed, drew back with a shudder, and as she did so,
her eyes fell upon a sight still more startling and awful. _Now_ she
knew the origin of the weird and midnight cries!
There, beyond the ravine, under the cold light of the pitiless stars,
were rows upon rows of crosses; and to every cross was nailed a naked
human form!
The number of these crosses was past all counting; they circled the
whole city, extending as far back as the Roman wall, whose castellated
outline was dimly visible from the battlements. How many of the
crucified victims were dead; how many were bearing their sufferings
in heroic silence; how many had reached the sullen stupor that is the
immediate precursor of death, it was impossible to tell. Vashti might
have thought all dead, but that every now and then some poor wretch,
now in this quarter and now in that, lifting his hitherto bowed head
would shiver convulsively, and would break the stillness of the night
by a long-drawn mournful cry of pain, a cry that might have caused the
coldest, sternest nature to weep, but seemed to have no effect upon
Simon.
“In God’s name, who are these?” gasped Vashti.
“Jewish deserters. It is thus that Titus receives those that come to
him from the city, nor do I pity them. Let them die; they deserve their
doom. Mark,” he continued, “mark the ill-fortune that has attended all
who have deserted the holy cause! In the early days of the siege Titus
was wont to receive such renegades with favor, a favor, however, that
proved the doom of many, who, eating too freely of the food given to
them, burst, and so died.” He paused, with a vindictive smile, and then
resumed. “They were succeeded by other deserters, who, ere leaving the
city, swallowed gold pieces and precious stones, thinking to recover
them after they had passed the Roman lines. Fatal avarice! The secret
became known to the Syrian and Arabian allies deputed to take charge of
these deserters; they slew them and cut open their bodies to get at the
treasures. In this way were two thousand of them killed in one night.”
Again he smiled vindictively. “At last Titus, growing stern, as he saw
the little progress made by his arms, sent to our walls a herald to
proclaim that he would receive no more deserters; let the whole body
of the people come forth, or none. Regardless of this decree, fresh
parties made their way to the Roman camp, to be sent back to the city,
a shrieking train of victims, with their hands lopped off.” Again that
vindictive smile. “And now,” added Simon, pointing to the ghastly scene
before them, “now he hath taken to this way of dealing with them. _They
are crucified to the number of five hundred a day!_”
The vengeance of history!
These were the men, and the sons of the men, who forty years earlier
had cried “Crucify Him! crucify Him!” And now they themselves were
crucified--some on the very site of Golgotha itself!--in such numbers
that, in the language of Josephus, “room was wanting for the crosses,
and crosses wanting for the bodies.” And the victims, if they but chose
to look, could see overhead in the sky the red gleam of the heavenly
sword. Stay! was it the figure of a sword, or was it not rather _the
likeness of a cross_, intended to remind them of the greatest and most
awful tragedy in the world’s history?
Vashti’s head swam with horror; a mist obscured her vision; air and
landscape seemed slowly turning to one universal blood-red hue. Her
wild wail went forth upon the night air:
“O God, have mercy upon this hapless city!”
It was past the sixth hour of the night when Vashti, with her basket of
bread upon her arm, reached home.
Closing and barring the gate behind her, she went along the short
passage, and crossed the little court.
Entering a chamber upon the ground floor she paused for a moment and
stood in the attitude of listening. She had so expected to hear Arad’s
plaintive cry for food that it was almost a disappointment to find
the house as silent as the tomb. Evidently Arad was sleeping, unless
indeed----! Her heart almost stood still at the dread thought that
suddenly smote her. But no! she was alarming herself without cause. A
two days’ fast, though it might very much weaken a child, would not
kill him. Arad must be sleeping.
She smiled lovingly as she pictured his delight when he should awake
and see what his sister had brought him.
If mother and son were sleeping it could not be otherwise that the
house should be without sound; yet in the prevailing stillness that
hung about the place like a tangible veil there was something so
strange and oppressive as to fill Vashti with vague fears. Her tread
on entering had sounded so hollow that she had paused, almost fearing
to take a second step. For the first time in her life she feared the
darkness.
Plucking up her courage, she moved through the gloom towards the
stairway that stood in one corner of the room. When she was half-way
across the floor her foot touched some object; moved by curiosity she
stooped, and picking the thing up found it to be--_a long knife_!
Now when Vashti had last gone through this room there was no knife
lying upon the floor; her sandal had become loose upon this very spot;
she had knelt to tie the string, and the knife, had it been lying there
at that time, could scarcely have failed to come within the ken of
her vision. Evidently someone must have entered this room during her
absence; doubtless Miriam.
There was nothing strange in the fact that her mother, if so minded,
should leave the upper story and descend to the court, yet Vashti
could not help wondering why Miriam should have removed the knife from
its customary place upon the shelf, since it was the one used only in
the culinary operations, this room being the kitchen of the little
household. But that existing circumstances forbade the hypothesis, the
knife might have been taken as evidence almost of the preparation of a
meal.
As if expecting the darkness to furnish some clew Vashti looked
vacantly around, and there upon the floor distant but a few feet, and
scintillating through the gloom, was a something that had the semblance
of an eye, an eye intently watching all her movements.
It stared at her a while, blinked, glittered again, then the eyelid
seemed to close, and there was darkness where the thing had been.
Vashti gave a little insane laugh of relief, perceiving that what had
frightened her was no eye at all, but a faint point of light upon the
hearth, the last spark of some dying embers. It was clear that during
her absence a fire had been kindled in this room, and by whom, if not
by her mother? and this fact when taken with the knife would seem to
point to the preparation of food. If so, by what means had Miriam
become so fortunate? After what Vashti had seen that night it was
scarcely credible that, Zealots excepted, there could be anyone in this
famishing city so well provided as to be capable of giving relief to
others. Such being the case, then, what was the meaning to be put upon
the fire and the knife?
Instead of hastening at once to her mother’s room Vashti lingered in
this chamber, impressed somehow by the belief that here was to be found
the key to the mystery. Though entirely ignorant as to its nature, she
nevertheless felt certain that she was on the verge of some startling
discovery, and she trembled all over.
Slowly she drew near the hearth; over it the air still hung warm. Her
feet pressed upon some light yielding material like cloth. Cloth it
was, a little woollen garment belonging to Arad; nay more, certain
fringes upon it told her that it was the little caftan he had been
wearing when she last parted from him. What strange whim had induced
her mother to deprive the child of his one and only garment? Had it
been exchanged for another? If so, it was not easy to see the reason,
or why the old one should have been brought down, and left lying by the
hearth.
Wondering whether there were anything else here belonging to Arad she
put forth her hands, and grasped a little girdle and two sandals.
A moment she stood in bewilderment: then, as the ghastly truth came
rushing upon her mind, there broke from her a cry so awful as to seem
scarcely human; the fear of the thing caused her hair to bristle, and
the cold drops to start from every pore.
All the appalling tragedies she had seen that night--what were they
compared with this?
She turned and ran up the staircase, her frenzy of grief giving her a
strength so great that armed men could scarcely have had the power to
stay her.
With a quick tread she entered the upper chamber. It was dark, yet
not quite dark: the light of the stars seen through the open lattice
sufficed to make the nearer objects faintly visible. Miriam lay in the
middle of the apartment asleep upon her pallet. It was not to her that
Vashti first turned. Though knowing well that she would not find him
there, she nevertheless ran at once to Arad’s pallet.
It was empty!
She flew to her mother’s side, knelt, and peered shudderingly into
the somnolent face, a face that wore at this moment the dull heavy
air as of one whose animal wants are satisfied. Her mother actually
_sleeping_, as if this were merely some ordinary night! sleeping, after
such a deed as hers! Sleeping--she who ought never to sleep again!
There was little of the daughter left in Vashti as she fiercely shook
the slumbering woman by the shoulder.
And the soul of the unhappy Miriam starting from blissful dreams to
the dread reality of earthly things awoke to hear sounding through the
gloom of night a voice that, like the voice of the accusing archangel,
addressed her with the awful question:
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH ARAD?”
CHAPTER XXII
THE RESCUE OF VASHTI
Tiberius Alexander, the apostate Jew, and Crispus, with four
legionaries attending on them, stood at the foot of the city wall at
the point where masonry, carried aloft to an amazing height, supported
the Colonnade of Solomon.
The night, bright and starry in its earlier part, had now become
clouded and dark, an event that seemed to give satisfaction to
Alexander.
“The darker the night, the more likely am I to discover something,” he
observed, from which remark it was clear to Crispus that Alexander had
some special reason for bringing him to this spot, a spot that was a
sore trial to the olfactory sense, owing to the effluvium arising from
the dead bodies in the ravine of Cedron.
Into that ravine Alexander was now gazing. He could quote the Hebrew
prophets on occasion; usually, however, to ridicule them.
“‘Son of man,’” said he mockingly to Crispus, “‘can these dry bones
live?’”
“My answer is that of the scribes whose teaching you have deserted,”
retorted Crispus. “That which was not, came into being; how much more,
then, that which has been already?”
Tiberius Alexander might perhaps have replied to this celebrated,
rabbinical argument but that his attention was attracted at that moment
by the sudden appearance of a light at a window in one of the castella
or forts on the Roman line of contravallation.
Three times did the light flash, and then it vanished.
“You saw it?” said he to Crispus. “So, too, have I seen it, on other
nights than this. There can be no doubt that it is a signal to the Jews
in the city. We have a traitor in our camp. By remaining here we shall,
if I err not, discover who he is. Keep we in the shadow of this crag.”
“Is not yon castellum the one in which King Agrippa is quartered?”
whispered Crispus.
“Thou hast said,” replied Alexander.
For a long time the little party remained silent and expectant. At last
a sound was heard above their heads like the clanking of metal against
masonry, and looking up they saw coming down through the darkness a
very large basket of strong wicker-work attached to the end of an iron
chain. It touched the ground and there remained.
“Empty,” remarked Alexander, taking a peep into it. “It is as I
suspected. This is lowered by the priests for the reception of
something to be put into it by the man who signaled with the light. And
here comes the traitor himself.”
As he spoke there came stealing along at the foot of the city wall a
man whose garb showed him to be a soldier belonging to King Agrippa’s
troops. He was leading a file of lambs attached to one another by a
cord. Having arrived at his destination the man was about to lift
one of the animals into the basket when he stopped short in guilty
confusion upon seeing Alexander, who chose that very moment for making
his presence known.
“Are you not Sadas, the freedman of the Princess Berenice?”
The soldier admitted that he was. Then did Crispus recognize in him the
man who had denounced Vashti in the Royal Synagogue.
“Ah! that puts a different complexion on this affair, which is not so
grave as I had thought it. These lambs, presumably from Bethlehem, none
others being permissible on the temple-altar, are sent by the Princess
Berenice in order that the morning and the evening sacrifices may not
cease for want of victims. Is it not so, my Sadas? The supply above
is running short, I ween. Now I have a great regard for the princess,
but it seems to me that the fair lady’s zeal for her religion borders
closely upon treason to us Romans. It were foolish of us to permit
sacrifices to Jehovah here, after Theomantes hath so kindly invited
him to take up his dwelling in the Capitol. Therefore, as my men, not
to speak of myself, are very fond of roast lamb, do you, Quintus, lead
these animals to my tent, and place this fellow under ward. To-morrow
we’ll inquire further into the matter.”
The soldiers proceeded to do as bidden.
“I would we had a dozen swine to put into this basket,” continued
Alexander, giving it a contemptuous kick.
At that moment the priests on the cloister above observing that the
lambs were being taken back to the Roman camp by a party of soldiers,
saw that the affair had somehow miscarried and began to haul up the
basket again.
While Tiberius Alexander followed close upon the heels of the soldiers,
Crispus lingered in the vicinity of the walls, his mind tortured almost
to madness at the thought of what might be happening to Vashti in this
long and cruel process of starving the obstinate city into submission.
For all he knew to the contrary, she might be lying at that very moment
among the festering horrors of the glen of Cedron, her body torn by the
beak and claw of obscene birds of prey, to be seen no more by him till
the resurrection morning, when these “dry bones” would live again, to
shame the doctrine of the mocking Alexander.
The air grew darker, so dark that a circle of a few yards only was the
limit of Crispus’ vision; all beyond was blackness.
An ideal night for the enemy if they were minded to attack the Roman
entrenchments!
Scarcely had this thought occurred to Crispus when he heard, or fancied
he heard, a sound proceeding from a point not many yards distant. He
listened intently. Footsteps, not loud, but quiet footsteps; not of one
man but, so it seemed to Crispus, of three or four men, all walking in
a stealthy sort of way, as if wishing to keep their movements a secret.
They were coming slowly through the darkness right towards the place
where he stood. In another moment they would be upon him.
Romans on some errand of espial? or a party of Jewish deserters?
Bracing his buckler upon his arm and drawing his sword Crispus awaited
their approach.
As the men--they were three in number--came into view he bade them
halt, which they did with surprising promptitude. Questioning on
the part of Crispus elicited the fact that they were Jews, passover
pilgrims from Asia, detained by the war: appointed to guard a portion
of the wall in Ophel they had, through despair of the city’s salvation,
resolved to desert; and so, tying a rope to a battlement, they had let
themselves down.
The madness of these men! Though the crucifixions of Jewish fugitives
amounted to five hundred a day, the stream of defection from the city
never ceased, the deserters hoping, in spite of failure on the part of
their predecessors, to steal secretly through the Roman lines, or, if
need be, force a way at the sword’s point.
“How long is it since ye fled?”
“Less than the fourth part of an hour,” replied one whose name was
Asaph.
“Is the rope still hanging there?”
“Surely. How could we, when on the ground, detach it from the
battlement?”
“Think you that your flight is known?”
“We purposely waited till the night-watch had gone by, and left the
moment afterwards; therefore our flight will not be discovered for some
time yet.”
“Is it yours to watch the same part of the wall every night?”
“Till the next Sabbath.”
These questions of Crispus were inspired by a daring idea that had
suddenly darted into his mind.
A rope hanging from the city wall at a part deserted by its watchers!
Why should he not enter the city by the same means as that by which
these men had left it? His object in this enterprise was to find
Vashti, and having found her to bring her out of this city of death,
and to put her into some safe place of concealment, thereby defeating
the wicked scheme of Berenice. But his plan, as he rapidly conceived
it, required the co-operation of these three Jews, and there lay the
difficulty: they might refuse to join him, or, deceiving him by a
pretended assent, turn traitors at the very moment of his seeming
success. Nevertheless, desperate as the plan was, he determined to take
the risks.
“Hearken unto me, Asaph, and ye two,” said Crispus, adopting a Hebrew
phraseology, to make his address the more impressive. “As the Lord
liveth, before whom I stand, if ye attempt to pass the Roman lines
without me ye are dead men. But fear not, I will go with you and save
you. Yet will I not go with you to-night, but to-morrow night. Ye must
return, and resume your post upon the wall. I will go with you, not to
betray the city, but to seek therein a damsel, whose life I would save.
’Tis an easy matter for me to mount the wall by the rope ye have left,
but how am I to return, unless the wall be held by those friendly to
me? Therefore ye must delay your flight by twenty-four hours. To-morrow
night about this time when ye are again playing the part of sentinels I
will come to you bringing the damsel, and that hour shall be the hour
of your departure.
“Know that I am Crispus the Tribune, high in the favor of Titus, and
therefore capable of fulfilling my word. Now, if ye will aid me in
this, my soul’s desire, I will conduct you to the Roman camp, and send
you away in safety; but if ye will not do this thing, then go on your
way alone to meet whatever doom befall you. Now, delay not your answer,
for the success of my scheme depends upon your speedy return to the
city.”
The three men whispered together. They were not long in coming to a
decision.
“Swear in the name of the Lord that you will save our soul alive,” said
Asaph, “and we will aid thee in this matter.”
Under the black sky the strange compact was made, the three men
taking Crispus to be a Hebrew proselyte, a belief in which he did not
undeceive them.
“Let us return at once,” said Asaph, “ere our flight be discovered.”
Accompanied by his new-sworn allies Crispus began the steep ascent
of Ophel, climbing with all silence and caution, and grateful to the
darkness that hid them from the view of the sentinel Zealots above.
Arrived at the foot of the ramparts they crept along, Asaph leading the
way, till a point was reached where the semicircular base of a huge
projecting tower made an angle with the wall. Within this angle, and
scarcely discernible in the dark, hung a rope attached to a battlement
above.
“A good sign, this,” said Crispus in a whisper. “Had these battlements
been visited in your absence this rope would surely have been detected
and drawn up.”
Clambering up hand over hand the three Jews ascended the rope, and
disappearing over the battlements proceeded to haul up their new ally.
The portion of wall allotted to their care proved to be about twenty
yards in length, terminated at each end by two circular towers--the
tower in Siloam, and “the tower that lieth out”--which effectually
screened them from the observation of the sentinels disposed along the
rest of the wall.
“Can you not bring the damsel here within the hour, and so make an end
of the matter this night?” asked Asaph anxiously.
“Right gladly would I do so, but that I fear the finding of her will be
a work of time, and within an hour from now day will be dawning. Can
you hide this, my crested helmet, or ’twill betray me? and if you can
find me a cloak----”
Asaph entered one of the towers and returned with a Jewish cap, and
with a gabardine, beneath which Crispus found effectual concealment for
his military garb.
“At what hour of the night do you begin your vigil?”
“Ours is the third watch and lasts from the sixth hour till the ninth.”
“Look for me a little after the sixth hour. As a sign that all is
well fix a spear erect upon the middle of the rampart. Unless I see
it standing out clear against the sky I will not draw near. And now
farewell for a time. Keep to your oath, and it shall go well with you.”
As Crispus descended the stone stairway that led to the ground he
congratulated himself upon the ease with which he had contrived to
enter the city. Would he be able, however, to quit it with similar
ease? That depended chiefly upon the fidelity of his new associates,
and since they could hardly betray him without betraying themselves he
felt somewhat assured. Turning from the wall of Ophel he set off for
the street of Millo on Mount Zion.
When lying convalescent upon the roof of Miriam’s dwelling Crispus
had had ample leisure to study the topography both of Ophel and Zion;
this knowledge stood him now in good stead, and though, owing to the
darkness, he once or twice missed his way, he finally found himself in
the gray light of dawn before the gate of the house he sought.
He was about to knock at the gate when it suddenly opened, and there
appeared in the entrance the figure of a young woman terribly emaciated
by famine. She was habited as if for a journey.
“Is Vashti, daughter of Hyrcanus, within?” asked Crispus.
The figure gave a smile. _Such_ a smile! One more fearful and weird he
had never seen.
“Don’t you know me, Crispus?”
He started, looked at her again, and could scarcely recognize her, so
fearfully had she changed from the beautiful maiden of other days.
“Vashti, my poor girl, can this be you?”
To see her looking thus caused the tears to come welling to his eyes.
His weeping caused her likewise to weep. Then ever mindful of others,
rather than of herself, she suddenly said, amid her tears:
“Crispus, what do you here in this city of your enemies? Oh, if you
should be discovered!”
“What do I here?” he repeated. “This is the answer to that question,”
he continued, tenderly lifting her hand that she might see how thin it
was. “You are slowly dying of starvation, and yet you ask what do I
here. I have come to snatch you from death by carrying you away to the
Roman camp.”
Vashti looked at him with a fearful joy in her eyes.
“Oh! if you could! if you could! I was just going to Simon of Gerasa to
implore him to let me leave the city----”
“You shall not ask Simon’s leave. That I have entered the city safely,
you can see for yourself. By what means I have entered by that same
means shall you leave.” He smiled cheerfully as he closed and barred
the gate. “To-morrow about this time,” he added, “you shall be feasting
in the Roman camp, you, and your mother, and little Arad.”
But at the mention of this last name Vashti wept like one heartbroken.
“Arad,” she said, “Arad--is--is----”
Crispus guessed the cause of her emotion.
“What! is the poor little fellow dead?”
“If you had but come yesterday!” she sobbed. “Oh! if you had but come
yesterday, my brother might be living.”
Seeing that she had scarcely strength to stand, Crispus lifted her in
his arms, and carried her into the court.
“No, not that side!” said she, shivering, as he was about to enter the
house by way of the room where her dreadful discovery had taken place.
“Not that side!”
So Crispus carried her to a chamber that opened from a different part
of the court, and producing the leathern wallet carried by every Roman
soldier, he drew from it figs and bread and made her eat before he
would let her say another word.
When she had finished the simple repast she told him the terrible story
of a child slain by a famishing mother to satisfy her appetite; and
Crispus listened, knowing from deserters’ tales that deeds equally dark
had been perpetrated in other households besides this.
“And because I have reproached her--was I wrong in so doing?--my mother
has cursed me, and has bidden me leave her and go to my friends, the
Romans. I call her mother,” she added, “for I cannot easily rid myself
of the familiar word.”
“Is she not really your mother, then?” asked Crispus, receiving the
news with the same satisfaction that Vashti herself had felt at the
discovery.
“She has told me--and there was in her manner something that convinces
me she is speaking the truth--that I am her daughter by adoption only.”
“And I believe it,” said Crispus emphatically, “if only for this
reason, that you are so different from her in every way; and you
have another proof of it in this, that your name does not appear in
the public genealogical rolls as the daughter of Hyrcanus. What were
Miriam’s words to you?”
“When I cried, for I could not help crying it, ‘Would to God you were
not my mother!’ she laughed and said, ‘You have your wish; I am not
your mother. You were brought to me when you were a babe of about
twelve months by my husband Hyrcanus, who found you one winter’s night
crying among the crags of Mount Hermon, where you had been purposely
left to perish, and where, but for him, you would have perished. That
is all I know of your origin, save this, that since there hath never
been aught of the Jewess in you, I doubt not that you come of Greekish
parents--nay, it would not surprise me to learn that your mother was a
Samaritan, and hence your perverse nature.’”
A few years earlier the doubt that she was not of the chosen race would
have troubled Vashti, but now baptized into a faith in which there is
neither Greek nor Jew, neither barbarian nor Scythian, neither bond
nor free, she viewed the question of her nationality as a matter of no
moment.
The two for a while talked of Miriam’s revelation; and then, quitting
this theme, Crispus proceeded to tell Vashti of an event that he knew
would interest her, an event the most momentous in his life--namely,
how, during the time of his proscription, the Christians of Pella had
given him harboring, and how he had become a catechumen, receiving
instruction in the faith from the holy bishop Simeon, and from others
who had seen the Lord.
“And when,” concluded Crispus, “I learned that it was Simeon who had
baptized you, I would not let any other perform that rite for me.”
Night and day for nearly four years had Vashti prayed for the
conversion of Crispus, and now came the sweet realization of her
prayer! His words seemed to lift her from earth to heaven--but for a
moment only; like a swift, painful dart came the memory of little Arad,
and she wept. How happy would she now be but for that black deed!
Knowing the cause of her sadness, Crispus tried to divert the course
of her thoughts by talking of the way in which he hoped to remove her
from the city; he made her eat again; and then, learning from her that
she had been out all the previous night, he bade her sleep. So Vashti,
compliant with his will, lay down upon a divan, and though sweet
oblivion was a long time in coming, it came at last.
Miriam remained invisible throughout the day, a fact for which Crispus
felt extremely grateful, since it was not at all unlikely that, if he
were seen by her, she might, in her hatred of Romans, raise an alarm,
and bring the Zealots upon him.
It was much past noon when Vashti awoke. She smiled on learning how
long she had slept; but it was a wan, sad smile; Arad’s end was ever
present to her memory.
That day was the longest Vashti had ever known, but it came to an end
in due course, and shortly before the sixth hour of the night she
got ready for her departure. With tears in her eyes she took a last,
lingering look at the silent star-lit court of the dwelling that had
been her home since childhood, knowing that she would see the place no
more; the flaming torch and the iron crow of the Roman were destined
ere many weeks had passed to bring this and ten thousand other houses
crashing to the ground.
The two closed the gate behind them, and made their way through the
dark streets.
As Vashti drew nigh to the great black wall of Ophel, she looked up and
saw a sight that made her shudder.
Was she never to get away from the sight of death?
There upon the battlements and standing out in ghastly relief against
the dark-blue sky of night was a line of lofty posts, twenty-one in
number, to each of which was nailed a naked human body!
Pacing to and fro upon the rampart was the Jewish trio, Asaph and his
two comrades.
Having caught sight of the prearranged sign, the spear set erect,
Crispus, exercising a spirit of caution, bade Vashti remain where she
was while he went forward to reconnoiter.
Having found all satisfactory, Asaph and his companions receiving
him with unfeigned joy, he returned and assisted Vashti to mount the
stairway ascending to the battlements, where he threw off his Jewish
gabardine, and resumed his crested helmet.
“Who are these?” asked Vashti, shrinking at the sight of the dead
bodies.
“Matthias, alas! the one-time high priest, his three sons, and others
of the priesthood. Accused by Simon of corresponding with the Romans
they were slain to-day by Ananus,[31] the most savage of Simon’s fifty
captains, and their bodies hung here on high for Titus to see.”
Of all the events that had occurred since the beginning of the siege,
there was in Crispus’ opinion scarcely any more mournful or more
significant than this, the death of Matthias, THE LAST OF THE HIGH
PRIESTS--for the irregularly chosen Phannias must be excluded from the
catalogue--stabbed by the hand of a brutal ruffian, his body denied
sepulture, and exposed naked upon the ramparts of the holy city to
become the prey of the fowls of the air.
“_Non hunc, sed Barabbam!_” had been the cry of the chief priests. And
this was how Barabbas had rewarded them!
While thinking thus, Crispus made a sudden dash forward, and then stood
disappointedly peering down the flight of steps.
“What is amiss?” asked Asaph, seeing excitement written on Crispus’
face.
“I saw a black shape rise, and run down these stairs.”
As Crispus spoke, the deep silence of the night was suddenly broken by
the startling scream of a trumpet coming from beneath the very part of
the wall on which he stood. It was the Jewish call to arms.
There was an immediate murmur of voices, swelling into a babel of
excited cries, accompanied by a sudden blazing up of torches in all
directions. By the ruddy light the little party on the ramparts could
see hundreds of dark figures racing towards the wall of Ophel, all in a
tempest of Eastern fury.
“We are lost!” gasped Vashti, her skin, darkened by famine, becoming
white now.
“Have no fear,” responded Crispus cheerily; and, addressing the three
Jews, he said in a rapid, staccato utterance, “Make for the rope--lower
the damsel first--descend yourselves--when the last man is down blow
your trumpet--AWAY!”
With this, Crispus drew his blade; and, taking his station at the head
of the steps, glared down like an eagle upon the coming foe.
In the full belief that Crispus’ end was at hand Vashti would fain have
stayed to die with him, but, heeding not her protests, the three Jews
whirled her off her feet and ran like madmen towards the suspended
rope, their sole means of escape. It was woe to them if they were
caught!
The torch-carrying, saber-brandishing multitude halted at the foot of
the steps, surprised to see but a single armed Roman, surprised still
more that that Roman should be preparing to offer resistance.
The stair at the head of which Crispus stood formed the sole access to
the battlements; of narrow width it did not permit two men to stand
abreast; and, moreover, neither on the one side nor on the other
was it provided with a hand-rail. Strong therefore in his position,
Crispus felt that he could hold the foe in play for a space of time
sufficiently long to enable his confederates to descend the wall; after
which it would be a race between himself and the enemy as to which
would first reach the rope-encircled battlement.
“A Roman! How came he there?” exclaimed one.
“Asaph is playing the traitor,” cried a second. “He is admitting the
enemy into the city.”
“Why, ’tis Crispus the Tribune,” said a third.
_Crispus!_
At the sound of that name, a man--the foremost of the crowd--who had
just put his foot upon the lowest step, immediately withdrew it in
favor of anyone else that chose to mount.
Crispus, during the siege, had added to his former fame gained by his
defense of the Prætorium of Florus; so quick of limb and eye, so deadly
dexterous in fence was he known to be, that it was the confident belief
of almost every Zealot present that the first of their number to reach
the topmost stair would be a dead man the moment afterwards. Their
state of hesitancy was highly favorable to the escaping fugitives. A
quick, backward glance on the part of Crispus showed him that the three
Jews, having lowered Vashti, were themselves preparing to descend.
“Way there!” cried a powerful voice from among the crowd. The throng
parted, and a tall, red-bearded figure, armed with sword and shield,
mounted the lowest stair and began a wary ascent. His example inspired
others to follow.
Crispus looked calmly down upon the first of the ascending file.
“Who art thou?” he asked.
“Ananus, Simon’s chief captain,” was the proud answer.
“Ah! And are all Simon’s captains as ugly as thou?”
With a snarl of rage--for he knew himself to be illfavored, and nothing
touched his vanity more than to be reminded of the fact--the slayer of
the last high priest leaped fiercely up the stairs towards Crispus,
who, at that moment, caught the welcome peal of Asaph’s trumpet.
Then, to the amazement of the gazing crowd, Crispus, stepping
backwards, actually sheathed his sword.
They saw the reason a moment afterwards.
At his feet lay a huge post, similar to those upon which Simon’s
crucified victims hung. Crispus lifted this long beam in his arms,
carefully adjusting its balance; and, as soon as Ananus appeared at the
top of the stairs, he sent the head of this improvised battering-ram
full tilt into the Zealot’s stomach with so tremendous an impact that
not only did Ananus fly backwards, gasping and helpless, but in his
fall he also carried with him the rest of the file that were coming up
behind. The indignant howls of the bruised crew were as music to the
ears of Crispus. Dropping the log, he instantly turned and fled, an act
that naturally made the crowd below dash at once up the stairway in
pursuit.
But never did Grecian runner skim over the Olympic stadium more fleetly
than did the Roman Crispus along that wall of Ophel. Ere the foremost
of the Zealots had come tumbling over the top stair, he had reached the
place where the rope hung, and, pausing for a moment to fling a gesture
of defiance at his pursuers, he swung himself over the battlement, and
made a rapid hand-over-hand descent to the foot of the ramparts, where
stood the three Jews and the trembling Vashti.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“No, but I warrant Ananus is,” laughed Crispus. “For some days to
come he’ll have no stomach for the fight. And now, away! See, they are
opening a gate on our left.”
Lifting Vashti--how thin and light she was!--he sped down the slope of
Ophel with her, and succeeded in safely reaching the Roman lines.
Determined to forestall any attempt on the part of Titus to detain her
he dispatched Vashti that same hour of the night, under the care of two
Christian soldiers, to the saints that dwelt at Pella.
CHAPTER XXIII
CLOSING IN
The long blockade had failed to bring about the surrender of the city;
and Titus was beginning to grow weary of the delay; in fancy he could
hear the patricians of Rome laughing at the plebeian-born general, and
declaring that a city taken by famine was not a very brilliant way of
inaugurating the new dynasty of Flavian emperors.
So it came to pass that on the day following Vashti’s departure for
Pella, the mighty Roman host at a word from Titus roused itself to toil
again like a giant refreshed by a long sleep.
As the fortress Antonia was the key to the temple, Titus began by
raising opposite this fortress four huge aggeres.
The construction of the former banks had cleared all the timber from
the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem, so that the Romans were compelled
to go farther afield, and at the end of twenty-one days--the time taken
in raising these new aggeres--there was not a tree left within ten
miles of the city!
Meanwhile, long teams of oxen, bellowing under the lash, were toiling
up the rugged pass of Beth-horon, drawing endless files of wagons roped
to each other, upon which were mounted the new military machines, huge
and terrible, constructed by the Greek engineers of Cæsarea.
On the twenty-second day, the artillery (this word is long anterior to
the use of firearms) was placed in position, and the legions, massing
all their strength, directed a fierce attack upon the northern wall of
Antonia, the stronghold of John of Giscala.
Now this wall happened to stand upon that part which had been
undermined by John at the time when the Romans made their former
attack; and the hollow ground, weakened by the shaking caused by the
battering-rams, gave way during the first night, hurling down a portion
of the wall with all the sentinels upon it.
The Romans, startled from their sleep by the appalling crash and by
the thrilling shrieks of the doomed victims, knew not at first what
had happened, but when the morning light revealed the nature of the
disaster, they grasped their weapons, clambered over the ruins, and
poured through the breach.
But Antonia was not yet taken. John, exercising a military foresight
that moved his enemies to surprise, if not to admiration, had
previously raised a second wall within.
As it was impossible to advance the engines through the breach, the
Romans, in order to overcome this new barrier, were compelled to resort
to other means.
Having failed to surmount it by boldly climbing up in the very face of
the enemy, they lay down at last at the foot of the wall, and, forming
a testudo, or roof of shields, they sought to loosen with iron crows
the lower courses of the masonry, a process attended with little hurt
to the wall, but with considerable loss of life to the Romans.
Now Crispus, having taken due note that a certain part of this wall
declined backwards, and that the stones at this said part projected in
such a manner as to afford some slight foothold, resolved to attempt
a nocturnal surprise on his own account. At the dead of night he
assembled fifteen of his bravest troops, including a trumpeter and an
eagle-bearer.
Creeping forward with soundless tread, the little band, favored by
the gloom, gained the foot of the wall unseen by the Jewish sentinels
above. Then Crispus silently and cautiously began the ascent; his men
followed like a file of grim specters. One javelin hurled from above
would have sufficed to send the whole party thundering down. No such
disaster occurred, however. Whether the sentinels were sleeping, or
whether they were keeping careless watch, is a matter that will never
be known: certain it is that the heroic sixteen safely gained the top
of the wall.
A whispered word from Crispus, and then on the still night air the
trumpet rang out the call to arms; long, shrill, and piercing, the
summons startled the Romans from sleep; it startled still more
the Jewish sentinels close at hand. Even now it would have been a
comparatively easy matter to repel the attack; but, as Crispus and his
party, their lifted blades glinting through the gloom, dashed forward
with a mighty shout, the Zealot sentinels, without waiting to ascertain
the number of their assailants, turned tail and fled, fully convinced
that the whole of the Roman army was pouring over the battlements.
Their shouts awoke their fellows. Roused thus in the dead of night the
entire garrison became the victims of one of those panics which have
been known to fall sometimes upon even the hardiest veterans. From
above, from below, from every hall and chamber, there came running
wild-eyed Zealots, whose only object was to save their lives; in mad
confusion they made for the south side of the fortress, where lay
the only available exit--a narrow causeway over the deep ravine that
separated Antonia from the temple.
Meantime, Titus and the rest of the Romans in the camp, guided by the
continuous pealing of the trumpet, hurried forward, scaled the wall,
and found to their surprise and delight that the enemy had vacated the
fortress without striking a blow.
Now the surrender of Antonia had opened the way to the temple, and
Crispus, thinking in one night and by the same stroke, to capture both
places was pursuing the retreating Zealots across the connecting
causeway.
But now the Zealots, cursing themselves for their cowardly folly,
turned and made a stand upon this same causeway.
Then began a battle, perhaps the fiercest and bloodiest in the whole
course of the siege. Spears and javelins being useless, both sides drew
their swords and fought it out hand to hand. In the gloom of night the
troops of both parties were so intermingled that no man knew where he
was; more often than not Roman slew Roman, and Jew slew Jew. Crispus,
stunned by a blow on the head, was dragged forth from the fray by a
faithful legionary.
With the dawn Simon came to the aid of his Zealot rival; and then
indeed the fighting, and the shouting, and the clangor, grew fiercer
and louder than ever. On that narrow viaduct there was no room either
to advance or retreat; scores of the combatants were forced over the
parapet, and shrieking, fell, to be dashed to pieces in the rocky
ravine below. The passage became so crowded with dead that the living
to get at each other were obliged to mount upon piles of bodies and of
armor.
At last, when it became clear that the Romans could make no headway,
Titus, after ten hours of this fighting, gave the signal for recall.
Thanks to Crispus, however, the great fortress of Antonia was now
in Roman hands, and as Simon beheld the standard inscribed S.P.Q.R.
floating proudly again from its lofty battlements, he wept tears
of grief and rage, and cursed John to his face saying--somewhat
unjustly--that none but a fool or a coward or a traitor could have lost
such a stronghold.
Later that same day Rufus and Crispus stood on the battlements of
Antonia; and of all the Romans, who more pleased than Rufus at finding
himself once more in his old familiar fortress?
The two, looking down from their lofty position, watched the
preparations that were being made for the defense of the temple. The
marble courts and gilded pinnacles were assuming the appearance of a
warlike citadel. Thousands of Zealots, under the direction of Simon
and John, were hauling their huge military engines over the tesselated
pavement, till the northern porticoes facing Antonia fairly bristled
with balistæ and catapults. The clang of arms and the creaking of the
machines, the shouting of men and the ceaseless hurrying hither and
thither, made a scene difficult to reconcile with the belief that the
place was the house of God.
“What is the day of the month?” asked Rufus, suddenly.
“The seventeenth of July,” replied Crispus.
“I venture to prophesy that in the years to come the Jews--if there
be any of them left after this war--will keep this day as a day of
mourning.”
“Why so?”
“The answer is to be found _there!_” remarked Rufus, pointing to the
court of the priests. “It is the hour of the evening sacrifice,” he
continued, glancing at a sun-dial near by, “but where is the smoke
ascending from the altar? ’Twas absent, too, this morning, so I am
told. _The daily sacrifice hath ceased_ for lack of victims. If I
rightly foresee the fate of the temple, they made their last sacrifice
yester even.”
To the mind of the pagan Rufus the matter was one of little moment,
but to Crispus, with his Christian way of thinking, this cessation of
a sacrifice that had taken place twice a day for a space of thirteen
hundred years was full of a profound significance; he knew that to the
pious Hebrew, if not to the fighting Zealot, it must appear an event as
grave almost as a stoppage in the progress of the universe, for had not
the scribes said, “The world was made for the sake of the temple,” and
what was the temple without its sacrifices?
Titus, made aware of the event, sought to conciliate the religious
sentiment of the foe by a very remarkable offer.
Josephus, covered by the shield of a legionary, walked along the
causeway; and, halting in the middle, lifted up his voice, and
addressed the Jewish people in the Hebrew tongue.
“Simon Bar-gioras and John of Giscala, hear now the words of Titus
Cæsar. He hath a reverence for your temple, and would fain save it from
the destruction which ye, by converting it into a citadel, are bringing
upon it. If ye will remove your men of war, he will meet you in battle
at Mount Zion or in whatever place you choose; he, too, will withdraw
his arms from the temple, leaving it sacred and inviolate. And as a
token of his good will towards you, he offers you this day a gift of
threescore rams that ye may continue the daily sacrifice as heretofore.”
“Ha! mark you that?” said Rufus to Crispus. “There speaks not Titus but
Berenice.”
There were among the Jewish people thousands that would gladly have
seen the war removed from the temple and its precincts, but they were
overawed by the Zealots, who, by the mouth of Simon, thus made answer:
“Titus, knowing that he cannot take the temple by force of arms,
whereof the fight of this morning is a witness, speaks thus, hoping
to lure us from our stronghold, that he may the more easily enter it.
But in vain is the net spread in the sight of the bird. His threescore
rams we will not take, for never shall it be said that the sacrifices
to the Eternal One have become dependent upon the polluted offerings
of an uncircumcized heathen. And to him and to the whole Roman empire
do we offer an everlasting defiance. Now, renegade, carry back in thy
detestable Greek or Latin the answer of Simon Bar-gioras.”
This haughty reply, and especially its boastful note as to the fight on
the causeway, so provoked Titus that he determined to make a second
attempt that very night. As the whole army were unable to join in the
assault owing to the narrowness of the approach, there were picked out
from each century the thirty bravest and strongest men; tribunes were
appointed over each thousand, and one Cerealis, an officer of rare
valor, was chosen to command the whole. In the great hall of Antonia
the storming party consecrated themselves, as it were, to the work by
offering, under the presidency of Theomantes, a solemn sacrifice to
Mars.
An hour before dawn Cerealis at the head of his men, advanced over the
causeway with swift silent tread, but failed to effect a surprise.
Simon, if not John, was on the alert. Then began a battle similar in
all respects to that of the preceding night. After eight hours of
desperate fighting the Romans had not gained a foot of ground, and the
battle ceased, as it were, by mutual consent.
Now no more could the Romans boast that, man for man, they were
superior to the Jews, when the picked soldiers of their army, the very
flower of the legions, had suffered repulse at the hands of the Zealots.
The iron warriors, who had carried their eagles triumphantly over
all nations from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, leaned moodily upon
their spears, and stared up with dark and sullen faces at the laughing
Zealots, who, clustering upon the roof of the northern cloisters,
pointed with their swords at the causeway and mockingly asked the foe
why they did not come into the temple.
“Give counsel what we shall do,” said Titus to Tiberius Alexander.
“Raze Antonia to the ground, and with the materials fill up this
intervening glen so as to make a broad level way, over which we may
haul our engines to batter the northern cloisters.”
Titus without delay adopted this suggestion.
The Roman soldiers, burning to retrieve their tarnished honor, had
no sooner received the new command than they flew with ardor to
its execution. All along the sky-line, on every tower, turret and
battlement, were seen groups of men furnished with lever and crow, by
whose means blocks of masonry were lifted up to be sent whirling and
crashing into the valley below; far into the night the soldiers toiled
by the ruddy glare of a thousand torches, and as the mighty fortress
sank lower and lower so did the débris accumulated in the valley rise
higher and higher.
The Zealots no longer mocked, but looked on in silent wonder at this
display of almost superhuman energy. There was something sublime in
this demolition of a magnificent citadel merely for the purpose of
filling up a trench.
At last a broad and level way was successfully carried across the
ravine right up to the very foot of the northern cloisters.
On the evening of the day that saw its completion Crispus, walking
meditatively upon the crest of Olivet, came suddenly upon a figure
standing solitary, silent, motionless. It was the woman who was
steadfastly refusing to acknowledge herself as his wife, the Princess
Berenice. Not far off, in the background, stood two attendants with a
chariot. Evidently she had come to take a look, perhaps her last look,
at her native city.
Crispus had leisure to observe her, for she was so wrapped in
contemplation that she did not hear his tread.
Her face was pale, and anguish looked from her eyes as she surveyed the
ruin wrought by man against his fellow-man.
The country, swept of all its timber to supply materials for the Roman
banks and for camp fires, had lost all its sylvan charm and beauty.
To this denudation must be added the ravages of the Arabian and Syrian
allies, who, haters of the Jews, had diffused their devastating
frenzy so far around that, from the summit of Olivet, neither village
nor house, neither tower nor wall, could be seen to break the dreary
monotony of the landscape. So mournful a change had passed over the
country that in the striking language of Josephus, “_Anyone that had
previously known the place, coming on a sudden to it now, would have
failed to recognize it!_”
It was a scene of utter desolation, a howling wilderness, made more
awful by the light of the setting sun, which, half sunk below the
horizon, shot a sinister red glare athwart the melancholy waste.
In all the wide extent of landscape there was no vestige of life or
movement, save at one spot only, where the grim and ever-narrowing
circle of fire and steel was slowly extinguishing the life of a once
great nation.
Berenice set her eyes upon the city, or rather upon what was left of
it. Was this the place that the Psalmist had called, “The joy of the
whole earth”?
Gone was the suburb of Bezetha! Gone was the suburb of Acra! Gone
was the citadel of Antonia! Zion and Ophel remained, but woefully
wrecked and dilapidated; and the temple--shorn, alas! of its divine
sacrifies--still rose as fair as ever, its marble porticoes and golden
pinnacles dyed in the blood-red hues of sunset. But how long would
it stand? Ah! there was her fear, and she pressed her hand to her
throbbing heart.
Turning suddenly she caught sight of Crispus, and started. There was
a proud trembling of her lip as if she were trying to subdue some
emotion--anger probably--that was rising to the surface.
“So it was _you_,” said she, taking no notice of his greeting, “who
prevented my weekly gift of rams from reaching the temple?”
“Nay, it was Tiberius Alexander, though I freely admit that his deed
has my approval.”
“Why so?”
“The Law, princess, was but a shadow of things to come. There is
now no need for typical sacrifices when the True Sacrifice has been
offered, once and for all. And since the Jew refuses to acknowledge the
temporal character of the Law, there is but one way of teaching him the
lesson--a stern and terrible way!”
It is doubtful whether Berenice, not being versed in Pauline theology,
quite comprehended the import of these words; at any rate, she did not
reply to them.
“They tell me you are great at slaughter,” she said, with a sort of
sneer, “and that, as being the first to mount the battlements of
Antonia, you have gained a Mural Crown. And now, grown more bold, you
seek to take God himself captive.”
“Princess, you talk as do the heathen. The Most High dwelleth not in
temples made with hands.”
“Yet your master Paul was wont to worship in yon edifice.”
“I doubt whether he would do so to-day, were he living, seeing that
there is now no holiness in yon temple. The spirit of true religion
has fled from the place. The high priest Phannias is a village rustic,
unlawfully chosen by lot, so ignorant that he knows not how to perform
the duties of his office. The temple has become a slaughter-house,
reeking with innocent blood shed by the wicked Zealots, who have held
therein mock trials of the rich, condemning them to death that they
may seize upon their wealth. The place is no longer a temple but a
citadel. The holy vessels have been melted down to form instruments
of war. Assassins pile their arms around the altar, and revelers make
themselves drunk in the Sanctuary. It were a shame to speak of the
things that have been done there. John’s men, tricked out in feminine
garb, have imitated the infamies of the guilty Cities of the Plain. And
you would bid us deal tenderly with this place, forsooth! Nay, verily,
its stones cry out for the avenging, purifying fire of heaven.”
“Or the flaming torch of Crispus,” sneered Berenice. “You think to see
the temple destroyed, but it shall not be so. Titus has pledged me his
solemn word to preserve it.”
“Titus may promise what he will; he cannot overturn the counsels of the
Most High.”
“Whose instrument you deem yourself to be,” returned Berenice,
disdainfully. “I know the secret thought of your heart. A vision sent,
not as you vainly think by God, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the
devils, is luring you on to a wicked deed. You have desired to take
part in the siege for this end only, that when the attack on the temple
shall begin you may be able in the confusion to apply an incendiary
torch. Do so, and the act shall bring death upon her whom you hold most
dear.”
“And who is that?” asked Crispus quickly.
“Vashti, who, instead of being safe at Pella, as you intended her to
be, is a captive at my mercy--my slave to do with as I list. Your act
in bringing her forth from Jerusalem has had this result only--to
deliver her into my hands the sooner.”
Though Crispus tried to receive this startling news with outward
calmness, something of the fear felt by him looked from his eyes, and
drew a triumphant smile from Berenice.
Mistress of Vashti, she was mistress of his action, so she thought, and
his action must be the sparing of the temple.
“It was by accident I discovered that your Vashti was at Pella. Armed
with the written authority granted me by Titus I immediately arrested
my slave, and conveyed her to--to----”--No! she would keep the name
of the place a secret--“to where you will not find her. Now, mark my
words, Crispus Cestius Gallus. If by your hand yon temple burns, so too
shall Vashti burn; she shall die, shrieking in a flaming vesture of
pitch, even as the Christians died in the gardens of Nero.”
“Princess, if yours be the heart of a woman, I am glad to possess the
heart of a man.”
Berenice laughed, a cold, hard laugh.
“I care not how vile I be in your sight so long as I can but save the
temple. Retire this night from the army--Titus will permit it--have no
more to do with the siege, and I will set Vashti at liberty. What is
your answer?”
“This. Your threat supplies an additional argument for the destruction
of the temple, since it is clear that its dead ritual and external
formalities have no power to purify the heart or quicken the
conscience. As to your menace against Vashti, forget not that it is
written, ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’”
Berenice laughed scornfully.
“Who will venture to punish a princess and the friend of Titus merely
for putting her own slave to death?”
“The Christians.”
“The Christians!” repeated Berenice, disdainfully.
“I have said it, princess. If Vashti dies, you die also. Trust not to
the power of Titus to save you. There are in yon army Christians who,
in the execution of what they deem to be right, fear neither kings nor
Cæsars. You shall be secretly seized and carried off to a conclave of
Christians there to be judged of the deed by your own Law, which has
said: ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burning for burning’; Berenice’s
death for Vashti’s death. If you are found guilty, be sure of this,
princess, _they’ll not lack an executioner_!”
As Berenice beheld the set, stern look on his face, she had no need to
ask who that executioner would be.
Without another word he turned and left her.
She had sought to frighten him, but it was _she_ who was the
frightened one. She stood in fear and trembling, knowing that her
threat instead of acting as a deterrent had but made him the more
resolved to carry out his purpose.
Next day the toiling legions pushing forward their military engines
directed a fierce attack along the line of cloisters--more than a
thousand feet in length--that formed the northern side of the great
temple-platform.
Now that the battle had reached the very seat of their religion the
Jews fought with a fury they had never before shown; the priests
themselves were under arms, rivaling the Zealots in deeds of valor;
Simon, with bare arm and flashing scimitar, was seen at every point
along the line, urging on to fresh exertions men who required but
little urging.
Let Jewish valor do what it would, however, it could not prevail; each
day marked an advance on the part of the Romans, who at last became
masters of the whole northern gallery, which they proceeded at once to
destroy by fire, ax, and crow, in order to facilitate the advance of
the battering-train.
The victors had now gained the summit of the lofty temple-platform, a
vast square open to the sky save at the sides which were adorned with
cloisters. In the midst of this square towered the Sanctuary or temple
proper, a structure 360 feet in length and 270 in breadth. Its exterior
wall, formed of gigantic blocks of marble, and nearly 40 feet in
height, was pierced by nine gateways, there being three upon each side
save the western, that side being without gates.
It was within this fortress--for such it was--that the defeated Jews
had taken refuge, and here they prepared to make their final, and, as
they believed, triumphal stand.
Strange and incredible fact!
In spite of their numerous defeats, hope was stronger than ever in the
breast of the Jews, who still dreamed of seeing the scepter of empire
transferred from the Capitol to Zion. They were fully convinced that
the temple which God Himself had ordered to be built could never be
trodden by the foot of pagan conqueror. The deity would be certain to
work a miracle in their favor; at the least, something would happen to
astonish and disperse the enemy. And they talked of Sennacherib and the
burning simoon, but forgot Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans.
And now the sacred precincts of the temple echoed with the clang of
horse-hoofs. Roman cavalry clattered on the marble pavement of the
Court of the Gentiles, and with leveled spears swept round and round
the Sanctuary, driving in every sortie made from the gates, and acting
as a cover to the Roman infantry, who, with tremendous toil and
difficulty, were hauling along a train of battering-rams.
The Sanctuary was surrounded by a low balustrade, bearing tablets--one
has survived to the present time--inscribed in Greek and Latin letters
with notices prohibiting the Gentiles on pain of death from entering
the edifice--notices that evoked the mocking laughter of the Roman
soldiery as they set their engines in array against the building.
The “middle wall of partition,” which the Law had set up betwixt Jew
and Gentile, was now breaking down in no figurative sense!
The temple-platform had a circuit so ample as to contain within it
a synagogue, and it was from the roof of this structure, as from
a throne, that Titus directed the military operations against the
Sanctuary.
It was not without an expectant thrill that the Jews awaited Titus’
signal for the assault, there being a half belief among them that fire
from heaven would descend upon the impious band that first ventured
to swing a beam against the sacred wall of God’s house; and therefore
something like a sigh of disappointment went up when nothing marvelous
followed upon the first stroke of the ram.
Relying upon the strength of the masonry the Jews did little fighting,
content to watch amid laughter and gibes the futile labors of the enemy.
For six days the battering-rams swung, and thundered, and pounded
against the walls of the Sanctuary; yet not a stone was pushed from its
place, so marvelously compacted was the masonry.
“Bring scaling-ladders and storm the walls!” cried Titus on the seventh
day.
The legionaries, relinquishing the battering-rams, flew to execute this
new order.
The Jews made no resistance to the Romans while mounting, but as soon
as each man had reached the top, they either hurled him down headlong
or slew him before he had time to cover himself with his shield.
Now here, and now there, a ladder crowded with ascending legionaries,
would be toppled backwards and the men dashed to pieces upon the marble
pavement.
The fierce shouts of the active combatants intermingled with the cries
and groans of the wounded and the dying.
After two hours of this deadly game there came a lull. Despairing of
taking the place by escalade the Romans withdrew to a distance, and
stared up in moody silence at the Zealots, who, brandishing their
weapons, shouted, “Ye cannot take this place; it is the abode of God.”
The superstitious legionaries were beginning to think the same. They
no longer laughed at the words, “Let no Gentile enter here on pain
of death.” The dead and dying strewn around on the pavement were a
significant commentary on that interdict.
Vainly did the trumpets peal out a call to renew the charge. Not a man
would move.
Titus sought to stimulate their courage by a new expedient. Pointing to
that part of the wall where stood the Zealot chief, he shouted:
“Ten thousand gold pieces to the man who brings me Simon’s head.”
No one seemed willing to earn this rich reward.
Simon laughed.
“Titus knows my value. Now to him who brings me the head of Titus I
shall give ten shekels only, it not being worth more.”
Suddenly a standard-bearer, darting forward, mounted a ladder, and when
three-fourths of the way up, he deliberately flung the eagle into the
midst of the foe, crying as he waved his sword, “Romans, will you see
your standard taken by the enemy? Follow me.”
Lose an eagle? Never!
Amid a wild, shrill clangor of trumpets, the legionaries, with the
flame of battle in their blood, swept forward, wave upon wave,
determined this time to carry the fortress. But, alas! for them, this
attack fared no better than the others. The bold standard-bearer was
struck down; those following him were either slain or repulsed; and the
eagle remained in the hands of the foe.
Simon viewed the idolatrous image with loathing.
“An abomination brought into the place where it ought not to be,” said
he. “Bring ax and hammer.”
And with his own strong arm he hewed the golden eagle to pieces, and
cast them down at the feet of the Romans contemptuously, crying:
“Behold your god!”
If a yell could have brought down the walls of the Sanctuary they
would most assuredly have fallen at that moment before the terrific
yell of concentrated hatred and fury that burst from the Romans, when
they beheld the destruction of what was to them not merely a patriotic
emblem but a darling object of worship, a worship far more real and
fervent than they ever paid to Jove or Mars!
Simon’s studied affront goaded Titus to a course from which he had
hitherto refrained.
“_Fire the gates!_” he cried.
To this command the legionaries responded with a huge roar of delight.
Vast quantities of timber were quickly brought and piled high against
the metal-plated doors of the nine gateways.
Of these, the most splendid was the one facing the east, and known as
the Corinthian Gate, for, whereas, the other doors were crusted all
over with gold and silver, the eastern door was a marvel of richly
chased Corinthian bronze.
It was Alexander, the wealthy Alabarch of Alexandria, who had adorned
the gate in this fashion; and, by a singular turn of destiny, it
was his apostate son Tiberius who wrought its destruction--a deed
surprising to the Romans themselves, who could not but regard it as
an act of filial impiety. With buckler held over his head to protect
himself from the arrows that came whizzing obliquely from above, the
ex-procurator of Judæa ascended the stately flight of fifteen stairs,
and, with his own hand, applied a lighted torch to the pile of timber.
Nine huge fires were now smoking, and crackling, and flaming, and
roaring, at the nine gates of the temple. As the metallic platings
became red-hot the fire, carried to the woodwork behind, began to
consume the entire gate.
The sight produced a strange and stupefying effect upon the Jews, who
had never thought such an event to be possible; at one stroke their
courage seemed to vanish; they made no attempt to quench the flames,
but stood mute spectators of the scene.
It was Titus himself, who, not wishing the conflagration to extend too
far, gave orders to fling water upon the burning gates; and when this
had been done, the besieged realized that their defense was all but at
an end; the charred timber of the doors would yield at the first stroke
of the battering-ram, and the enemy would enter by nine different ways.
“The day is far spent and the soldiers are faint,” said Titus. “We will
defer our final attack till the morrow.”
With a view of cutting off the retreat of Simon and John, who might
seek during the night to make their escape to Mount Zion, Titus caused
a great part of his army to camp round about in the cloisters of the
Court of the Gentiles.
Leaving Crispus and Rufus in charge of these forces Titus retired
to Antonia, or rather to a corner of it that had been spared in the
general demolition in order to furnish a lodging for himself and his
chief officers.
And here, that same night, there sat that memorable council, assembled
to decide the great question (as if it were in _their_ power to
decide!) whether the Jewish temple should be preserved or destroyed.
Tiberius Alexander was the first to speak; more pagan than the pagans
themselves he brought forward several reasons, all tending to show that
the existence of the temple was a menace to the safety of the empire.
He ended with a religious argument:
“If you spare this edifice, O Cæsar, the Jews will boast that their God
has put His fear in your heart and that you dare not destroy it. They
will see in your leniency both a proof of the divine origin of their
temple and an augury of its eternal existence; its preservation will
more than ever convince them that they are the favorites of heaven, and
are therefore under no obligation to obey an earthly power.
“It must be ours to show that Jupiter of the Capitol is supreme over
Jehovah of Jerusalem.
“Two superstitions, equally fatal to the empire, depend for their
existence upon yon temple, that of the Jews and that of the
Christians![32] These two superstitions, although contrary to each
other, have the same origin: the Christians come from the Jews; destroy
the root, and the shoot will quickly perish. Wherefore,” concluded he,
with reminiscences of the psalms, “my counsel is, ‘Down with it; down
with it, even to the ground!’”
But Titus, secretly moved by his infatuation for Berenice, was, of
course, disposed to take a milder view.
“We ought not,” said he, “from hatred of our enemies to take revenge
upon inanimate things. To burn so vast and splendid a fabric is to do
hurt to ourselves, seeing that it is an ornament to our empire.”[33]
And, perceiving on which side of the question the mind of their general
lay a certain minority, who had been disposed to favor the views of
Alexander, dropped their opposition.
“This, then, is our decree,” said Titus solemnly, “and let the whole
army know it--the temple shall be preserved.”
He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in
derision!
For scarcely had Titus made an end of speaking when from without
there came a cry, distant and faint; it was repeated in a louder key;
caught up by a thousand tongues, alike by the startled Romans in the
camp and by the terrified Jews in the city, the wild tidings came
rolling louder, and ever louder, upon the night air, to the mockery and
confusion of the military council:
=“THE TEMPLE IS ON FIRE!”=
CHAPTER XXIV
“WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?”
Night, still and beautiful, rested upon the temple-courts; in the
immeasurable depths of a purple sky the stars were burning with the
brilliancy peculiar to southern latitudes.
The battle-toil of the day had given place to a strange quiet; both
sides seemed bent on taking rest as a preparation for the greater
struggle of the morrow.
No sound came from the Sanctuary; its unseen sentinels moved with
silent tread.
Within the circumjacent cloisters, and hidden by the shadows, lay the
Roman troops, sleeping on their arms, yet ready at the first blast of
the trumpet to spring into life and action.
Crispus and Rufus paced softly to and fro over the pavement of the
Court of the Gentiles, seldom, if ever, removing their eyes from the
Sanctuary, lest a sudden rush on the part of the enemy should take
their troops by surprise.
Crispus was thinking of the fate of the Roman Capitol which, nine
months previously, in the civil war between the Vespasians and the
Vitellians, had been destroyed by fire.
Now the Capitol was the temple of sovereign Jupiter, and hence its fall
had sent a profound sensation through the pagan world. It would be a
fact more significant still, if, within the same year and by similar
means, the great Jewish temple should fall. To minds intent on studying
the signs of the times, the two events would seem as if foreshadowing
the doom of two religions, that of heathendom, and that of Jewry.
And doomed they were! They had played their preparatory part in the
history of human progress, and were now to give place to a loftier and
more spiritual faith.
“Titus holds high council to-night,” remarked Rufus, suddenly breaking
in upon Crispus’ thoughts. “He is for preserving the temple. Every
man knows why. He is moved by love for the new Cleopatra. She and her
brother Agrippa visited his quarters yesterday, and remained there for
some time. We can guess what their talk was about. Now if this temple
be permitted to stand, we shall continue to have the annual gatherings
of treasonable Jews breathing defiance to Roman rule. The result will
be another war, and we shall have all our work over again. And what a
work it has been! Was there ever in all history a siege like this?”
“And it is by no means over yet,” commented Crispus. “All our previous
work will appear but as child’s play when we come to deal with the
taking of Zion.”
“My fear, too,” responded Rufus moodily. “This stubborn people,
refusing to see that they are beaten, will go on fighting to the end.
But as to this temple, my opinion is that since the Jews choose to
turn it into a fortress it should be treated as such, and razed to the
ground. If I were Titus,” he added emphatically, “I would destroy both
city and temple, exclude all Jews from Judæa, and colonize it with
Romans. Thus only shall we have peace.”
Crispus fell into a reverie.
He had, when a pagan, seen reasons to wish the temple at an end, and
now, as a Christian, he could add to his reasons.
It was thus that he argued within himself.
The existence of the temple was a perpetual affront to the living
Christ, since its daily sacrifices were a tacit denial of the great
fact that the True Sacrifice had been offered once and for all. With
the death of Christ Judaism had come to an end, but what Jew would
ever believe this until he saw that the God who had ordered the temple
to be built now permitted it to be destroyed? Add to this, that the
sure word of prophecy had said that the Messiah would come while the
Second Temple was standing; if this--the Second Temple--should fall, it
would be a proof to the Jewish nation that the Messiah _had_ come--and
gone!--and that those were wrong who looked for Him in the future.
Another point worth noting: so long as the temple stood--that temple in
which the apostles themselves were wont to meet for worship--so long
would there be on the part of Christianity a temptation to revert to
the precepts and rites of the Law. As a matter of fact, in spite of
all the writings and labors of Saint Paul to the contrary, a hybrid
belief, a Christianized form of Judaism, the heresy called at a later
day Ebionism, was already in existence, threatening the purity of the
Church’s faith. The development of Christianity required that it should
be freed from the bondage of the Law, and how could that freedom be
more effectively attained than by the fall of the edifice, which was,
as it were, the actual embodiment of that Law?
Moreover, had not the Saviour said that some of His own generation
should not taste of death till they had seen the fall of the temple?
Forty years had now passed since that utterance. If its fall were
delayed much longer, would not the Saviour appear as a false prophet?
But, unless a miracle were going to happen, must not the destruction of
the temple be brought about by human instrumentality? Why not by his
own? Was it impious to imagine that he was the agent foreordained to
carry out the Divine purpose?
He thought of the vision of the flaming torch, and of the Divine voice,
crying, “_Burn!_” and he doubted no longer.
Rufus put the finishing touch to his determination by a significant
remark.
“Now if Titus could be persuaded to destroy the temple, to-day would be
an appropriate date for it.”
“How so?”
“By the Jewish calendar to-day is the ninth of the month Ab. On this
very day exactly 658 years ago the Chaldeans burnt the first temple.”
The very date seemed to be inviting him to the deed!
Scarcely had this thought passed through his mind when Rufus exclaimed:
“Ah! what light is that? By the gods, a sortie!”
His remark was caused by the sight of an immense body of Jews, who,
having opened one of the half-burned gates, were issuing noiselessly
forth.
They were seen, however, not only by Crispus and Rufus, but by the
vigilant Roman sentinels. Instantly, the shrill trumpet blast rang out
the call to arms, and the legionaries, starting from sleep, grasped
their weapons and stood ready for the conflict.
Heedless of the fact that they were discovered the Jews poured down
the steps of the gateway and raced across the court towards the wooden
synagogue, from whose roof Titus had directed his operations against
the Sanctuary. They ran amid a blaze of light cast by torches, the
object of the Jews being evidently to fire the synagogue in the hope of
burning such of the enemy as lay sleeping within.
They failed in their purpose, however. Both from the nearer synagogue
itself and from the more distant cloisters, the Romans poured forth
with clanging buckler and flashing broadsword; a desperate hand-to-hand
combat took place, lasting for a brief space only, inasmuch as the
Zealots, seeing the number of their foes increasing moment by
moment, turned tail and fled, pursued by the shouting, triumphant
legionaries.
[Illustration: Moved by a Divine impulse]
Crispus and Rufus, who had taken an active part in the fray, joined
also in the pursuit.
Suddenly, while Rufus ran on, Crispus stopped, attracted by the sight
of a flaming torch dropped probably by a flying Zealot. Moved by some
unaccountable prompting he picked it up, and as he did so he caught
sight of something above that sent a strange thrill through him; all
unconsciously he had checked his footsteps beneath the golden window of
the room Gazith, that judgment-hall in which the Saviour of the world
had received His sentence of condemnation at the mouth of the Sanhedrim.
Something light and cool stirred the hair of Crispus; it was a faint
wind coming from the north, the very direction required to carry the
flames throughout the building!
Let others regard these things as mere coincidences; to Crispus they
were signs that the hour, long predestined, had come.
“Marcus,” said he, stopping one of his own soldiers who was running
past at that moment, “lift me up to yon window.”
Without a word the man clasping his tribune’s ankles, reared him aloft,
and set his feet upon his own shoulders.
For a moment Crispus hesitated; then, as the historian of the event
testifies, “MOVED BY A DIVINE IMPULSE,” he thrust the flambeau through
the golden lattices, and, having effectively kindled the woodwork of
the interior, sprang to the ground again.
So little time had he taken that it was doubtful whether any other
Roman besides Marcus had witnessed his act; certain it was that none of
the Zealots suspected that there was kindling a fire whose flames were
destined to sweep the temple from end to end.
Crispus glanced at the gate from which the Zealots had issued but
a few minutes previously; having retreated to it they were now
endeavoring with might and main to stay the entering of the Romans.
He turned his eyes again to the golden window, and laughed to see that
the light within was increasing in brightness; the whole room must soon
be in a blaze, and the hall that had once reverberated with the unjust
cry, “He is guilty of death,” would be the first of the temple-chambers
to perish.
As yet no one either within or without the building seemed to be aware
of what was going on; so much the better! the fire would gain such a
hold that human efforts must fail to extinguish it.
The room above the hall Gazith was now burning, burning with a hidden
glow. Then, all in a moment, with a snap and a crackle, there leaped
skywards a dazzling sheet of flame accompanied by a wave of black smoke
and a fierce shower of red sparks that, carried by the northern wind,
swept southwards over the Sanctuary.
That startling glare, lighting up the dusk of night with the sudden
brightness of noontide, caused the fighting at the gate to cease for a
moment; Roman and Zealot alike turned their eyes to ascertain the cause.
A moment afterwards there ran through the length and breadth of the
Sanctuary one thrilling simultaneous shout:
“_The temple is on fire!_”
By this time the whole Roman force that had lain within the cloisters
had gathered round the Sanctuary. Their feeling was one of dismay, for
the fire was destroying their hopes of plunder. Behind those walls
there lay stores of wealth greater far than were ever contained in
the palace of the Cæsars; the gold and silver utensils used in the
sacrifices; the rich offerings--accumulations of centuries--made by
pious Jews throughout the world; the jeweled vestments of the priests;
the hoards of costly spices; the countless shekels plundered from the
citizens by the Zealots.
For several days previously the Roman soldiery had talked of little
else but the temple-treasures with which they were hoping to enrich
themselves as a recompense after their many weeks of toil.
And now must they lose their reward?
If they should wait till the morning, the time fixed by Titus for the
final assault upon the Sanctuary, the riches would be consumed. Why
tarry?
A moment they stood, irresolute, murmuring; then, with a simultaneous
shout, “On to the gold of the temple!” each soldier firmly grasping
blade and shield, and disregarding the remonstrations of his officer,
rushed forward to whichever gate of the nine happened to be nearest.
The Zealots, massed in dense bodies at each entrance, fought with
fanatical fury, animated by no other desire than that of revenging
themselves upon their enemies and of perishing amid the blazing ruins
of the temple.
Those Romans who attacked the great Corinthian Gate were the first to
fight their way in. Headed by Terentius Rufus, who, finding himself
unable to check his men, determined to lead them, they entered the
quadrangle known as the Court of the Women, so called because thus far
women might enter to worship, but not farther.
This court contained, among other things, the twelve chests with
funnel-shaped openings into which pious Jews were wont to drop their
free-will offerings.
While some of the Romans were breaking open these treasury boxes and
others were dispersing into the chambers around in search of plunder,
a third and more numerous party, led by Rufus, continued the fight,
driving the Zealots before them across the Court of the Women, and up
the semicircular ascent of twelve stairs that fronted the great brazen
gate of Nicanor, which led to the inner court, or Court of Israel.
Twining around the sides and above the entablature of this entrance
was an object attractive to the eyes of plunderers--the celebrated vine
whose branches, leaves, and grape-clusters were all of pure gold.
“Close the gate!” shouted Simon.
Vain the command!
Like some moving wall of bronze, buckler touching buckler, the front
rank of the legionaries pushed its way forward inch by inch up the
stairs and into the interior court.
“Way there for Cæsar!” shouted Rufus as, standing on the topmost of the
twelve stairs, he caught sight of Titus, who, surrounded by his chief
officers, was seeking to clear a path through the throng of surging,
shouting Romans.
Consternation was written on the face of Titus. Though not troubling to
communicate the fact to his council, he had pledged his word both to
Berenice and to Agrippa that the temple should be preserved; and now,
to his confusion, there was fast spreading along the northern cloister
of the Sanctuary a fire that, unless immediately checked, would consume
the whole edifice.
Many of the soldiers, possessed by the frenzy for destruction that is
apt to come upon man at such wild times, were helping to spread the
conflagration by hurling lighted joists into the surrounding chambers
and cloisters.
Standing on the stairs of the Nicanor Gate so that he might the more
plainly be seen, Titus, shouting his loudest and making signals with
his hand, gave orders to the soldiers to extinguish the fire.
But so great was the roaring of the flames and the din of the combat
that few could hear him, and those that did affected not to understand,
but went on with the double work of carnage and plunder.
“’Tis useless to restrain them,” said Tiberius Alexander. “They are
drunk with delight at having come as they think to the end of their
labors. Discipline is at an end for this night at least. The soldier
will acknowledge no master but his own will.”
“Must we let the temple burn to the ground?” asked Titus in despair.
Alexander shrugged his shoulders. Secretly he was not at all displeased
by the turn events were taking.
“Let us try at least to save the Golden House,” said Titus, commanding
his bodyguard to open a way for him into the inner court.
The Sanctuary formed a series of terraces, and upon the highest of
all, within the Court of the Priests, stood the world-famed Golden
House--the shrine containing the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies--now
lovely in the firelight and flashing with a splendor that dazzled the
eyes.
Driven from all other parts of the Sanctuary the Zealots gathered about
this golden shrine, determined that it should not be profaned by the
foot of the heathen Gentile.
The triumphant Romans followed to the attack, and a desperate fight
ensued.
Sword in hand the furious Zealots fell by hundreds, and at last Simon
and John, seeing that all was lost, massed the survivors at one point,
and charging at their head, succeeded in cutting their way through
the Roman ranks out into the Court of the Gentiles, and thence by the
bridge that spanned the Tyropæon they made their way into the Upper
City.
The flight of the Zealots was followed by a terrible carnage around
the great brazen altar of sacrifice, a sort of truncated pyramid,
forty-eight feet square at the base, standing directly in front of the
Golden House. Hither, upon the first entering of the Romans, had fled
a helpless, trembling crowd of children, women, and aged men, thinking
that the sanctity of the spot would stay the sword of the conqueror.
Vain hope!
The foe, made cruel by the long duration of the siege, stabbed and slew
without distinction of age or sex; the bodies of the dead lay piled
like hecatombs upon the sacrificial altar; upon the pavement around
the red blood spread in a quickly widening circle, till, reaching the
marble stairs, it rolled in sullen streams into the courts below.
Though isolated groups of desperate Jews continued here and there to
fight Titus was now practically master of the temple, but the victory
gave him little pleasure when he noticed the progress made by the
fire, which, fanned by the wind, had reached one end of the northern
cloister, and, having turned the angle, was now fast advancing along
the western cloister, and would soon be on a line parallel with the
western wall of the Golden House; true, a space separated the cloister
from the shrine, but the space was, perhaps, not too wide for the
flames to leap across; already sparks and fragments of fiery matter,
floated by the wind, were beginning to patter upon the fretted and
pinnacled roof.
Moved by Titus’ look of despair, Alexander put forth a suggestion.
“We can perhaps preserve it by drenching its roof with water.”
“But whence the water?”
“There is a draw-well on the southern side of the Sanctuary.”
Springing upon one of the many marble tables where sacrificial
victims were laid prior to their being offered upon the brazen altar,
Titus, trying to make his voice heard above the noise of fire and
vociferation, shouted that the soldiers should bring water for the
preserving of the Golden House.
But none would put hand to the work, for the sides and western end of
this house were set about with treasury vaults, and the fool who spent
his time like a slave in fetching water would lose the chance of
enriching himself.
“Urge them to the work, Liberalis!” cried Titus, addressing a
centurion. “Threaten them! Strike them with your staff!”
Liberalis did so, but all in vain; respect for Cæsar gave way to the
insatiable desire for plunder.
“Let us see the interior of the Golden House, ere it perish forever,”
said Alexander.
Speaking thus, he led the way; Titus and his staff followed, walking
ankle-deep in blood.
Entering the Propyleon, a magnificent porch with wings on each hand
extending far beyond the width of the shrine, they stood before the
great golden gate, and found it barred from within.
“’Twill require a battering-ram to force it,” said Titus, hesitating at
such a measure. There came into his mind tales told him by Berenice of
Gentiles who had fallen dead for profaning a place sacred to the Jewish
priesthood only.
“There is a little wicket at the side by which the priest enters to
unbar the door in the morning,” said Alexander. “The noble Agrippa will
perhaps lead the way?” he added, addressing that king, who stood beside
Titus.
But Agrippa declined the honor.
“Nay, I’ll give thee the precedency,” he answered.
“Thy face is pale, Agrippa. Thou fearest,” sneered Alexander.
What no orthodox Jew durst do, and what even the Roman hesitated at,
was done by the apostate Alexander.
Putting his shoulder to the little wicket he forced it wide, passed
boldly within, and, having first drawn aside the Babylonian curtain, he
unbarred the double doors, and flung open the Holy Place to the profane
gaze of the Romans, who saw what they had never before seen, what no
man would ever see again.
A low murmur of admiration broke from Titus and his staff at the beauty
of the golden interior all radiant in the wild light of the leaping
flames.
On the right or north side was seen the golden table, but without the
twelve loaves of shewbread; on the left the seven-branched golden
candlestick, unlighted; at the far end rose the golden altar of
incense, standing in front of the solemn “veil,” a curtain of linen
finely twined; in color an admirable mingling of blue, and scarlet, and
purple, and wrought in golden thread with the figures of cherubim.
“Let these things be brought forth and kept against the day of my
triumph,” said Titus.
Emboldened by the example of Alexander he passed into the Holy Place
and came to the veil that hung at its far end.
This Alexander lifted, and Titus gazed with curious eye upon the Holy
of Holies, the place where the Shechinah had once dwelt. But the Divine
Presence had long since departed; the place was empty save for an
oblong stone upon which rested a golden ark with two golden cherubim,
one on each side, having their faces bent downwards and their wings
expanded. The stone itself was not without interest, seeing that, in
Hebrew opinion, it marked the very center of the earth’s surface.
Directing that the ark and the cherubim, with the other sacred
furniture, should be carried to his own quarters, Titus came forth
again.
The imagination of Dante could scarcely conceive a scene more wild and
weird than that now taking place.
A wind blowing from the north carried into the temple-courts whirling
clouds of smoke and intermittent gusts of heat that came and went like
the breath of a fiery furnace.
Amid the roaring of the flames could be heard the shrieks of victims
cut off from escape, intermingled with the crackling of cedar roofs
and the crash of falling masonry.
The shouting legionaries, fierce with the lust for gold, were running
hither and thither like madmen, ransacking first this chamber and
then that. Here and there some priest, detected in hiding, would find
himself surrounded by fierce-eyed soldiers, and with the keen edge of
a sword laid across his windpipe, he would be addressed with the cry,
“Show us gold, and you shall live!” And wild were scenes that occurred
when some new vault was discovered glittering with treasure, the
plunderers trampling each other down in their eagerness to be first at
the spoil.
On all sides were to be seen men carrying off vessels of gold
and silver, ingots of the same precious metals, bags of shekels,
jewel-hilted weapons, myrrhine vases, caskets of ivory, ebony,
and alabaster filled with spices, ointments, and perfumes, costly
vestments, and ten thousand other objects of spoil. Never in all the
world’s history did riches so vast fall to the lot of a conquering army
as fell to those who plundered the temple--riches that were destined
within a week to send down the price of gold in the markets of Syria to
one-half of its former value!
The attention of Titus was attracted by two men who were dragging along
a heavy cedar chest which they had just rescued from the flames; but on
breaking it open, they found within, not gold, as they had hoped, but
books merely--historic writings, temple records, genealogical rolls,
and the like. In their disappointment the two were about to set fire to
the whole, but were checked by Titus.
“Hold! Let these be kept for Josephus. I doubt not that he will esteem
them more highly than gold. Carry this chest to my tent.”
But though Titus might save the sacred books of the temple, the Golden
House he could not save.
Unperceived by him a soldier, moved by a frenzy to destroy, held a
lighted torch between the hinges of the golden door; a flame sprang up
which, from lack of water to quench it, spread rapidly over the whole,
a sight viewed with satisfaction by the soldiery.
“Where is now the God of the Jews?” they cried.
Numerous figures, clad in priestly vestments, now appeared upon the
burning roof.
“Who are these?” asked Titus.
“Priests,” replied Alexander, “forced by the heat from the secret
chambers, of which there are many about the Golden House.”
“Surrender, and your lives shall be spared,” shouted Titus.
But to this invitation the priests replied by a flood of curses.
Wrenching from the roof the gilded spikes, with their leaden sockets,
they hurled them as missiles against the foe.
The eddying flames, the blinding smoke, the overpowering heat, now
forced Titus and every other Roman, not only from the vicinity of the
Golden House, but from the Sanctuary itself; for the outer circle of
fire, having traversed both the western and eastern cloisters, had now
seized upon the southern side, threatening to cut off the retreat of
all who lingered within.
As there was still abundant pillage left, the soldiers quitted the
burning building with reluctance; some lingering too long were
overtaken by the flames, and did not quit it at all, while others by
their scorched clothing, singed eyebrows, and half-burnt beards showed
how narrowly they had escaped death.
Withdrawing to a safe distance Titus and his staff continued to watch
the appalling spectacle, the like of which they had not seen since the
burning of Rome by Nero.
“The whole summit of the hill blazed like a volcano. One after another
the buildings fell in with a tremendous crash, and were swallowed up
in the fiery abyss. The roofs of cedar were like sheets of flame; the
gilded pinnacles shone like spikes of red light. The gate towers sent
up tall columns of flame and smoke.”[34]
But if it were an appalling spectacle to the Roman what was it to the
Jew?
All along the northern ramparts of Mount Zion was gathered a vast
multitude (for though myriads had died of famine, there were still
myriads left)--a countless host of gaunt, famishing specters, who
looked fearfully into each other’s eyes as if asking whether what they
saw could be real.
Must they let go the great hope that had so long sustained them? During
the space of four years, ever since the outbreak of the war, they
had lived in hope of the immediate advent of the Messiah, who should
overturn the empire of the wicked Romans and establish a glorious
kingdom for Israel.
And this was the end of it all--to know that the fiery star in the
sky had been but mocking them all this time; to learn that their own
Jehovah had taken the side of the heathen enemy! to see the temple,
which they had supposed eternal, sinking in the flames! to be so
near the realization of the grandest of visions, and to be forced to
renounce it when their tutelary angel had already partially withdrawn
the cloud! to be compelled to accept the soul-shaking alternative that
either their holy scriptures had lied in stating that the Messiah
should come during the time of the Second Temple, or that He must have
already appeared, only to be rejected by them! to see all their bright
hopes vanish into space! Was ever nation so fearfully deceived as this
nation?
They gazed again and again in doubt and bewilderment; and when, at
last, they were forced to realize that the temple was actually blazing,
and that angelic powers would NOT descend from the skies to help them,
there pealed forth into the infinity of night long shrieks, terrible
in their pathos and despair; the shrieks of a dying nation; shrieks so
piercingly loud that they were echoed and re-echoed from all the hills
that surrounded the city.
Slowly the leaping flames sank and died out, to be followed here and
there by intermittent flashes and flickerings; and then, at last, the
darkness of night fell over the smoking, smoldering, blackened ruins.
* * * * *
Three centuries later the heathen emperor Julian, resolving to show
that Christ was a false prophet, called upon the Jews to rebuild their
temple.
The supernatural circumstances attending the defeat of this project
on the part of him, whose last, dying cry was, “Thou hast conquered,
O Galilæan!” are attested alike by pagan and by Christian writer. The
lesson of history is clear: THE ABOLITION OF THE TEMPLE WAS THE ACT OF
GOD!
CHAPTER XXV
“JUDÆA CAPTA!”
Thus was the temple burnt, and when Titus learned--for the matter was
secretly reported to him--whose was the hand that had kindled the first
flame, he swore by all his gods that Crispus should suffer death; and,
in so resolving, he tried to think that he was actuated by a spirit of
justice, and not by the wish of removing one who was a hindrance to his
union with Berenice. That princess had often spoken of Crispus’ purpose
as touching the temple, but at her fears Titus had laughed, never
thinking that Crispus would so far transcend all rules of military
discipline as to dare to fire a magnificent edifice without due orders
from his commander-in-chief. But Crispus _had_ dared so to act, and
fiercely did Titus express his wrath to those of his officers with whom
he breakfasted next morning.
Tiberius Alexander tried to placate his angry chief.
“What command did Crispus disobey? He fired the building ere he learned
of your decree.”
“Is Crispus, forsooth, commander-in-chief? By whose orders did he act?”
“By those of the immortal gods, I verily believe,” replied Alexander.
“Josephus, whom you regard so highly, will tell you that it is the
Divine will that the temple should perish. Crispus could not resist his
destiny. It was fated that he should so act.”
“Very like. And ’twas fated, too, that I should behead him.”
Alexander’s face darkened.
“By so treating the bravest soldier in your army you will incense the
legions to the verge of mutiny.”
“Be that as it may,” retorted Titus, frowning, for he well knew that
there was truth in what the other had said.
“And you will lose my services, for I shall immediately return to
Alexandria.”
“And I shall resign my tribuneship,” said Rufus.
“And I!”--“And I!” came from many others.
As he beheld the stern faces of his staff Titus saw the imperative
necessity of revoking his too hasty judgment upon Crispus. He could not
afford to lose his bravest officers with that terrible stronghold of
Zion--the goal of all his labors--still untaken. Moreover, there was
Vespasian to think of; he would not be pleased at the execution of one
for whom he had always entertained a fatherly affection.
“Summon Crispus to our presence,” said he moodily, addressing a
centurion.
The messenger departed, and presently returned with a grave face.
Crispus, it seemed, had been carried forth from the previous night’s
battle so slashed with wounds that his recovery was a matter of doubt.
“He was endeavoring,” stated the centurion, “to save from slaughter an
aged widow, named Miriam, who had taken refuge at the altar--an action
on his part that so incensed some of those Syrian allies who, if Cæsar
will pardon me for saying it, are the curse of our army, that they
dared to turn their arms against him--a Roman tribune!”
“By Castor, if he can point them out, they shall be crucified!”
exclaimed Titus. “Well, since he cannot come to me, I must go to him.
O, fear not, brave captains,” he added, observing their dubious looks,
“my resentment is over. You have my word for it that Crispus shall come
to no hurt through me.”
So saying, he followed the centurion, and came to the castellum, or
fort, where upon a pallet lay Crispus, swathed in bandages, and looking
more dead than alive.
The sight of the pallid figure disarmed all Titus’ anger, and in
sympathetic tones he expressed his sorrow at seeing Crispus in such
state.
“It is better thus,” said Crispus, believing his end to be at hand.
“Berenice will be free.”
“Now by the gods!” exclaimed Titus, his better nature flashing out,
“a plague on these women who set friend and friend at variance. If
Berenice is to be won only at the cost of your life, may she never be
won, say I. But as to this matter, do you know that Berenice denies
that she was the veiled lady of Beth-tamar?”
“But you do not believe her?”
Titus’ silence would seem to show that he was of the same opinion as
Crispus.
He spoke a few more cheering words, and then took his departure.
Making his way to the ruins of the temple, he was hailed with loud
cries of “_Ave, Imperator!_” by the soldiery, who, assembled before
the blackened eastern gate, were offering incense and prayers to the
eagles, the gods that, in their superstitious fancy, had given them the
victory.
“‘Imperator!’” said Titus scornfully, recalling their disobedience of
the previous night. “Very much imperator, when ye let the temple burn
contrary to my will.”
It was customary among the Roman troops to honor the victorious
general with a new title drawn from the name of the people subdued by
him--Scipio _Africanus_ and Metellus _Creticus_ are cases in point--but
when some of the soldiery proceeded further to salute Titus with the
epithet “_Judaicus_,” he sternly forbade them to use an appellation
that he knew would be a perpetual reminder to Berenice of the fall of
her nation.
Though the ordinary soldier was left to cure his wounds as best he
might, with the aid of his sympathizing comrades, Titus himself was
attended in this campaign by a Greek physician, whom he now sent to
watch over Crispus, and great was the satisfaction throughout the
camp when it became known that the state of the patient was such as to
afford good ground for hope.
A week later Titus, when paying a second visit to Crispus, dwelt again
on the subject of Berenice.
“No man,” said he, “would risk his life, as you did, in rescuing a
damsel from a beleaguered city--you see I know the story--unless he
were madly enamored of her. Since your heart is set, not upon Berenice
but upon this Vashti, what is to prevent you from repudiating the one
and taking the other?”
“Firstly, I have not said that my heart _is_ set upon Vashti; secondly,
even if it were so, my Christian creed forbids me acting in the way
your prescribe. With Christians marriage is a perpetual obligation.”
“Crispus, don’t deny it; you love this Vashti, and yet you are going to
allow your foolish religion--for such must I call it--to stand in the
way of your desires. But I doubt whether you fully understand your own
creed. I have been conversing with some of your faith, for it appears
that you are not the only Christian in our army, and their saying is
that if a wife takes a lover, her husband is justified in obtaining a
divorce. It is Berenice’s intention,” added Titus significantly, “to
supply you with the grounds for one.”
In his pagan days Crispus would have readily availed himself of this
way of escaping from a union that was hateful to him, but being no
longer a pagan, he would not consent to Berenice’s doing evil that
thereby good might come to him.
“Cæsar,” said he, “I will be no party to this scheme, which I look upon
as an infamous one. Nay, more; if you so act, I will have justice upon
you. Forget not the oath of your sire, Vespasian, that he would hang
the man who takes my wife from me, though that man were his own son. Do
this thing, and I will accuse you at the foot of the imperial throne,
and demand that he keep his word.”
Titus laughed pleasantly.
“I’ll take the risk,” said he.
And with that he withdrew, bent on fulfilling his purpose, as Crispus
was equally bent on fulfilling his.
Among others that visited Crispus during his illness was Josephus, who,
as intending to write a history of the war, was naturally desirous of
obtaining all the information he could respecting the burning of the
temple.
Crispus complied with this request, but as he had no particular desire
for worldly fame, he added:
“Keep my name out of the history.”
“Is it possible,” smiled Josephus, “in view of your great deeds?”
“Quite possible. You can allude to me as ‘a certain captain tribune,’
or ‘one of the soldiers.’” And then, turning to a matter of far more
interest to him than future fame, he said, “Do you know that your ward
Vashti is a slave in the household of the Princess Berenice?”
“Yea, I know it,” said Josephus with a queer smile, the meaning of
which was not at all apparent to Crispus, “and I am this day setting
off for Cæsarea, carrying to the princess a letter from Titus enjoining
her to deal tenderly with my ward.”
“That is good, but it would be better were he sending an order that she
must be set at liberty. However, that will perhaps come in time,” he
continued, resolving to petition Vespasian on behalf of Vashti. “But
let me not delay you. Go, and heaven prosper your mission.”
Crispus had ordered that his bed should be placed by a window from
which he could watch the preparations that were being made to storm
Mount Zion, where the implacable Zealots were making their last stand.
With the capture of that stronghold, the long siege would be brought
to an end.
Titus had offered, by the mouth of Josephus, to spare the lives of all
the insurgents on the condition of instant surrender. But Simon and
John still talked big. They demanded a free passage for themselves and
their followers, together with their wives and children, promising to
depart to some far-off spot in the wilderness. Titus rejected these
terms, and in his anger vowed to slay every man, woman, and child, and
to level the city to the ground.
Then did Crispus rejoice that Vashti was delivered from the possibility
of such doom.
The Roman banks were completed in eighteen days, and on the nineteenth
morning Titus began his attack upon the northern wall of Zion.
Even now it was within the power of the Zealots to prolong the siege
for many weeks in virtue of their almost impregnable position in those
three magnificent fortresses, Hippicus, Phasaelus, and Mariamne. But
the steady and triumphant progress of the Roman arms through the
suburb of Bezetha and the suburb of Acra, over the ruins of Antonia
and the ruins of the temple, had put a secret fear into the heart
of the Zealots, so that as soon as they heard the terrible rams
swinging and pounding against the walls of Zion they quitted their
fortifications, and fled. Some sought the catacombs with which the
sub-soil of Jerusalem is everywhere honeycombed; others, opening the
southern gates, made a wild and futile attempt to force the Roman line
of circumvallation.
With a fierce shouting that seemed to shake the very towers, the
triumphant legionaries poured over the walls, and proceeded to carry
fire and sword through the length and breadth of the city. Enraged by
the long opposition of the Zealots, the Romans made no distinction
between the innocent and the guilty, but wreaked upon all alike, man,
woman, and child, the accumulated vengeance of a long term of weeks.
The flames of night lit up wild scenes of carnage, lust, and rapine,
scenes that have scarcely any parallel in history. One significant fact
attests the extent of the slaughter--the fires on the lower parts of
Zion were extinguished by the rivers of blood that poured down from the
higher!
The Romans only ceased from slaying when their arms had become weary
of striking; the surviving Jews--still to be counted by myriads--were
driven like sheep across the Tyropæon bridge to the ruined cloisters of
the temple, where they were put under guard. Scores of them, sullen and
defiant to the last, refused to taste food prepared by Gentile hands,
and so died.
When Titus entered the city and beheld the massy towers which the
Zealots had so cravenly relinquished, he was filled with wonder.
“Truly,” he murmured, “unless the gods had put it into the hearts of
these men to flee, we should never by our own strength have taken these
towers.”
But however much Titus may have thought himself indebted to Divine
power, he showed little of the Divine in his treatment of the captive
multitude, who, if the figures of Josephus are to be trusted, amounted
to ninety-seven thousand!
For many days a sorting process went on in the temple-courts. Those who
were convicted of having borne arms against the Romans were executed
at once. Seven hundred others, the tallest and most handsome, were set
aside to grace the triumph of Titus. Of the rest, those under seventeen
years of age were sold into slavery; all who had passed that age were
either sent in fetters to Egypt, there to work in the mines, or were
distributed among the provinces, to die in the amphitheater by the
sword of the gladiator or by the fangs of wild beasts. As for the aged
and infirm, these, as being useless and unsaleable, were simply put to
death in cold blood. Thus were weeping families parted to meet no more
on earth; never were such heartrending scenes as those that took place
in the temple-courts upon the closing days of September in the year
A.D. 70, and all under the sanction of the Cæsar who was called by his
sycophantic contemporaries, “_Amor et deliciæ generis humani_--the love
and darling of mankind!”
As Crispus heard the nightly wailings of the captive multitude he
longed for the day when the progress of Christianity should temper
warfare with a spirit more humane and merciful.
Josephus received the privilege of setting free from among the
prisoners all his former friends, of whom he must have possessed a
remarkable number, seeing that, after setting aside his father and
mother, he contrived to liberate nearly two hundred more of the throng.
There were two faces, however, he looked for in vain.
“What hath become of Simeon ben Gamaliel?” he asked.
“Slain at the taking of Zion,” was the reply.
“And Johanan ben Zacchai?”
That rabbi, it appeared, was now at Jamnia in southern Judæa, having
escaped from the holy city in a very singular manner.[35] Feigning
to be dead, he was placed in a coffin, which the Zealot sentinels at
the gate permitted to be carried forth for burial within his father’s
sepulcher in the glen of Cedron. When once outside the city Johanan
made his way to the Roman lines; and being permitted to pass by the
good will of Crispus before whom he happened to be brought, he retired
to Jamnia. And here, in subsequent years, he established the celebrated
rabbinical school whose teaching was destined ultimately to develop
into that strange system of Jewish scholasticism known as the Talmud.
Titus ordered the city to be razed to the ground with the exception
of the three great towers--Hippicus, Phasaelus, and Mariamne. These
were spared partly for the accommodation of a garrison to be stationed
there with a view of preventing any attempt at rebuilding by the Jews,
but mainly to demonstrate to posterity what kind of a city it was that
Roman valor had subdued.
Terentius Rufus was appointed to superintend this work of demolition,
and his first care was to remove Crispus to the splendid apartments in
the tower Hippicus, as being more conducive to the patient’s recovery
than the close and squalid quarters of the castellum, in which he had
hitherto lain.
It was a matter of vexation to Titus that Simon the Black and John of
Giscala were not to be found among the captive multitude. It turned
out that the two Zealot chiefs had taken refuge in the catacombs
beneath the city, and though the dauntless Simon contrived for a while
to elude pursuit, John, reduced by stress of famine, came forth from
his hiding-place to meet, by a singular leniency on the part of the
conqueror, with the sentence of perpetual imprisonment.
And now, the Roman troops, having done the work they had set out to
do, broke up their camp and commenced a slow and stately march to
Cæsarea-by-the-sea, leading with them a long train of melancholy
captives, the remnants of a once great nation, together with the spoils
of the temple.
Terentius Rufus was left behind with the Legio Fretensis--bricks
stamped with the name of this legion are still found in the sub-soil
of Zion--and he proceeded to execute the work of demolition with a
thoroughness that has made his memory forever hated by the Jews. The
Talmud has no more fearful curses than those laid upon the head of him
whom, with the Oriental peculiarity for disfiguring Western names, it
miscalls _Turnus_ Rufus.
Over the site of what had once been a splendid and populous city he
drew a plow in accordance with the oath which he had sworn to the Jews.
“Where is now their God?” he laughed, in scornful ignorance that his
own action was a striking confirmation to the truth of the Hebrew
religion, for had not the prophet written, “_Zion shall be plowed as a
field_”?
For the accommodation of the garrison, however, a few houses were
left standing upon the western side of the city, and among them the
celebrated _Cænaculum_,[36] or House of the Last Supper, destined in
the age of Constantine to be transformed into a Christian church.
For more than a month that fugitive of the catacombs, Simon, continued
to evade arrest. Attended by a small but faithful band of miners and
hewers of stone, well provided with cutting tools, he had been essaying
the gigantic feat of boring his way through the solid rock to a point
that should be beyond the ken of the Roman garrison, but the difficulty
of the work and the failure of provisions compelled him to relinquish
the enterprise.
He then took a singular step.
Assuming a white robe and a mantle of purple he emerged unexpectedly
from the ground in the very place where the temple had stood, thinking
perhaps by this act to impress the Romans with the belief that he was
a new Messiah resuscitated from the dead.[37] As a matter of fact, the
soldiers in the vicinity were not a little awe-struck at sight of this
strange apparition rising from the ground. Their first amazement over,
they drew near, formed a circle round him, and demanded who he was.
But Simon declared that his name was not for vulgar ears.
“Call your commandant,” said he with a mysterious air.
But when that commandant proved to be one well acquainted with the
features and figure of Simon, the Zealot chief saw that deception was
at an end.
Rufus received him with a pitying smile.
“Simon, if thou art attempting to imitate the God of my friend Crispus,
thou art playing the part to no purpose. I know thee to be mortal man.
Thou art my prisoner. This is a sorry ending for thee. Why didst not
thou, Roman fashion, fall on thy blade, and so round off thy wild life?”
“’Tis forbidden by our law to slay one’s self,” returned Simon. “Now
tell me what will be my doom?”
“Titus hath already decreed it. With a rope round thy neck thou wilt
march through Rome in Cæsar’s great triumphal procession that all the
citizens may see what manner of man it was that kept their soldiers at
bay so long. As thou walkest, attendant lictors will beat thee with
rods, for such is the custom. If it will give thee any pleasure thou
wilt see borne aloft before thee the holy vessels of thy temple. But
while these will be carried on to the journey’s end to be laid up in
the temple of Peace, thou, at a certain point in the procession, wilt
be led aside to the Tarpeian Rock, precipitated therefrom and slain.
And a mighty shout of joy will go up from the multitude, for it is
not till thy death has been announced that the sacrifices and the
feasting will begin. Now, I might pity thee, but that the memory of the
massacred Roman garrisons hardens my heart.”
“Better to fall with Israel than to triumph with Rome,” retorted the
Zealot.
Rufus had no further parley with his prisoner, but dispatched him
at once to Titus, who was then at Cæsarea. What must have been the
feelings of Simon, when he found himself journeying along the same road
as that on which he had gained his memorable victory over Cestius?
Verily, the fortune of war had indeed changed!
It was not till three months after the burning of the temple that
Crispus was strong enough to leave his chamber in Hippicus, and walk
with halting step among the shapeless heaps of stones which represented
all that was left of the once proud city.
Accompanied by Rufus he ascended the temple-hill. Its columns and
cloisters, chambers and courts, had vanished, but the Legio Fretensis
with all their toil had been unable to pull apart the masonry of the
vast basement on which the temple structures had rested.
It remained, and remains to this day, a part of it forming the
celebrated “Wailing-place” of the Jews.
Now as Crispus and Rufus stood there, they were surprised to see a band
of men and women, quiet and orderly, ascending Mount Moriah from the
Vale of Cedron.
As they drew near, Crispus recognized in them his friends of Pella.
There was the saintly bishop Simeon, who had baptized both him and
Vashti; and there, too, were the two youthful grandsons of the apostle
Jude, destined on account of their Davidic descent to be haled one day
before the jealous tyrant Domitian, and by him to be dismissed again as
innocent and foolish visionaries.
“Now, who be ye?” asked Rufus, casting a suspicious glance at the
throng.
“We are natives of Jerusalem, who, four years ago, quitted the city,
rather than take up arms against the Romans.”
“That’s a point in your favor.”
“These,” explained Crispus, “are the Christians who befriended me
during the time of my proscription by Nero.”
“And what would ye here?” asked Rufus, addressing them.
“We seek to inhabit this place again, and to carry on our worship as
heretofore.”
“What! Think ye that Titus has destroyed this city merely to see it
built again?”
“Titus destroyed the city as being a center of Jewish sedition,”
remarked Crispus. “But these persons repudiate the Jewish religion.
They are Christians with no wish for an independent kingdom.
Acknowledging the authority of Rome, they will be a hindrance to
rebellion, and a source of strength to us.”
“Humph! I doubt whether Titus will agree to their settling here.”
“His cousin, Flavius Clemens, would. Thou knowest that he is a
Christian.”
“Flavius Clemens is not Cæsar.”
“But his two sons may become Cæsars, seeing that Vespasian has
nominated them as his heirs next after Titus and Domitian, who, as
you know, are both childless. You and I may yet live, Rufus, to see a
Christian Cæsar on the throne, and a Cæsar who will know how to reward
any favor shown to this little community here.”[38]
There was something in this argument, and Rufus thought he might as
well have an eye to the future. To him, personally, it was a matter of
indifference whether the Christians remained or withdrew; his only wish
was not to be embroiled with Titus.
“Christians,” said Rufus meditatively. “Humph! well,” he added, turning
to Crispus, “since you warrant them to be orderly, and innocent of any
innovation against Rome, let them, if they will, remain and build.
Titus hath not actually said aught to the contrary.”
Thus had the saints returning from Pella good cause to bless the day
when they received among them the heathen and proscribed fugitive
Crispus; for, thanks to his good offices, they were permitted to
remain, and by their daily worship in the Cænaculum to carry on the
historic continuity of the Church of Jerusalem.
CHAPTER XXVI
JUSTICE THE AVENGER
It was a lovely sunny morning in April as Crispus and Rufus strolled
along the sands in the vicinity of Cæsarea-by-the-sea.
“Have you seen the new coin struck by Titus to commemorate his
conquest?” asked Rufus; and, being answered in the negative, he drew
forth a sesterce, and exhibited it to the gaze of Crispus.
The obverse of the coin bore the laureated head of Titus; the reverse,
a graceful palm-tree, at the foot of which sat the weeping figure of a
woman, emblematic of Judæa; behind the palm stood Titus in a military
uniform, with his foot on a helmet, holding in his right hand a lance,
and in his left a sword. The words JUDÆA CAPTA formed the legend.
“This weeping figure is obviously intended as a portrait of Berenice,”
remarked Crispus in some surprise.
“Just so. ’Tis said that Titus, happening to see Berenice sitting
beneath a palm weeping, or pretending to weep, for her country, was so
struck by the sight that he ordered the Master of the Mint at Cæsarea
to immortalize her figure and attitude in the issue of commemorative
coins.”
“Did Berenice have aught to say on the matter?”
“She was not averse to it.”
No; doubtless it suited her taste for emotional display to see herself
set forth to the Roman world in the character of a devout patriot
weeping for the fall of her country. The hollowness both of her grief
and of her religion, in fact her entire lack of womanly feeling, was
shown by her presence at the games held at Cæsarea Philippi in honor
of Domitian’s birthday, when she could calmly sit in the amphitheater
there and see 2,500 hapless Jews slaughtered, either in combats with
wild beasts, or in fighting with each other as gladiators; for Titus,
prevented from sailing to Rome by reason of the advanced season at
which the war ended--navigation being usually suspended during the
winter months--had spent his time in giving a series of fêtes in
various cities of the East, fêtes that were seldom celebrated without
the butchery of Jews in the arena.
“Berenice has been with Titus at all these festivities,” remarked
Rufus. “She has become his mistress, as I thought she would. So amorous
are they that they all but fondle each other in public. It is Antony
and Cleopatra over again. Will he marry her, I wonder?”
“Not till I have divorced her,” responded Crispus, quietly.
Rufus stared in amazement at this intimation of a secret hitherto
kept from him. Crispus proceeded to tell the story of the wedding at
Beth-tamar, giving his reasons for supposing Berenice to be the veiled
lady.
“The Princess Berenice your wife?” murmured Rufus, scarcely able to
credit the statement. “Humph! and when Cæsar takes a man’s wife, where
shall the man look for redress?”
“He’s welcome to her. She is my wife no longer. I shall repudiate her.”
“No, not yet,” exclaimed Rufus, his face suddenly lighting up with
excitement. “You must not do so just yet. You must delay your purpose
for a while in order to save Vashti.”
“Ha! what mean you? How can the delay serve Vashti?”
Rufus laughed with a sort of good-humored contempt at what he conceived
to be a sad lack of discernment on the part of Crispus.
“Was there any stipulation made at this marriage that the wife was to
retain the separate possession of her property?”
“None.”
“Then Vashti may be set free.”
“How?” asked Crispus eagerly.
“By you, of course. O, dullard! All you have to do now is to walk
into the presence of Titus and Berenice, and to say, ‘Woman, you are
my wife. The law gives you to me, as doth also this document signed
by Vespasian.’ Titus dare not oppose you, if you are determined to
assert your legal rights. Then you lead the proud princess home, by
force if she will not come by persuasion, and you address her thus:
‘You are mine, and all that you have is mine, including your household
slaves. Therefore, in the exercise of my lawful right, I declare this
maiden Vashti to be free.’ That’s the plan you must adopt, Crispus.
Afterwards, repudiate her, if you will; but--liberate Vashti first.”
Crispus, with the fire of hope coursing through his veins, resolved to
follow the daring suggestion of Rufus.
“The sooner this business be done, the better,” said he.
“There I agree with you. What more appropriate time than to-morrow
night when Berenice gives a grand banquet in the Prætorium, that
edifice being graciously lent for the occasion by the new procurator,
Antonius Julianus, who, by the way, talks of writing a history[39] of
the war, thereby entering into rivalry with Josephus. You and I are
invited to this entertainment; in truth, if you are absent, Berenice
will suffer sore disappointment, seeing that she hath prepared a little
mortification for you. She hath decreed that her slave Vashti shall
wait as cup-bearer upon the chief guests.”
“May the intended humiliation fall upon Berenice’s own head!”
“So say I. What hath our pretty Vashti done that she should be thus
shamed? I confess I am beginning to dislike the princess, whom I once
so much admired. You must certainly put your plan into operation
to-morrow night. In the face of all the company claim Berenice as your
wife, and assert your authority over her, to the confusion of Titus.
She is desirous, so ’tis said, of providing her guests with a rare
entertainment; it’s very likely she’ll succeed.”
Crispus, determined to adopt this scheme--he blinked its
difficulties--impatiently awaited the moment for putting it into
execution.
When the time fixed for the banquet drew near, Crispus, assuming his
whitest and handsomest toga, with its broad purple border, went,
accompanied by Rufus, to that palace, still called, though its founder
had been seventy years dead, Herod’s Prætorium.
Upon entering he found that the scene of the feast was the same as that
in which Florus had held _his_ banquet.
It was malice that made Berenice choose this hall; the very place
that had seen Vashti hailed as the queen of beauty was now to see
her degraded to the condition of a slave, compelled to wait upon the
princess whose charms had been slighted by Crispus, while Crispus
himself was invited to look on and behold her humiliation.
He smiled within himself. The sequel would show whose was to be the
humiliation.
The banquet-hall presented a brilliant scene, thronged as it was with
all the brave captains who had taken part in the war, and with fair
ladies whose richly dyed robes afforded a perpetual feast of color.
Crispus and his companion arrived just as the guests were preparing to
take their places at the various triclinia.
Berenice was there, moving with a proud and stately step, and, as
though she were already an empress, wearing an Eastern diadem upon her
dark hair.
By her side walked the laureled Titus, clad in imperial purple, and
seemingly in excellent spirits, though he suddenly started as he caught
sight of Crispus, and over his face came a guilty look which Rufus
interpreted in his own way.
“Ashamed of himself at stealing his friend’s wife. Though he be Cæsar,
and my commander, I shall rejoice if he meet by and by with deserved
discomfiture.”
Crispus and Rufus were allotted places next each other, not, however,
at the chief triclinium where were Titus, Berenice, Agrippa, Alexander,
and others, but at an adjacent triclinium, an arrangement that suited
the two friends, who were thus enabled to talk with more freedom than
they could have enjoyed at Cæsar’s table.
At the same triclinium with Crispus was Josephus, who had his place
next to the Roman.
“Do you know the humiliation intended for Vashti?” asked Crispus.
Josephus signified assent, adding:
“Aware that your presence here will save her, I can await the issue
with a serene mind.”
“Rufus,” whispered Crispus to his friend, “you have been communicating
our plan to Josephus.”
But as Rufus gave an emphatic denial to this, Crispus was not a little
puzzled by the words of Josephus.
By the side of the historian sat a stately and venerable dame.
“My mother,” remarked Josephus, “and her purpose in being here is the
same as mine,” he added with a mysterious smile, “to obtain Vashti’s
freedom.”
It seemed from this that Josephus, too, had some plan for delivering
his ward from Berenice’s hands. What was the nature of the plan, and
was it likely to succeed? But to all questioning Josephus remained
provokingly evasive, so that Crispus was fain to hold his soul in
patience.
It soon became clear, however, from the conversation of Josephus,
that he was animated by a spirit of bitter hostility to Berenice,
caused by her patronage of those amphitheatrical games in which Jews
were pitilessly butchered. Titus, too, came in for a share of his
animadversions.
“He hath ordered that the didrachmas which every adult Jew is
accustomed to pay annually into the temple treasury, shall now be
paid into the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter. You, as a Christian,
can understand the feeling of the Jew in this matter. And the golden
cherubim that overshadowed the mercy seat he hath given to the heathen;
the sacred figures which none but the high priest was permitted to see
are now profanely placed as a trophy over the eastern gate of Antioch,
so that it is beginning to be known as the Gate of the Cherubim. And
nigh to it he hath dedicated a chariot to the Moon, for the help which
she hath given him during the siege. The moon, forsooth!”
The signal for the feast was now given, and richly clad slaves, both
male and female, moved to and fro, attentive to the wants of the guests.
“I do not see Vashti,” whispered Crispus to Josephus.
“She will not enter till the drinking begins.”
Gay conversation went on all around, but Crispus took little or no part
in it. Vashti! Vashti! was the one thought of his mind.
At last repletion came to the guests; both the heavier and the lighter
dishes were removed from the tables to make way for the wines.
“And now, my lords,” cried Berenice, addressing those at her own
triclinium, but speaking sufficiently loud for Crispus to hear, “I have
a rare vintage for you, to be offered by a cup-bearer as graceful as
Hebe herself.”
Among a crowd of wine-bearing slaves that now entered the hall Crispus
distinguished the form of Vashti. Quickly the slaves spread themselves
to right and left, each going to his appointed place.
Of the thousand persons in the banquet-hall Crispus saw but one
only--the fair girl that was moving with a light, graceful step towards
the chief triclinium.
Vashti, but how different from her appearance when last seen by him!
The disfigurement wrought by the famine had vanished; she was her own
sweet self once more.
The charming grace and beauty of her figure were set off by a clinging
robe of pure white silk, richly embroidered with gold, and girt at
the waist with a broad, silver-sparkling zone. A necklace of pearls
encircled her fair throat, and a wreath of violets rested upon her
golden ringlets.
She was the living picture of beauty; from the crown of her head to
her dainty, gold-embroidered sandals there was not a flaw to mar her
radiant loveliness.
The eyes of Josephus’ mother glistened with pleasure at the success of
the toilet for which she was responsible, the good dame having resolved
that Vashti should appear at her fairest before the guests.
As Vashti caught Crispus’ look she gave him a smile that sent the blood
coursing like liquid fire through his veins; it was a smile that showed
she had no fear; a smile that seemed to say she knew that he could and
would save her. Was she aware of his intentions? he wondered, or was
she relying upon the aid of Josephus?
Berenice, with a sudden uneasiness at her heart, began all too late to
wish that she had kept her slave from appearing at this banquet, for
Vashti’s beauty drew murmurs of admiration from the men, if not from
the women.
“Ye gods! who is this?” said Tiberius Alexander. “I did not know,
princess, that you had invited Venus to be a guest.”
“’Tis only one of my slaves,” replied Berenice, outwardly calm,
inwardly thrilling with jealousy.
“A slave!” said Alexander, with the light of amatory desire leaping
into his eyes. “I’ll give you ten thousand aurei for her--fifteen
thousand,” he added, breathlessly.
“I would not take a hundred myriads,” replied Berenice, coldly. “She is
not for sale.”
At this moment the murmur of tongues ceased throughout the hall. The
guests, catching sight of Berenice’s dark face, became suddenly silent,
desirous of discovering what was amiss.
The princess rose to her feet, and angrily faced the slave who was
disobeying her on two points--she was wearing a costume different from
that enjoined her, and she lacked the flagon of wine that it was her
duty to bear.
“By whose leave do you wear that dress?”
“By my own,” replied Vashti, with a sweet smile that maddened the
other. “Why should I consult _you_, princess, as to what manner of
raiment I must wear?”
It was a revelation to Crispus to hear the hitherto submissive and
gentle Vashti taking this bold stand, and he loved her the more for
it. There was no tremor in her voice, nor did she shrink in the least
from the fierce gaze of the princess. Indeed, Vashti, in her proud
fearlessness, looked at that moment far more of a princess than did
Berenice. What wonderful power was it that enabled her thus to brave a
mistress who, if she chose, could order her off to instant scourging?
“You dare speak thus to _me_?” exclaimed Berenice amazedly. “O, I see.
A freewoman all these years, you cannot yet realize that you are a
slave. I will overlook your offense. Go! Bring hither the flagon of
wine that you were bidden to pour out for my guests.”
But Vashti shook her pretty golden tresses, and cast an arch smile at
those reclining at Berenice’s triclinium.
“Nay, verily, if they desire the wine let them wait upon themselves;
or perhaps _you_, princess, will play the part of cup-bearer.”
Berenice stood completely dumfounded at these audacious words from one
who had hitherto behaved as her submissive slave. The men looked on
with smiles of wonder and amusement; the women were more disposed to
side with the princess.
“The slave claims to be a Christian,” sneered Agrippa to a fair lady by
his side.
“That explains her insolence,” replied his partner. “I once had one of
those creatures among my household, and know the trouble they give.
Were I the princess, I would whip the new religion out of her.”
“The girl must be mad,” exclaimed Berenice. “On your knees and cry
pardon, or----”
Vashti turned disdainfully away.
“It has pleased me for a time to abide in your house as a slave,” said
she. “It pleases me now to resume my freedom. Give your commands to
others. There is but one person here who shall have my obedience, and
that is my lord Crispus.”
She walked to where Crispus stood--for he had risen to his feet--laid
an appealing hand upon his arm, and looked with trusting eyes into his.
The supreme moment had come! But how was he to save her? His plan had
melted into thin air. It was all very well to claim Berenice as his
wife, but the cold conviction suddenly struck him that his claim was
based not upon proof, but upon conjecture merely. If Berenice chose to
deny his statement, as she undoubtedly would, how could he make his
word good? He turned his eyes upon Josephus, but that priest made no
movement, uttered no word. “Not yet,” he seemed to be saying.
“Guards!” cried Berenice, addressing some of her own soldiers, who were
stationed at intervals along the wall of the banqueting chamber. “Drag
yon girl away, and bring whips hither. Since her defiance of me is
public, so, too, shall her scourging be.”
Even these words did not disturb Vashti’s serenity. Her pitying smile,
implying as it did that she was secure from the threatened punishment,
lashed Berenice into a secret fury.
During all this time the greatest man at the feast, Titus, had remained
silent, looking on perplexed and uneasy. The redemption of Vashti,
though he had often asked for it, was a favor Berenice would not grant
him. He was sorry for Crispus, and secretly sympathized with the daring
maid who was seeking to assert her liberty, but under the influence of
his passion for Berenice he hesitated to do the right thing, namely, to
declare Vashti free.
As the soldiers came forward to execute Berenice’s command, Vashti
turned to Titus and addressed him.
“Cæsar, bid these men stay their hand till I have spoken. I have that
to say which will show the justice of my cause.”
At a sign from Titus the advancing guards paused.
“Say on,” he commanded, hoping that Vashti might somehow be able to
furnish him with a plausible pretext for delivering her from the power
of Berenice.
Verily, Vashti seemed to be doing the work from which Crispus shrank;
for she began to address Titus with a catechism very similar to what
Crispus himself would have employed had he carried out his plan as
originally intended.
“Have you forgotten, sire, a brief visit made by you and my lord
Crispus to a house called Beth-tamar on a certain night more than four
years ago?”
Titus started; he guessed what was coming, and frowned.
“I have not forgotten it,” said he, with a side glance at Berenice,
whose lip curved with the scornful smile as of one who should say,
“That silly story!”
“You can testify that my lord Crispus wedded at Beth-tamar a woman
unknown to him?--unknown, because she was veiled and spake never a
word.”
This strange and romantic statement caused a murmur of surprise and
wonder to run around the banquet-hall.
“I can testify to that,” said Titus, with the air of one who would fain
deny what he was affirming.
“Do you know the name of the woman?”
“I do not,” replied Titus, with another side glance at Berenice,
which set some of the guests wondering as to whether _she_ were the
mysterious bride.
At this point Berenice, with a gesture of impatience, addressed Titus.
“What hath all this to do with the question of punishing an insolent
slave?”
“Everything, as you will see,” returned Vashti quietly, continuing her
questions to Titus. “Did not Crispus give his bride a ring, saying that
when the unknown lady should come to him with the said ring he would
acknowledge her as his wife?”
“That is so.”
Vashti, with eyes shining with love, and with a tender smile that made
her face the more beautiful, turned to Crispus, and, withdrawing her
hand from a fold of her dress where it had lain concealed, she held it
forth, and there, sparkling on her finger, was the very ring that he
had given to his bride at Beth-tamar!
Scarcely able to grasp the momentous truth Crispus stood like one
enchanted to stone, silently staring at Vashti and her ring. To think
that his marriage with Berenice, the ugly black incubus that had so
long oppressed him, was the mere figment of his own imagination! that
the sweet Christian maiden, whom he had loved from the first hour of
seeing her, should be his wife, was a revelation so astounding that it
was no wonder that at first he could not give it credence.
Vashti gave a low, sweet laugh at his bewilderment.
“I am your wife, Crispus. Won’t you protect me?”
Protect her?
He put his arm about her waist--a dozen men could not have torn her
from his grasp!--and turned to face Berenice, who for the moment was
almost as much bewildered and amazed as Crispus himself.
“Prettily acted!” sneered she. “A scheme, artfully preconcerted, for
the purpose of robbing me of my slave. But it shall not succeed. That
Crispus wedded someone at Beth-tamar we must believe, since Cæsar
himself affirms it; but I require something more than this girl’s word,
ere I shall believe her to be the wife of Crispus.”
“I can confirm her statement,” said Josephus, intervening at this
point, “since it was I who conducted Vashti to Beth-tamar, and from
behind a curtain saw her wedded to the lord Crispus. And the woman who
attended Vashti during the ceremony was my mother, who is here present
to bear her testimony, if need be.”
“And in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be
established, princess,” remarked Alexander.
Berenice though striving to maintain a calm exterior, was nevertheless
full of a secret rage at finding her intended victim slipping from her
hands.
“What if she be the wife of Crispus? She is none the less my slave.”
“What? Rob a Roman noble of his wife?” interjected Alexander. “O, too
bad!”
“At the time I made the gift I knew not that she was the wife of
Crispus,” remarked Titus, not at all displeased with the turn events
were taking.
“That matters not,” returned Berenice. “The gift, if made in due legal
form, as this was, can be revoked neither by you nor by a court of law.”
Crispus smiled pityingly at the baffled princess.
“I have here,” said he, drawing forth a papyrus-scroll, “a document
that bears a date long anterior to the time when Vashti was made a
slave, a document that threatens death to those who seek to take the
wife of Crispus from him. It bears the autograph signature of one
whose authority not even Titus Cæsar himself will venture to dispute,
for the signature is that of his august sire, Flavius Vespasian.”
“That is so,” observed Tiberius Alexander, who had drawn near, and was
inspecting the document, “and, therefore, it seems to me,” he added,
jocularly, “that both Cæsar and the princess, by enslaving the wife of
Crispus, have made themselves liable to the death penalty. Doubtless
Vespasian will pardon the offenders, as they acted in ignorance. At any
rate, Crispus is entitled to lead away his wife; and may good fortune
attend him! The bravest man in the war has obtained the fairest woman
for his bride; that is what I say, and who will controvert it?” he
added, looking round upon the guests.
“None! None!” was the answer that came from every side. Vashti’s
romantic story appealed to every heart, save _one_; even those ladies
who, a few minutes before, had been most opposed to her, now joined in
the acclamations that greeted the happy pair thus strangely reunited.
“Take me away,” whispered Vashti. “Anywhere, so that it be from here.”
Crispus responded to her appeal. Drawing her arm within his own, he
passed smilingly from the hall amid cries of “Long live the brave
Crispus and his fair bride!”
Miserable Berenice! Her bitterness of spirit at that moment received
but little balm from Titus’ gay whisper, “There is now no obstacle to
our union,” for she had known all along that the obstacle had never
existed save in his own imagination.
* * * * *
In the moonlit gardens of the Prætorium Crispus and Vashti, seated in
the very same spot where they had sat four years before, were holding a
delightful conversation.
Vashti was reclining within his embrace, her little hand resting
within his. The early Christians were very human!
“And to think that during all this time you have been my wife, and I
knew it not. Why did you not reveal the truth earlier?”
“Because, like yourself, I was bound to secrecy for three years.”
“But that time limit had gone by when I rescued you from Jerusalem.”
“True,” replied Vashti, the brightness of her face becoming dimmed for
a moment by that mournful reminiscence, “but was that a time to be
talking love and wedlock? I resolved to keep the secret till the siege
should be over.”
“I am not sure that you were right in doing so. The making it known
would have saved you from the hands of Berenice. Tell me, how has she
used you?”
“Not ill, though she would taunt me at times with your name, and
threaten to whip the Christianity out of me.”
“But why did you not set yourself free earlier, by sending me the ring?”
“Because she was always saying that she would give a grand
entertainment at which I should serve as a slave while you should look
helplessly on; she seemed to take such delight in the notion that I
resolved to await the coming of this feast; it would furnish me with
an excellent opportunity of asserting my freedom and of giving her a
startling surprise.”
“You have certainly succeeded in doing that, my little wife.”
“_Am_ I your wife, Crispus?” said Vashti gravely. “Was not that
ceremony at Beth-tamar somewhat heathenish in character?”
“You speak truth, dearest. We must have the blessing of the Church on
our union. To-morrow we will set out for Jerusalem, where the good
bishop Simeon shall join our hands.”
At this point a centurion made his appearance with a message to the
effect that Titus desired the presence of Crispus and his lady.
Responding, though with considerable reluctance, to this summons, the
two repaired to the Ivory Hall, where they found Titus seated beside
Berenice with Josephus standing near.
“Be seated, noble Crispus and the lady Vashti.”
Titus spoke with genuine affability; as for Berenice her disdainful air
showed that the presence or the absence of the pair was a matter alike
of indifference to her.
“I have asked Josephus,” began Titus, when the centurion had withdrawn,
leaving the five together, “to tell me the meaning of the strange
business at Beth-tamar. He is very urgent that you also should be
present to hear him. Hence my sending for you.”
With that he nodded to the priest as a sign for him to proceed.
“It may be, sire,” began Josephus, “that what I have to say will give
sharp offense to one of my hearers.” Crispus guessed that Berenice was
meant. “Therefore, ere I begin, I must receive assurance from you that
the utterance shall not bring punishment upon the utterer.”
“Say what thou wilt; abuse me, if it please thee; thy tongue shalt have
free license to-night.”
Assured thus, Josephus began.
“I have but lately returned, O Cæsar, from a visit to Pontus, where it
was my fortune to meet with Zeno, the secretary of the royal Polemo,
and seemingly a man well acquainted with the secrets of the late king.
It is partly from this Zeno, and partly from my own knowledge, that I
derive the materials for the story I am about to relate.”
At the mention of the names Polemo and Zeno, Berenice, who had
hitherto betrayed a languid indifference, began to appear as if keenly
interested.
“Many years ago--twenty-three, to give the exact number--the Princess
Berenice, then in her twentieth year, married Polemo, king of Pontus,
who, after two years, repudiated her, for a reason the princess herself
knows.”
Here Josephus ceased speaking, checked by Berenice’s haughty and
indignant stare.
“Is it necessary to bring _my_ name into your narration?”
“Absolutely necessary.”
“Then I will tell you the reason of our separation. He did not
repudiate me; I left him of my own free will, left him because, prior
to our marriage, he, himself a proselyte, promised that he would do all
in his power to bring the people of Pontus over to Judaism. He failed
to redeem his word, however--nay, he actively thwarted my attempts at
proselytism, and so I left him.”
“Was there not a daughter born of this marriage?”
Berenice’s eyes flashed fire.
“I see plainly that your object is to prejudice me in the eyes of Titus
by recalling a deed of long ago. What I did then I do not now regret.”
“That is a strange thing to say of infanticide.”
Berenice gave a cold hard laugh that caused Vashti to shiver.
“The exposure of infants is a custom so common among Romans that Titus
will scarcely regard it as a great crime.”
“But _our_ law, princess, regards it as murder.”
“And I regard my deed as a justifiable one, for in destroying the body
of the infant I saved its soul. Polemo, who had seceded from Judaism,
and had grown to hate both me and my religion, swore that he would
bring up the child in his own Hellenic faith, and would teach it to
hate the religion of its mother. I resolved to save it from such fate,
and took the only possible way--I exposed it one winter’s night among
the snowy crags of Hermon.”
Vashti gave a faint little gasp--inaudible to Berenice--and her heart
almost ceased its beating. Not even when coming home on that dreadful
night to find Arad gone forever did she feel more horror than she
felt at this moment. To learn that she was the daughter of a woman so
unnatural as to expose her own child to death! to learn that it was her
own mother who had been pursuing her with a malignant aim! to learn
that she was a member of that Herodian house that had never ceased
persecuting Christianity from its very beginning! to know that her
mother was at that very moment living in open sin with the destroyer
of her country!--all this rushed with her blood, nearly causing her to
shriek aloud.
Josephus continued his narration.
“The loss of the child--for he had loved it as the apple of his
eye--threw Polemo into a fever, which, so it seems to me, crazed his
brain, for it left him animated by one passion only--a desire to be
revenged upon the woman who had wronged him.”
“Thou liest,” interjected Berenice, “for in due course of time, he and
I, as all men can testify, grew to be great friends.”
“You were deceived, princess. He masked his hatred under a smiling
guise the more effectually to conceal his purpose. Now, mark the result
of your deed! It is true that it was decreed in the councils of the
Most High that the city and the temple should perish, but the Most High
makes use of human instruments to work out His decrees; and yours,
princess, has been the hand that has wrought the ruin of Israel.”
There was in Josephus’ manner something so solemn and convincing, that
all Berenice’s hauteur and defiance vanished, leaving her nearly as
pale and trembling as the daughter that was as yet unknown to her.
“How mean you?” she faltered.
“It was our common religion, so Polemo erroneously argued, that had
destroyed his child; he would therefore destroy our religion.
“Nothing was dearer to you, so you had once said to him, than the holy
city, and the holy temple; he resolved to bring destruction both upon
that city and upon that temple.
“How could he effect it?
“There was but one way; the Jewish people must be goaded into war, a
war in which their capital must sink in flames.
“This is the key to Polemo’s frequent visits to Judæa; to his
friendship with successive procurators--Felix, Festus, Albinus. With
these, however, he failed to effect his purpose, but at last in Florus
he found the tool he wanted. While you, princess, were on one side of
that procurator, winning him to acts of clemency, Polemo was on the
other, urging him to deeds of blood; all the provocative acts of Florus
were due to the secret, the wicked policy of the Pontic king.”
These words caused a deepening of Vashti’s horror. To think that she
was the daughter of a king so coldblooded as deliberately to plan the
extirpation of a whole nation, and all, so it seemed, on her account!
At this point Titus intervened.
“This secret history is doubtless interesting, but what hath it to do
with Beth-tamar?”
“I am coming to it, O Cæsar. It chanced in course of time that the
Princess Berenice met my lord Crispus at a banquet at Antioch and
became enamored of him.”
Berenice gave a scornful laugh; but the statement was true, and her
laugh deceived no one. “Polemo suspected this. Now, he had already in
mind selected the son of his friend, Cestius the Legate, to be his
successor in the sovereignty of Pontus, and it did not suit his policy
that Berenice should marry Crispus, and thus again wear the crown that
she had once despised. He therefore resolved to thwart her aim. While
thinking how he might best succeed in this matter, he happened to
pay a visit to Jerusalem, and there, by a singular turn of destiny,
he saw one day in the temple-courts a maiden who immediately arrested
his attention from the marvelous resemblance she bore to his mother
Pythodoris in her youthful days. Avoiding the maiden herself, he made
inquiries of others, and learned that her name was Vashti, and that she
was the ward of him who now addresses you. He sought me out with eager
questionings, and I was forced to admit that the supposed daughter
of Hyrcanus was in reality a foundling, nor were proofs wanting to
convince him beyond all doubt that in Vashti he had found his daughter
Athenaïs, long supposed by him to be dead.”
A strange sound broke from Berenice; amazement caused her figure
to stiffen into a rigid attitude; for a few moments she sat thus,
motionless and wordless; then slowly, mechanically, she turned her
head and looked at Vashti. And of all the looks that Vashti had ever
received none frightened her more than this; it was a look without a
trace of maternal love--cold, disdainful, cruel; a look that said,
as plainly as words could say, that she would never acknowledge the
Nazarene apostate as a daughter of hers.
“Polemo, for reasons of his own, did not make himself known to his
daughter. Whether he now had any affection for her whom, as a babe,
he had idolized, it is hard to say; one thing became clear to him; he
saw in the daughter an instrument for the humiliation of the mother.
If he could persuade Crispus to marry Vashti, and to keep the matter
hidden from the world, the fond, enamored Berenice would be pursuing
Crispus for months in the vain endeavor to win him to her arms, while
he--Polemo--could look on in malicious enjoyment, as knowing that her
wiles were foredoomed to failure.
“Such was Polemo’s reason for keeping the wedding a secret--a reason
unknown to me at the time; I have learned it since from Zeno. Vashti,
too, was required to keep the matter hidden, even from her adopted
mother, Miriam. Vashti, being my ward, was compelled to take for
her husband the man of my choice, and though she long resisted the
notion of wedding a heathen Roman, I overcame her scruples at last by
persuading her that her intended bridegroom was far more virtuous than
many a Jew. She therefore accompanied me by night to Beth-tamar, not
knowing that he who presided over these nuptials was her father, not
knowing his name even, nor that she had been destined by him to wear
the crown of a queen.
“All this was to come upon her later as a delightful surprise.
“My story is all but finished. It was Polemo’s intention to stand
beside Berenice either upon Mount Olivet when the temple was burning,
or at some palace window in Rome when the triumphal procession was
sweeping past, carrying the sacred spoils of the temple--to stand
beside her and to tell her in fierce, exultant tones that all this was
_his_ work; he would watch her agony; she was to be the victim of his
laughter, of his mockery, of his scorn!
“But this supreme and thrilling moment of revenge--this triumph that he
had so long worked for, was not to be his; he died ere the day of his
vengeance came.
“Cæsar, my tale is said.”
There was a long silence in that chamber after Josephus had finished
his narration.
Titus looked at Berenice as if desiring her to say something.
The breast of that princess was the seat of a wild tumult of contending
passions, but among them there was neither pity nor love for her newly
found daughter.
“It seems,” said she, with a superbly disdainful air, “it seems, if the
story of Josephus be true, that I am to be presented with a daughter,
but I care not for the gift. I should be a hypocrite were I to feign
love where love is not. No; I cast her away in infancy that thereby I
might save her soul; by becoming a Nazarene she has chosen to destroy
her soul; let her still remain a castaway. Let her keep to her own path
as I shall keep to mine. I have no daughter; that is my answer to her.”
Vashti was willing for reconcilement, but this cold repudiation kept
her dumb. With divine pity in her eyes, she looked at her mother, and
sighed.
Crispus made reply for her.
“Since such is your decision,” said he, “we will not seek to change it.
Cæsar, I salute you. Come, Vashti, let us be going.”
As the two arose to depart, Titus walked over to them, as if not
willing that Berenice should hear what he had to say.
“My sire, Vespasian, knowing that you have been disappointed in the
expectation of the crown of Pontus, has offered you the thing that is
most like it--namely, the governorship of that province. Its people
will be delighted when they know that the wife of the new governor is
the granddaughter of the good queen Pythodoris.”
But Crispus had little desire for the honor; he would be more happy
with Vashti in his beautiful villa among the Sabine hills than in
presiding over the destinies of the Pontic people. While thinking thus,
however, he received from Vashti a wistful glance which seemed to be
urging him to accept the post.
“What, Vashti? Ambitious that I should sit in a curule chair?”
“Yes,” whispered she, “for if Crispus be ruler of Pontus there will
always be _one_ safe asylum for Christians.”
“You speak wisely, little woman,” replied he; and, turning to Titus, he
said, “Cæsar, I accept the post with all thankfulness.”
Berenice watched the two as they quitted the Ivory Hall.
She never saw them again!
After a brief visit to Jerusalem, where bishop Simeon joined the
hands of the pair, Crispus, accompanied by his bride, set out for his
province of Pontus, there to begin a long administration, whose wisdom
and justice were to win golden opinions from all men.
* * * * *
And Berenice?
The Roman senate and the Roman people soon made short work of her dream
of an imperial throne! Their anger at the thought of a Jewish empress
was so fiercely expressed that Titus, albeit with all reluctance, was
compelled to banish her from his presence.[40]
Scorned by the Romans because she came of the Jewish people; scorned by
the Jewish people because she had allied herself with a Roman; branded
with deserved infamy by the poet Juvenal;[41] eating out her heart over
the ignominious ending of her splendid ambition, Berenice passed into
a state of obscurity and oblivion, History failing to record the time,
the place, or the manner of her death.
NOTES
1 The Talmud.
2 Told by the heathen Plutarch in his _Cessation of Oracles_.
3 Josephus.--_Vita_ 2.
4 Acts xxv. 16.
5 Greek Anthology.--I. 77.
6 Acts xxiii. 14.
7 Flaccus, pro-Consul of Asia, for example.--CICERO. _Pro Flacco._
8 The ancient usage in the Jerusalem synagogues of anathematizing
Christ and the Christians is said by some to have originated,
not with Simeon, but with his father Gamaliel, a statement
scarcely reconcilable with Acts v. 38.
9 A saying of Simeon’s, according to the Talmud.
10 The Talmud.
11 Jos.--_Bell. Jud._ vi. 5, 3. Tac.--_Hist._ v. 13. Luke xxi. 11.
12 Zech. xi. 1 was, according to the Talmud, referred by Johanan
ben Zacchai to this mysterious opening of the temple doors.
13 Josephus.--_Bell. Jud._ ii. 15.
14 At this point Florus disappears from history, and therefore from
these pages. It is not known what became of him.
15 Acts xxiii. 3.
16 Josephus.--_Bell. Jud._ ii. 17, 9.
17 Josephus.--_Bell. Jud._ v. 9, 4.
18 Josephus.--_Bell. Jud._ ii. 19, 7.
19 So writes Hegesippus, an historian almost contemporary with
Bishop Simeon.
20 Josephus actually applies the Messianic prophecies to
Vespasian!--_Bell. Jud._ vi. 5, 4.
21 Tacitus.--_Hist._ ii. 78.
22 Tacitus.--_Hist._ iv. 81.
23 _Lucem caliganti reddidit mundo_--“he restored light to a dark
world,” was said of Vespasian.--Jortin--_Eccles. Hist._ i. 4.
24 Josephus.--_Bell. Jud._ vi. 5, 3.
25 It is singular that Josephus, who has described the siege in such
detail, should have omitted the ceremony of the Evocation, which
must have taken place, unless the Romans departed from all
precedent.
26 Josephus.--_Bell. Jud._ v. 9, 4.
27 Eusebius.--_Hist. Eccles._ iii. 12.
28 More than £5,000 in English currency.
29 Josephus.--_Bell. Jud._ v. 12.
30 Josephus.--_Bell. Jud._ v. 13, 7.
31 Josephus.--_Bell. Jud._ v. 31, 1.
32 Sulpicius Severus (Chron. xxx. 11), who is believed by competent
critics to be quoting from a lost portion of the History of Tacitus.
33 Josephus.--_Bell. Jud._ vi. 4, 3.
34 Dean Milman.--_Hist. of Jews._ Book xvi.
35 The Talmud.
36 Such is the statement of Epiphanius.
37 Such appears to be the belief of Renan.--_Antichrist_, xix.
38 Unfortunately for Crispus’ hopes, Domitian, on his accession, put
Flavius Clemens to death. The fate of the two sons is unknown.
39 This history, _De Judæis_, has unfortunately, not come down to us.
40 “Berenicem ab urbe dimisit invitus invitam.”--_Suet. in Tit._ vii.
41 _Satire_ vi. 156.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
Punctuation errors and printing mistakes such as obviously missing
letters have been silently fixed.
The following alterations have been made:
Chapter III: women to woman
Chapter IV: Jersusalem to Jerusalem
Chapter VI: Sicarri to Sicarii
Chapter XVIII: _enciente_ to _enceinte_
In the following passage the two *indicated* words were illegible,
transcriber’s best judgment has been applied:
Chapter V: (...) A Roman basilica presented an appearance very
similar to that of a modern parish church, consisting as it did of
a nave, and two aisles divided from it by a row of columns. At one
end a portion, elevated like a daïs and railed off like a chancel,
formed the _bema_ (the word had passed from the Greek into *the*
Syro-Chaldaic) or tribunal, where the judges sat *and* orators
pleaded.
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