Claudius the God (46 page)

In Parthia Bardanes had soon raised an important army, to which the Kings of Osroene and Adiabene contributed contingents, and marched against his brother Gotarzes, whose court was then at the city of Ecbatana in the country of the Medes. In a sudden surprise raid at the head, of a corps of dromedaries - he covered nearly 300 miles in two days - Bardanes drove the panic-stricken Gotarzes from the throne and presently received the horn age of all the subject kingdoms and cities of the Parthian Empire. The only exception was the city of Seleucia, on the River Tigris, which, revolting some seven years before, had obstinately maintained its independence ever since. It was extremely fortunate for us that Seleucia refused to acknowledge, Bardanes’s suzerainty, because Bardanes made it a matter of pride to besiege and capture it before turning his attention to more important matters, and Seleucia with its huge walls was no easy place to capture. Though Bardanes held Ctesiphon, the city on the opposite bank of the Tigris, he did not command the river itself, and the strong Seleucian fleet could introduce, supplies into the city, bought from friendly Arabian tribes on the western shore of the Persian gulf. So he wasted precious time on the Tigris, and Gotarzes, who had escaped to Bokhara, raised a new army there. The siege of Seleucia, continued from December until April, when Bardanes, hearing of Gotarzes’s new enterprises, raised it and marched northeast for 1,000 miles, through Parthia proper, to the province of Bactria where he eventually encountered Gotarzes. Bardanes’s forces were somewhat larger and better equipped than his brother’s, but the issue of the impending battle was doubtful, and Bardanes saw that even if he were the victor it was likely to be a Pyrrhic victory he would lose more men than he could afford. So when Gotarzes offered at the last moment to bargain with him, he consented. As a result of their conference Gotarzes. made a formal cession of his rights to the throne and in return Bardanes granted him his life, estates on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, and a yearly pension worthy of his rank. Meanwhile pressure was put on Seleucia by the King of Adiabene and other neighbouring rulers to surrender on terms; and by the middle of July Marsus at Antioch knew that Bardanes was now the undisputed sovereign of Parthia and was on his way west with an enormous army. He reported this to me at once, and another uncomfortable piece of news too, namely, that on the pretence of having been insulted and threatened by the Greek regiments stationed at. Caesarea, Herod had disarmed them and put them to work on ‘road-building and the repairing of the city defences. And this was not all - there had been secret drilling in the desert of large bodies of Jewish volunteers, under the command of members of Herod’s bodyguard. Marsus wrote: ‘In three months the fate of the Roman Empire in the East will be decided one way or the, other.’

I did all that I could do in the circumstances. I dispatched an immediate order to Eastern governors mobilizing all available forces. I also sent one division of the fleet to Egypt, to smother the Jewish rising that I expected in Alexandria, and another to Marsus at Antioch. I mobilized forces in Italy and the Tyrol. But nobody but Marsus and myself and my foreign minister Felix, in, whom I was forced to confide because he wrote my letters for me, knew what tremendous storm-clouds were blowing up from the East. And we were the only three who ever knew, because, by an extraordinary fate, the storm never burst at all.

I have no dramatic gift, like my brother Germanicus: I am merely an historian and no doubt most people would call me, in general, dull and prosy, but I have come to a point in my story where the record of bare facts unimproved by oratorical beauties should stir the wonder of my readers as greatly as they stirred me at the time. Let me first tell in what an exalted mood King Herod Agrippa came up from Jerusalem to Caesarea to the festival that had been prepared, there in honour of my birthday. He was nursing a secret pride so great that it almost choked him. The foundations of the great edifice that he had so long dreamed of raising, the Empire of the East, were grandly and firmly laid at last. He now had only to speak the word and the walls would (these are the words he used to his Queen Cypros) ‘shoot up white and splendid into the dark blue sky, the crystal roof would close over it, and lovely gardens and cool colonnades and lily-ponds would surround it, spreading out as far as the enraptured eye could reach. Inside all would be beryl and opal and sapphire and sardonyx and pure-gold and in the mighty Hall of Judgement would blaze a diamond throne, the throne of the Messiah, whom men had hitherto known as Herod Agrippa.’

He had already revealed himself, in secret, to the High Priest and the Sanhedrin, and they had all with one accord bowed themselves to the ground and glorified God and acknowledged him as the prophesied Messiah. He could now publicly reveal himself to the Jewish nation, and to the whole world. His word would go out: ‘The Day of Deliverance is at hand, saith the Anointed of the Lord. Let us break the yoke of the Ungodly.’ The Jews would rise as one man and cleanse the borders of Israel of the stranger and the infidel. There were now 200,000 Jews trained in the use of weapons in Herod’s dominions alone, and thousands more in Egypt, Syria, and the East; and the Jew fighting in the name of his God, as the history of the Maccabees had shown, is heroic to the point of madness. Never was there a better disciplined race. Nor were arms and armour wanting: Herod had added to the 70,000 suits of armour that he had found in Antipas’s treasury 200,000 more, besides those, that he had taken from the Greeks. The fortifications of Jerusalem were not complete, but in less than six months the city would be impregnable. Even after my order to cease work Herod had secretly continued hollowing out great store-chambers under the Temple and driving long tunnels under the walls to points more than a mile outside, so that if ever it came to a siege the garrison could make surprise sorties and attack an investing army from the rear.

He had concluded a secret alliance against Rome with all the neighbouring kingdoms and cities for hundreds of miles around. Only Phoenician Tyre and Sidon had rejected his advances, and that had troubled him because the Phoenicians were a seafaring people and their fleet was needed to protect his coasts; but now they too had joined him. A joint deputation from both cities had approached his chamberlain Blastus and, humbly told him that, faced with the necessity of having either Rome or the Jewish nation as their enemies, they had chosen the lesser evil and were now here to sue for his royal master’s friendship and forgiveness. Blastus had informed them of Herod’s terms, which eventually they accepted. To-day their formal submission would be made. Herod’s terms were that they should forswear Ashtaroth and their other deities, accept circumcision and swear perpetual obedience to the God of Israel, and to Herod the Anointed, his representative here on earth.

With that symbolic act would Herod initiate his reign of glory! He would mount on his throne, the rams’ horns would blow, and he would command his soldiers to bring before him that statue of the, God Augustus which had been set up in the market-place of the town, and my own statue which stood next to it (wearing a fresh garland to-day in honour of my birthday), and he would call out to the multitude: ‘Thus saith the Anointed of the Lord, hew Me in pieces all graven images that are found in My coasts, grind them to powder; for I am a jealous God.’ Then; with a hammer he would batter at Augustus’s statue and mine, would strike off our heads and lop off our limbs. The people would utter a great shout of joy and he would cry again: ‘Thus saith the Anointed of the Lord, 0 my children, the children of Shem, first-born of my servant Noah, cleanse ye this land of the stranger and the infidel, and let the habitations of Japhet be a prey unto you, for the hour of your deliverance is at hand.’ The news would sweep the country like a fire: ‘The Anointed has manifested himself and has, hewn the images of the Caesars asunder. Be joyful in the Lord. Let us defile the temples of the heathen, and lead our enemies captive;.The Jews would hear of it in Alexandria. They would rise 300,000 strong, and seize the city, massacring our small garrison there Bardanes would hear of it at Nineveh and march on Antioch and the kings of Commagene, Lesser Armenia, and Pontus would join forces with him on the Armenian border. Marsus with his, three regular battalions and his two regiments of Syrian Greeks would be overwhelmed. Moreover, Bardanes had pledged himself by an oath sworn in the Temple before the High Priest that if by Herod’s aid he won the throne from his brother (as he had now done) he would make a public acknowledgement of his debt to Herod by, sending him back all the Jews that could be found in;the whole Parthian Empire, together with their families, flocks, and possessions, and by swearing eternal friendship with the Jewish people. The scattered sheep of Israel would return at last to the fold. They would be as many in number as the sand, on the seashore. They would occupy the cities from which they had expelled the stranger, and the infidel, and they would be a united holy people as in the days of Moses, but ruled by a greater one than Moses, a more glorious one than Solomon, namely, by Herod, the Beloved, the Anointed of the Lord.

The festival in pretended honour of my birthday was to take place in the amphitheatre at Caesarea: and wild beasts and swordfighters and racing chariots were all ready for the performance that Herod never really intended to take place. The audience was composed partly of Syrian-Greeks, and partly of Jews. They occupied different parts of the amphitheatre. Herod’s throne was among his own subjects, and next to it were the seats reserved for distinguished visitors. There were no Romans present: they were all at Antioch celebrating my birthday under the presidency of Marsus. But ambassadors from Arabia were there, and the King of Iturea, and the delegation from Tyre and Sidon, and the mother and sons of the King of Adiabene, and Herod Pollio with his family. The spectators were protected against the fierce August sun by great awnings of white canvas, but over Herod’s throne, which was made of silver studded with turquoise,., the awnings were purple silk.

The audience flocked in and took their seats, waiting for Herod’s entrance. Trumpets sounded and presently he appeared at the southern. entrance with all his train and made a stately progress across the arena., The whole audience rose. He had on a royal robe of silver tissue worked over with polished silver roundels that flashed in the sun so brightly that it tried the eyes to look at him. On his head was a golden diadem twinkling with diamonds and in his hand a flashing silver sword. Beside him Cypros walked in royal purple, and behind her came his lovely little daughters dressed in white silk embroidered with arabesques and edged with purple and gold. Herod held his head high as he walked and smiled a kingly greeting to his, subjects. He reached his throne and mounted on it. King Herod Pollio, the ambassadors from Arabia, and the King of Iturea left their seats and came to the steps of the throne to greet him. They spoke in Hebrew: ‘O King, live for ever!’ But to the men of Tyre and Sidon this was not enough: they felt constrained to make amends for their discourteous treatment of him in the past. They grovelled before, him.

The leader of the Tyrian pleaded in tones of the profoundest humility: ‘Be merciful to us, Great; King, we repent of our ingratitude.’

And the leader of the Sidonians,: ‘Hitherto we have reverenced you as a man, but we must now acknowledge that you are superior to mortal nature.’

Herod answered: ‘You are forgiven, Sidon.’ The Tyrian exclaimed: ‘It is the voice of a God, not of a man.’

Herod answered: ‘Tyre, you are forgiven.’

He raised his hand to give the signal for the rams’ horns to blow, but suddenly let it drop again. For a bird had flown in from the gate by which he had himself entered and was fluttering here and there about the arena. The people watched it and shouts of surprise arose: ‘Look, an owl! An owl blinded by daylight.’

The owl perched on a guy-rope above Herod’s left shoulder. He turned and gazed up at it. And not until then did he remember the oath he had sworn at Alexandria thirteen years before in the presence of Alexander the Alabarch and Cypros and his children, the oath to honour the living God and keep. His laws so far as in him lay, and the curse that he had called upon himself if he ever wittingly blasphemed from hardness of heart. The first and greatest commandment-of God, as spoken through Moses, was: ‘THOU SHALT HAVE NONE OTHER GODS BUT ME’, but when the Tyrian had called him a God, had Herod torn his clothes and fallen on his face to avert Heaven’s jealous anger? No, he had smiled at the blasphemer and said, ‘Tyre, you are forgiven’, and the people standing about him had taken up the cry, ‘A God, not a man’. The owl was gazing down in his face. Herod turned pale. The owl hooted five times, then flapped its wings, flew up over the tiers’ of seats, and disappeared beyond.

Herod said to Cypros: ‘The owl that visited me in the prison yard at Misenum - the same owl,’ and then a fearful groan burst from his lips and he cried weakly to Helcias, his Master of Horse, successor to Silas: ‘Carry me out. I am ill. Let my brother the King of Chalcis take over from me the Presidency of the Games.’

Cypros clasped Herod to her: ‘Herod, my king and sweetheart, why do you groan? What ails you?’

Herod replied in a dreadful whisper: ‘The maggots are already in my flesh.’

He was carried out. The rams’ horns never blew. The statues were not brought into be broken. The Jewish soldiers posted outside the theatre, prepared to enter at Herod’s signal and begin the massacre of the Greeks, remained at their posts. The Games ended before they had begun. The Jewish multitude raised a great wailing and lamentation, tearing’ their clothes and throwing dust on their heads. The rumour went round that Herod was dying. He was in frightful pain, but he called his brother Herod, and Helcias, and Thaumastus, and the son of the High Priest, to his bedside at the Palace and said to them: ‘My friends, all is over now. In five days I shall be dead. I am luckier in this than my grandfather Herod: he lived eighteen months after the pain first fastened on him. I have no complaints to make. It has been a good life. I blame only myself for what has come upon me. For six days I was saluted by the elders of Israel as the Lord’s Anointed and on the seventh I foolishly allowed His name to be blasphemed without reproof. Though it was my will to enlarge His Kingdom, to the ends of the world, and purify it and bring back the lost tribes, and worship Him all the days of my life, yet because of this one sin I am rejected as my ancestor David was rejected for his sin against Uriah the Hittite. Now Jewry must wait another age until a holier Redeemer comes to accomplish what I have been proved unworthy to accomplish. Tell the confederate. kings that the key-stone has fallen from the arch, and that no help can come to them now from the Jewish nation. Tell them that I, Herod, am dying and that I charge them not to make war against Rome without me, because without me they are a rudderless boat, a headless spear, a broken arch. Helcias, see that no violence is done the Greeks. Call in the arms that have been distributed secretly to the Jews and lay them up in the Armoury at Caesarea Philippi, putting a strong guard over them. Give the Greeks back their arms and recall them to their ordinary duties. My servant Thaumastus, see that my debts are paid in full. My brother Herod, see that my dear wife Cypros and my daughters Drusilla and Mariamne come to no harm, and above all dissuade the nation from any folly. Greet the Jews of Alexandria in my name, and ask them to pardon me for having offered them such high hopes and then utterly disappointed them. Go now, and God be with you. I can speak no more.’