Claudius the God (48 page)

As for the Jewish hope of the Messiah, it was kindled again by one Theudas, a magician of Gilead, who gathered a great following during Fadus’s governorship and told them to follow him to the River Jordan, for he would part it as the, prophet Elisha had once done and lead them dry-shod across to take, possession of Jerusalem. Fadus sent a troop of cavalry across, charged the fanatical l crowd, captured Theudas and cut off his head. (There have been no subsequent pretenders to the title, though indeed the sect about which Herod wrote to me, the followers of Joshua ben Joseph, or Jesus, seems to have made considerable headway recently, even at Rome. Aulus Plautius’s wife was accused before me of having attended one of their love-feasts; but Aulus was in Britain and I hushed the affair up for his sake.) Fadus’s task was made difficult by a failure of the Palestinian harvest: Herod’s treasury was found to be nearly empty (and no wonder, the, way he spent his money), so there was no means of relieving the distress by buying corn from Egypt. However, he organized a relief committee among the Jews and money was found to get them through the winter; but then the harvest failed again, and if it had not been for the Queen-Mother of Adiabene, who gave her entire wealth to the purchase of corn from Egypt, hundreds of thousands of Jews must have died. The Jews viewed the famine as God’s vengeance on the whole nation for Herod’s sin. The second failure of the harvest was indeed not so much the fault of the weather as the fault of the Jewish farmers: they were so low-spirited that instead of sowing the seed-corn with which they had been supplied by Fadus’s successor (the son of Alexander the Alabarch, who had abandoned Judaism) they ate it or even left it to sprout in the sack. The Jews are an extraordinary race. Under the governorship of one Cumanus who came next there were great disturbances Cumanus was not a good choice; I am afraid, and his term of office began with a great disaster. Following Roman precedent, he had stationed a battalion of regulars in the Temple cloisters to keep order at the great Jewish Passover feast, and one of the soldiers who had a grudge against the Jews let down his breeches during the holiest part of the festival and exposed his privy members derisively to the worshippers, calling out: ‘Here, Jews, look this way!’ Here’s something worth seeing.’ That started a riot, and Cumanus was accused by the Jews of having ordered the soldier to make this provocative and very foolish display. He was naturally annoyed. He shouted to the crowd to be quiet and continue their festival in an orderly manner: but they grew more and more threatening. It seemed to Cumanus that a single battalion was not enough in the circumstances. To overawe the crowd he sent for the entire garrison: which in my opinion was a grave error of judgement. The streets of Jerusalem are very narrow and tortuous and were crowded with vast numbers of Jews who had come as usual from all over the world to celebrate the festival. The cry went up: ‘The soldiers are coming. Run for your lives!’ Everyone ran for his life. If anyone stumbled and fell he was trampled underfoot, and at street corners where two streams of fugitives met the pressure was so great from behind that thousands were crushed to death. The soldiers did not even draw their swords, but no less then 20,000 Jews were killed in the panic. The disaster was so overwhelming that the final day of the festival was not celebrated. Then as the crowd dispersed to its homes a, party of Galileans happened to overtake one of my own Egyptian stewards, who was travelling from Alexandria to Acre to collect some money due to me. He’ was doing some business of his own on the side and the Galileans robbed him of a very valuable casket of jewels. When Cumanus heard of this he took reprisals on the villages nearest the scene of the robbery (on the borders of Samaria and Judaea), disregarding the fact that the robbers were plainly Galilean, by their accents, and only passing through. He sent a party of soldiers to plunder the villages and arrest the leading citizens. They did so and one of the soldiers in plundering the houses came across a copy of the Laws of Moses. He waved it over his head and then began reading out an obscene parody of the sacred writings. The Jews screamed in horror at the blasphemy and’ rushed to take the parchment from him. But he ran away laughing, tearing the thing in pieces as he went and scattering them behind him. Feeling ran so high that when Cumanus heard the facts he was forced to execute the soldier as a warning to his comrades and as a sign of goodwill to the Jews.

A month or two later Galileans came up to Jerusalem to another festival and the inhabitants of a Samaritan village refused to let them pass, because of the previous trouble. The Galileans insisted on passing and in the ensuing fight several were killed. The survivors went to Cumanus for satisfaction, but he gave them none,. telling them that the Samaritans had a perfect right to forbid their passage through the village: why couldn’t they have gone round by the fields? The foolish Galileans called a famous bandit to their aid and revenged themselves on the Samaritans by plundering their villages with his aid. Cumanus armed the Samaritans and with four battalions of the Samaria garrison made a drive against the Galilean raiders and killed and captured a great number of them. Later, a delegation of Samaritans went. to the Governor of Syria and asked satisfaction from him against another party of Galilean whom they accused of setting fire to their villages. He came down to Samaria determined to end this business once and for all. He had the captured Galileans crucified and then went carefully into the origin of the disturbances. He found, that the Galileans had a right of way through Samaria and that Cumanus should have punished the Samaritans for the disturbances instead of. supporting them, and that his action in taking reprisals on Judaean and Samaritan villages for a robbery committed by Galileans was unjustified; and further, that the original breach of the peace, the indecent self-exposure of the soldier during the Passover Festival, had been countenanced by the colonel of the battalion, who had laughed loudly, and said that if the Jews did not like the sight they were not compelled to, look at it. By a careful sifting of evidence he also decided that the villages had been burned by the Samaritans themselves and that the compensation which they asked was many times more than the value of the property destroyed. Before the fire had been started all objects of value had been carefully removed from the houses. So he sent Cumanus, the colonel, the Samaritan, plaintiffs, and a number of Jewish witnesses to me at Rome, where. I tried them. The evidence was confiicting, but I eventually came to the same conclusion as the Governor. I exiled Cumanus to the Black Sea; ordered the Samaritan plaintiffs to be executed as liars and incendiaries; and had the colonel who laughed taken back to Jerusalem to be led through the streets of the city for public execration and then executed on. the scene of his crime - for I regard it as a crime when an officer whose duty it is to keep order at a religious festival deliberately inflames popular feeling and causes the death of 20,000 innocent people.

After Cumanus’s removal I remembered Herod’s advice: and sent Felix out as governor: that was three years ago and he, is still there, having a difficult time, because the country is in a most disturbed state and overrun with bandits. He has married the youngest of Herod’s daughters; she was previously married to the King of Homs, but left him. The other daughter married the son of Helcias. Herod Pollio is dead, and young Agrippa who governed Chalcis for four years after his uncle’s death I have now made King of Bashan.

At Alexandria there were fresh disturbances three years ago and a number of deaths. I inquired into the case at Rome and found that the Greeks had provoked the Jews once more by interrupting their religious ceremonies. I punished them accordingly.

So much, then, for the East, and perhaps it would now be as well to wind up my account of events in other parts of the Empire, so as to be able to concentrate on my main story, which centres now in Rome.

At about the same time as the Parthians sent to Rome for a king, so did the great German confederation over which Hermann had ruled, the Cheruscans. Hermann had been assassinated by members of his own family for trying to reign over a free people in a despotic manner, and a feud had then-started between the two principal assassins, his nephews, which led to a prolonged civil war and finally to the extinction of the whole Cheruscan royal house, with one single exception. This was Italicus, the son of Flavius, Hermann’s brother. Flavius remained loyal to Rome at the time that Hermann treacherously ambushed and massacred Varus’s three regiments, but had been killed by Hermann in battle some years after while serving under my brother Germanicus. Italicus was born at Rome and was enrolled in the Noble Order of Knights, as his father had been. He was a handsome and gifted young man and had been given a good Roman education, but foreseeing that he, might one day occupy the Cheruscan throne I had insisted on his learning the use of German weapons as well as Roman ones, and on his studying his native language and laws with close attention: members of my bodyguard were his tutors. They also taught him to drink-beer: a German prince who cannot drink pot for pot with his thegns is considered a weakling.

A Cheruscan delegation then came to Rome to ask for Italicus as their new king. They created a great stir in the Theatre on the first afternoon, of their arrival. None of them had even been in Rome before. They called on me at the Palace and were told that I was at the, Theatre, so they followed me there. A comedy of Plautus’s, The Truculent Man, was being played, and everyone was listening with the greatest attention. They were shown into the public seats, and not very good ones either, high up, almost out of earshot of the stage. As soon as they had settled down they looked about them and began asking in loud tones: ‘Are these honourable seats?’

The ushers whisperingly tried to assure them that they were.

‘Where’s Caesar sitting? Where are his chief thegns?’ they asked.

The ushers pointed down to the orchestra. ‘There’s Caesar. But he only sits down there because he’s slightly deaf. The seats you are in are really the most honourable seats. The higher, the more honourable, you know.’

‘Who are those dark-skinned men with jewelled caps, sitting quite-close to Caesar?’

‘Those are Parthian ambassadors.’

‘What’s Parthia?’

‘A great Empire in the East.’

‘Why are they sitting down there? Aren’t they honourable? Is it because of their colour?’

‘Oh no, they are very honourable,’ the ushers said. ‘But please don’t talk so loud.’

‘Then why are they sitting in such humble seats?’ the Germans persisted.

(‘Hush, hush!’ Quiet there, Barbarians, we can’t hear!’ and similar protests from the, crowd.)

‘Out of compliment to Caesar,’ the ushers lied. ‘They swear that if Caesar’s deafness forces him to occupy such a lowly seat, they won’t presume to sit any higher.’

‘And do you expect us to be outdone in courtesy by a miserable parcel of blackamoors?’ the Germans shouted indignantly. ‘Come on, brothers, down we go!’ The play was held up for five minutes as they forced their way down through the packed seats and fetched up triumphantly among the Vestal Virgins. Well, they meant no harm, and I greeted them honourably as they deserved and at dinner that night consented to let them have the king they wanted; II was, of course, very glad to be, able to do so.

I sent Italicus across the Rhine with an admonition that contrasted strangely with the one I had given Meherdates before I sent him across the Euphrates;, for the Parthians and; the Cheruscans are the two most dissimilar races, I suppose, that, you could find anywhere in the world. My words to Italicus were., these’

‘Italicus, remember that you have been called upon to rule over a free nation. You have been educated as a Roman and accustomed to Roman discipline. Be careful not to expect. as much from your fellow tribesmen as a Roman magistrate or general would expect from his subordinates. Germans can be persuaded but not forced. If a Roman commander says to a military subordinate: “Colonel, take so many men to such-and-such a place and there raise an earthwork so-and-so many paces long, thick, and high,’ he replies, “Very good, General’: off he goes without argument and the earthwork is raised within twenty-four hours. You can’t speak to a Cheruscan in that style. He’ll want to know precisely why you want the earthwork raised and against whom, and wouldn’t it be better to send someone else of less importance to perform this dishonourable task - earthworks are a sign of cowardice, he’ll argue - and what gifts will you bestow on him if he consents, of his own free will, to carry out your suggestion? The art of ruling your compatriots, my friend Italicus, is never to give them a downright order, but to express your wishes clearly, disguising them as mere advice of State policy. Let your thegns think that; they are doing you, a favour, and thus honouring themselves, by carrying out these wishes of their own free will. If there is an unpleasant or thankless task to. be done, make it a matter of rivalry between your thegns who shall have the honour of undertaking it, and, never fail to reward with gold bracelets and weapons services which at Rome would be regarded as routine duties. Above all, be patient and never lose your temper.’

So he went off in high hopes,.; as Meherdates had gone off, and was welcomed by a majority of the thegns, the ones who knew that they had no chance of succeeding to the vacant throne themselves, but were jealous of all native-born claimants. Italicus did not know the ins-and-outs of Cheruscan domestic politics and could, be counted on to behave with-reasonable impartiality. But there was a minority of men who thought themselves worthy of the throne themselves and these temporarily sank their differences to unite against Italicus. They expected that Italicus would soon make a mess of the government from ignorance, but he disappointed them by ruling remarkably well. They therefore went secretly round to the chiefs of allied tribes raising feeling against him as a Roman interloper. ‘The ancient liberty of Germany has departed,’ they lamented, ‘and the power of Rome is triumphant. Is there no native Cheruscan worthy of the throne, that the son of Flavius, the spy and traitor, should be permitted to usurp it?’ They raised a large patriotic army by this appeal. Italicus’s supporters, however, declared that Italicus had not usurped the throne, but had been offered it with the consent of a majority of the tribe; and that he was the only royal prince left and though born in Italy had studiously acquainted himself with the German language, customs, and weapons, and was ruling very justly; and that his father Flavius, far from being a traitor, had on the contrary sworn an oath of friendship with the Romans approved by the whole nation, including his brother Hermann, and unlike Hermann had not violated it. As for the ancient liberty of the Germans, that was hypocritical talk: the men who used it would think nothing of destroying the nation by renewed civil wars.