Authors: Daniel Levin

Tags: #Fiction, #Literary

The Last Ember (14 page)

BOOK: The Last Ember

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Jonathan moved down the wall. “And this name, Clemens.” He turned to Emili. “He was a Roman consul executed for treason.” Jonathan stood in front of the next name. “Epaphroditus, a publisher of politically provocative works. He, too, was executed in the last days of Titus’s reign.” Jonathan read another name. “
Beronike
.”

“As in
the
Berenice? The daughter of the last king of Jerusalem who became Emperor Titus’s mistress?”

“Certainly possible. Many historical sources say Titus abruptly ended his relationship with Berenice. Public opinion rejected her because Titus brought her as a war prize from Jerusalem, and only then fell in love with her. Racine even wrote a tragic opera about the ill-fated love between Berenice and Titus. She may have been executed here in the Colosseum with the others.” Jonathan stepped back from the wall. “The inscriptions all look contemporaneous, and written in the same script.”

“What do these names have in common?”

Jonathan stared at the wall.

“Spies,” he said after a moment. “They were all suspected spies in Titus’s palace.”

“Spies? You’re joking.”

“Take Aliterius,” Jonathan said, “the actor who used his political connections with Nero.”

“Using celebrity clout for political purposes doesn’t make someone a spy,” Emili said. “Or your Department of Homeland Security would have arrested half of Hollywood already.”

“Fair enough,” Jonathan agreed. “But there’s no record of this supposedly famous actor in
any
Roman sources other than in Josephus’s writings. And the word
aliterius
literally means ‘other,’ as in ‘alias’—or as they say in espionage operations, a ‘workname.’ Many historians think Aliterius was not an actor onstage, but in the theater of intelligence. He was executed shortly before Titus’s death.”

“And Berenice?” Emili asked. “You’re suggesting Titus suspected his own mistress of being a spy?”

“It would explain her sudden disappearance from the Roman history books, wouldn’t it?” Jonathan said. “Josephus repeatedly compliments Berenice, for her
paedia
. In the ancient world it meant ‘applied knowledge, ’ as in encyclo
pedia
. But he probably wasn’t just saying she was smart. Some historians suspect that the term meant ‘strategy,’ or even ‘espionage.’ In Homer, Odysseus is described as having
paedia
when he returns to Ithaca in disguise.”

Jonathan moved farther down the wall and stopped suddenly. “But I’m not even sure suspected espionage is the
real
connection among all these people.”

“Then what was?”

“Not what but who.”

Jonathan moved closer to the last name on the wall, which was etched in a larger font. “Joseph ben Matthias,” he said slowly, staring at the inscription. “They all had him in common.”

“Joseph ben Matthias? I have never heard of him.”

“Yes, you have, but only by the Romanized name he took after he was freed as a prisoner of war from Jerusalem. Joseph added the Roman suffix
‘-us’
when he became a Roman citizen. This man,” Jonathan pointed at the wall, “was Flavius Josephus.”

“You’re saying
Josephus
knew everyone in this room?”

Jonathan walked back to the other end of the carved rock wall. “Aliterius secured private audiences for Josephus with Emperor Nero before Rome’s war with Jerusalem.” He stepped down the wall as if it were a blackboard. “Berenice did the same, giving Josephus access to Titus and his social circle.”

“And Clemens?”

“The lawyer who defended Josephus against allegations of spying on Rome.”

“And Epaphroditus?”

“His publisher. Josephus even dedicated his last book to him.”

“But why would Titus have killed all those in his court who knew Josephus,
unless
—” She stopped and turned to him slowly. “Your graduate work, Jon,” she said. “I remember your research on Flavius Josephus—you suggested he was a spy in Titus’s palace.”

“Emili”—Jonathan raised his hands—“I never proved it. Every scholar to study Josephus in the last five hundred years concluded he
was
a traitor to Jerusalem and loyal to Titus.”

“Every scholar except you. Back then you didn’t care if your thesis contradicted five hundred years of Josephus scholarship. You kept us all riveted—Sharif, Gianpaolo, and me—sharing your research at the Thermopolium.”

The Thermopolium. Just hearing the name brought Jonathan back to the local bar near the academy. He could see the four of them sitting at a corner table beneath a nineteenth-century portrait of a battle-dressed Garibaldi and drinking the bar’s more controversial tribute to his 1859 rebellion against Vatican rule, a cocktail of tomato juice and vodka, still known as “Pope’s Blood.”

Jonathan remembered Sharif pointing at the pages of Jonathan’s doctoral thesis that lay on the knotted-wood table. “This is the theory you’ve been keeping from us?” he said. “This is the idea you’ve been guarding like the walls of Ilium?”

“Have you any idea what you’re suggesting?” Gianpaolo asked in his heavy Italian accent. “Josephus is known to everyone as the greatest traitor of the ancient world.”

“And you’re suggesting it’s all a front,” Emili said, leaning forward, her “And you’re suggesting it’s all a front,” Emili said, leaning forward, her tone less skeptical than the others’. “An intelligence operation so successful, scholars remain in the dark even to this day.”

“Jon, historians for nearly a thousand years have viewed Josephus’s defection to the Romans as an open-and-shut case,” Sharif added.

“And it is,” Jonathan agreed. “Unless he was running an espionage network inside Rome after Jerusalem’s fall, for which the role of sycophantic court historian was the perfect cover.”

“Let me get this straight,” Sharif said. “You’re saying Josephus wrote flattering histories of Titus as a front to operate in Rome as a double agent? Isn’t that a little far-fetched?”

“It would be, except Josephus’s autobiography supports it. He isn’t new to the espionage game. Josephus used the unusual Greek word
kataskopos
to describe himself in his writing. It means ‘diplomat,’ but it also means ‘spy.’ ”

“But your theory has a problem,” Gianpaolo argued. “How do you explain Josephus’s capture by the Romans?”

“You’re not suggesting he arranged that,” Sharif said, putting down his glass of tomato juice. He had mentioned his religious restrictions to the bartender only once, and the elderly man provided him nonalcoholic versions without Sharif’s ever having to ask again. “That operation would have taken years to plan.”

“And it did. It’s all recorded in Josephus’s writings . . . if you know how to read them. Remember that before Jerusalem declared an open rebellion against Roman rule, Josephus argued that the Temple would have no chance of surviving a siege by the Roman army. Why, then, after Jerusalem declared war, did Josephus suddenly volunteer to command troops in northern Israel directly in the path of General Vespasian’s troops? Sounds inconsistent, doesn’t it? He had no military experience whatsoever. His men would not stand a chance against Rome.”

“So you’re saying he was vying to get taken prisoner before the Romans reached Jerusalem?” Emili said.

“Exactly, and he had a strategy to do it. Only, it didn’t go quite as planned. Once Josephus and his troops arrived in northern Israel, he convinced the local council of elders of the Galilee to authorize the locals to plunder the Roman governor’s summer home for supplies. Josephus knew the plundering would bait Vespasian’s troops, bringing the Romans to their doorstep. So he told the elders to wait for his signal before authorizing the locals to plunder. Josephus needed time to ride out far enough in front of his troops so that he would be surrounded by the Romans alone.

“So what went wrong?” Gianpaolo asked hurriedly.

“The locals got greedy and, tempted by the supplies, sacked the governor’s house before Josephus’s signaled. Josephus panicked, and ordered all looting to stop immediately. He tried to prevent news of the premature plundering from reaching Vespasian, but it was too late, the bait was cast. Vespasian’s troops came thundering toward them and surrounded Josephus along with his men. In a scene dramatized countless times over the ages, Josephus’s men chose death in a cave in Galilee rather than capture. But Josephus, in a decision that chills most historians, turned himself over to the Romans.”

“If you’re right,” Emili said, “imagine his guilt, watching his men kill themselves one by one. By the time the Romans recovered Josephus in that cave, he must have been literally covered in the blood of their mass suicide.”

“That’s right, the operation was nearly blown at the start. But as planned, Josephus was still imprisoned and eventually recruited to become a personal translator to General Vespasian and his son, Titus. At that moment, the heart of his mission took effect. He had earned a position of trust that no military conquest could buy. He was inside the Roman tent, knowing the precise movements of the Roman siege of Jerusalem. In a way, Josephus was merely proving his favorite proverb, used in Book Five of
The Jewish War.
‘Those who shine in physical combat can accomplish as much by intelligence.’ And remember the Greek word he used for intelligence, Sharif.
Yperisia
doesn’t mean ‘brains,’ it means ‘espionage.’ It’s the very word used today in Greece’s intelligence service.”

“But if it was all a setup to get Josephus inside the Roman war machine,” Sharif asked, “why not attempt to save Jerusalem?”

“Because her destruction was a fait accompli,” Jonathan said. “With fifty thousand Roman legionnaires surrounding the Temple walls, Josephus knew the city would be razed. But what if there was something else he could protect? A piece of information that, at all costs, he must transmit to future generations. Information that—to some extent—was just as precious as Herod’s Temple itself.”

“Then he must put it in a document he knows will survive,” Emili said.

“A flattering history of the Roman emperor, for example,” Gianpaolo suggested.

“Bingo,” Jonathan said. “Josephus knew Titus obsessed over erasing any version of the past inconsistent with his own. So he knew he had to secretly communicate a truth through a flattering historical account of the emperor.”

Jonathan sat back. “Flavius Josephus may have been Jerusalem’s most successful operative until the Mossad.”

Jonathan?” Emili said inside the Colosseum’s tunnel. She shone her flashlight at him. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Jonathan said, reorienting himself. He wiped the tunnel’s dripping water from his lapel and tie. The damp air beneath the Colosseum seemed colder than it had been a moment before.

“At the academy you called it the greatest intelligence operation of the ancient world,” Emili marveled. Her flashlight trained back to the wall, following each name as though decoding an Egyptian hieroglyph. “And all of these people may have been part of it. A spy network revolving around an ancient historian
inside
Titus’s palace.”

“I never proved the theory.”

“These names could prove it for you, Jon.” She turned to him. “Although, if Titus discovered Josephus and killed anyone who helped him—and it seems that’s exactly what he did—then why isn’t Josephus’s mission common historical knowledge?”

“Well, that was the genius of Josephus’s plan,” Jonathan said. “By the time Titus discovered him, Josephus had already penned countless pages of history lionizing the emperor. Titus could never publicize Josephus’s betrayal without calling into question the truth of his historical accounts.”

“So he turned Titus’s obsession with history against him.”

“Right, and whatever information he might have smuggled into the text, he knew the emperor would protect for all time.” Jonathan stopped, catching himself. “But like I said, it was just a
theory
. My research never should have gone as far as it did. Even if Josephus’s treason was all a setup, my theory never established a
motive
. Why create an espionage network
after
Jerusalem had fallen? The Temple was already burned, Jerusalem was a plundered ruin. What was left to save?”

“Something powerful enough to make a man like Josephus forsake his reputation for all time,” Emili said, gesturing at the walls around her. “Something to make an actor risk his fame, a publisher his legacy, and a mistress the comforts of palace life—all under the nose of the Roman
frumentarii,
the most ruthless secret police in the ancient world. Whatever it was they saved was more important than we can possibly imagine.”

Emili crossed to the far side of the cavern and lifted a black tarpaulin off the wall. “Take a look at this. This excavation happened only a few days ago.”

Jonathan could smell the freshly excavated dirt. He pulled the tarp back as cautiously as stripping back the bandage of a wound.

Jonathan and Emili stared at an ancient relief chiseled directly into the wall’s stone. It was the carving of a tree with seven branches, framed by white uneven stones. In place of some tiles, there was shaved animal bone. Not the quality of polychrome mosaic tiles for an aristocrat’s portico, but remarkable for being created by prisoners trapped in the Colosseum.

“It’s exquisite,” Emili said.

With her preservationist’s eye, Emili could detect that the surface had been recently damaged with a highly concentrated acidic compound. “Some of these tiles were dissolved with nitric acid.”

Jonathan leaned in. “Below the relief, there’s an inscription in a mix of ancient Hebraic script and Latin.”