Pilate's Wife: A Novel of the Roman Empire (36 page)

A
fter the trial nothing seemed to go right. Nothing that Pilate did met with the emperor's approval. Eventually we were recalled to Rome. There would be no further appointments. I did not need the sight to tell me that it was time for us to begin a new life somewhere else.

When a pleasant dream placed me again at my childhood home, I took it as a sign from Isis. Why not return to Monokos? Pilate, increasingly despondent, did not care where we went.

When we reached the town, we found it changed, no longer the small garrison where I had grown up. Too many people, too many chariots crowding the steep, narrow streets that hugged the hills. What could I have expected after so many years? The best of Monokos remains. The sea mist cool on my skin, the smell of salt and seaweed, the surf sounds at night. Sweet sensations that awaken ghosts of my loved ones,
Tata
and Mother, my beautiful sister with her laughing eyes, regal Agrippina, restless shades never far away.

What I could never have anticipated was finding Miriam here. I had heard rumors that she had been stoned to death in the streets of Jerusalem. Over the years I often prayed to Isis for her soul as I do for the many others lost to me. What a joy to discover my old friend alive and well.

Miriam has changed, her glorious hair flows white now. Many are drawn to the one they have come to call the Magdalene. She meets with them in the crumbling temple of some forgotten goddess and speaks of Jesus. Even Pilate sometimes attends her gatherings. Ironic as it may seem, he draws solace from their meetings. More surprising, he is accepted and forgiven by the faithful.

Discovering Miriam in Gaul has brought unexpected joy to these past years. Despite her great loss, she remains a lively companion. Miriam tells endless tales, most often about Jesus' resurrection. It seems that she returned again to the open tomb of Jesus, this time alone. A strange man awaited her there. He was a gardener, or perhaps an angel. Miriam is unsure about that as well. Sometimes she believes that it was Jesus himself, but instead of rushing to hold her, he insisted that she remain at a distance. It is hard for me to understand that, much less to believe it. But then, "What is truth?" as Pilate is so fond of asking. She is certain that he lives, that he awaits her in the kingdom of heaven. Where that is, I do not know; and Miriam, though certain of its existence, is vague about the location.

Strange to think of Pilate, Miriam, and me bound together in this far-off land, living out our final years in exile. Pilate is frail now, our fortunes greatly reduced. We will never return to Rome. Why would we? The political turmoil has only grown worse. True, Livia and Tiberius are dead. My old enemy, Caligula, reigned for a time as Caesar, just as my sight once told me he would. But he, too, is dead. Now Agrippina's grandson Nero, a worse tyrant if that is possible, has taken his place.

Nero has begun to persecute the followers of Jesus--Christians, they call themselves. I scarcely know what to make of this new cult. A father who sacrifices his own son? A king who dies a criminal's death? Followers of Peter. Followers of Paul. They fight noisily among themselves, arguing about obscure tenets. The one belief they can agree on is that the world is fast coming to an end. Very soon now Jesus will return to reward the faithful and punish the unbelievers with eternal damnation. That last part doesn't sound at all like the Jesus I remember; yet in anticipation of heaven, his followers give away their belongings. Working hard, pressing forward in the Roman way, has scant appeal to them. Their promised treasures are not of this world. No glory for
Pax Romana
in that!

It is easy to see how Nero is able make scapegoats of them. But his cruelties...Christians are crucified and burned alive, others fed to lions! I fear for Rachel, who has become one of them and lives now in Rome with Marcella and her family, but wonder why she and the others don't avoid those dreadful deaths by paying lip service to Nero while keeping secret their creed. Still, my sight tells me that the world will not forget the Christians' stubborn bravery. I see in them a true marriage of Yahweh and Isis--courage and conviction but also compassion and charity--and pray this sacred union will not be forgotten in later years.

The presence of my oldest granddaughter here in Monokos gives me great pleasure, a beautiful young woman so like her dear namesake, my mother. Selene and I share a special bond; I suspect she too has the sight. The inheritance I dreaded to find in Marcella may have passed instead to her daughter. I pray that it serves her better than it has me.

Selene has been especially kind this summer. I feel her glance often and look up to see her lovely eyes clouded with concern. Who knows, perhaps she sees my death. So be it! My life has been long and I have seen and done much. In these last years I have been a good wife to Pilate. I have no regrets, and if my days are numbered they only bring me that much closer to the one who has waited so long.

--Claudia, wife of Pontius Pilate
MONOKOS, IN THE FIFTH YEAR OF THE
REIGN OF NERO
(65
C.E
.)

F
ortuna was kind, blessing me with the inspiration and support of many. In the Stanford classrooms of Patrick Hunt and David Cherry the spark of a half-remembered sermon caught fire and took form.

Writer friends Kevin Arnold, Marlo Faulkner, Lucy Sanna, Nancy and Harold Farmer, Jim Spencer, Phyllis Butler, and Helen Bonner--most particularly Helen Bonner--read and reread draft after draft. Without their patience and creativity,
Pilate's Wife
would not have been.

Literary agent Irene Webb guided and encouraged me with wisdom and humor. My editors, first Renee Sedliar and then Claire Wachtel, were latter-day Ariadnes leading me through the labyrinth, their perceptive suggestions crucial.

You've achieved creative and financial success as a biographer profiling a wide variety of subjects. Why this sudden plunge into historical fiction?

It really isn't so sudden. A half-remembered sermon I heard as a teenager continues to tug at my imagination. The gist of that Easter homily was Pontius Pilate "washing his hands" of a difficult situation. Well, we've all done that! I was far more intrigued by a random reference to Pilate's visionary wife, Claudia. Who was this seer with a dream so powerful that she sought to change the course of history? Years later, a Stanford class in Roman culture brought it together. The project began in earnest in 1992.

Then why not a straight biography?

Pilate's Wife
began that way. First, six years in the classics department at Stanford studying the first-century worlds of Rome and Judaea. Then, steeped in the history, art, philosophy, literature, architecture, and mythology of the time, I visited the remains of Claudia's world in Rome, Turkey, Egypt, and the Holy Land. But the woman herself eluded me. For the first time, conventional biography felt constraining. Soon Claudia and I were on our own.

Is anything actually known of her?

Only that the name, Claudia, identifies her as a member of the Claudian dynasty--at that time the ruling family of Rome. Frank Slaughter, a historical novelist of the 1950s, wrote briefly of Pontius Pilate's wife. It was his plot device that she was Emperor Augustus's illegitimate granddaughter. Subsequent writers have embroidered on his conjecture, but I find it highly unlikely. If Claudia's connection to royalty were this close, Matthew would have referred to it in his gospel. All we know is that she was of the patrician class, and the ambitious knight, Pontius Pilate, was a social tier below her.

Do you think such a story--a novel of the first century--has relevancy today?

Very much so. This is a time of tremendous religious upheaval. People are either searching for new truths or frantically striving to nail down the old ones. The goddess movement, the extreme popularity of
The Da Vinci Code
, and the sudden "rediscovery" of Mary Magdalene are all indications of a groundswell need to challenge traditional views that are no longer satisfying.

Pilate's Wife
is a mosaic of the old-time religion--
really
old time. Interwoven with Claudia's story are the roots of Christianity. I hope readers will feel a strong connection to a cast of characters whose names and stories are so much a part of our culture. The high impact comes from the unexpected newness of the material.

Claudia is virtually your own creation, but many better-known historical figures play prominent roles in your novel: Tiberius, Livia, Germanicus, and--most significantly--Mary Magdalene and Jesus are major players. What about those characters?

The deeds and personalities of the Roman characters are a matter of public record. Social historians recorded their actions in writing literally as they were happening. The lives of Mary Magdalene and Jesus were immortalized initially through oral history and so are subject to interpretation and invariably controversy. A lesser-known but stubbornly persistent tradition maintains that the two had a physical as well as spiritual connection.

Do you believe this?

Yes, I do. Jesus and Mary were real people living in a real time. Evidence of their physical attachment endures today. Somehow their love evaded the warring factions of early Christianity, survived many political cuts, and made it into the Bible as we now know it. All that mouth kissing had to mean something!

Is love then the theme of
Pilate's Wife
?

To some extent. The love between Mary and Jesus is significant, the triangle involving Claudia, Pilate, and the gladiator Holtan central. But more important, I would call
Pilate's Wife
a saga of survival against all odds. The first century was a time of political intrigue, passionate family rivalries and alliances, assassinations, and unmatched social upheaval. Audacious and independent, Claudia is the ultimate survivor.

Isn't she also something of a mystic?

Yes, definitely. Her dreams had an uncanny way of coming true. Often she "saw" things,
real
things, fearful things, before they happened. In a time of goddess worship, when potions were sold to elicit love or death, a mystical thread lead the rebellious Claudia to the temple of Isis in Egypt, to Pompeii's Villa of Mysteries, and to the snake pit at Pergamon, where lost powers were thought to be restored.

Is spiritual feminism then also a theme...and where does that come from?

I'm an avid amateur anthropologist, fascinated by both archaeology and parapsychology. The conviction that spiritual connection comes through intuition rather than merely rational thought evolved in the course of profiling a series of renowned mediums such as Sylvia Browne, Anne Armstrong, and the late Betty Bethards. Like Claudia in
Pilate's Wife,
I'm a dreamer and keep a journal. Mine aren't as dramatic as hers, but they are sometimes prophetic.

Are you saying that this is a book that wrote itself?

Nothing that takes twelve years writes itself! There was a kind of magic, though, the thrill of discovering ancient shards that I could fit together into a grand mosaic of my own design--just like the ancient Romans did. As I slipped into another world, one by one the questions that were my reporter's stock and trade were answered. Slowly, almost shyly, Claudia revealed herself and allowed me to tell her story.