To the Death (6 page)

Overwhelmed, Neopolitanus turned to the Temple which joined the Antonia. “That looks like a city within a city”.

Crassus glanced sideways at his companion. “Covering three and a half acres, it is”, he replied, “as is the Antonia. But the Temple is best seen close up and not in uniform. Tomorrow I am off duty for a few hours; we can visit it then”.

“Delighted”, replied Neopolitanus, “but before we go to supper, tell me about the Antonia. From what little I have seen this place is as big as a small town”.

“You are right. It is virtually a town, but with fortifications like no town you have ever seen. In general design it is a massive tower with four other towers attached at each corner. Of these, three are seventy five feet high and the fourth - the one we are standing on - is one hundred and five feet high. Where it joins the Temple, stairs lead down to the colonnades giving our soldiers access at all times to the Temple's inner courts”.

Crassus pointed. “As you can see, fully armed Roman infantry are stationed along the tops of the walls surrounding the Temple and the colonnades. We always have a show of strength at festivals, to watch for any sign of discontent. The city is dominated by the Temple and the Temple by the Antonia. So the Antonia houses the guards of all three. The Upper City has a stronghold of its own, Herod's palace”.

The two men stood gazing at the crowded streets below them. Even at their great height the hum of voices was clearly audible. From time to time the men in the streets would hurl insults at the silent legionaries manning the walls, some of whom were chewing olives and spitting the stones into the crowd. Stoically they ignored the verbal abuse hurled at them.

The two Romans were on the point of leaving the tower when a remark particularly offensive and insulting to Rome was shouted at the silent guards. One of them could stand it no longer. He turned his back on the jeering mob, lifted his short skirt and hauled down his undergarments. Presenting the outraged Jews with his bare arse he blew them a monstrous fart. The Jews howled in fury at this insult and suddenly real trouble flared up.

Crassus groaned, “I must leave you”, and sped away pulling his helmet on as he dashed to the stair well. Neopolitanus followed him more slowly. This wasn't his fight, though if called on he and his men would reinforce the garrison troops.

Trumpets were sounding and the Antonia's soldiers were pouring out of their barracks, rapidly forming up on the parade ground. Neopolitanus noted with pride and satisfaction the order with which this was done. Every man in his armour, weapons in hand, standing calmly to attention awaiting their orders.

The fighting in the streets quickly boiled over on to the colonnades and the outer court of the Antonia. A full scale riot was getting under way.

Gallus and Metilius appeared on a balcony overlooking the parade ground in time to see Florus, mounted at the head of a squadron of heavy cavalry, order the gate to be opened. The procurator meant business. The fact that he was grossly outnumbered meant little to him. He knew that the mob outside were virtually unarmed. A few knives, staves and chunks of broken masonry were about to face a well-equipped, heavily armoured killing machine that seriously knew its business.

5

F
lorus'
cavalry cut through the densely packed streets which surrounded the Antonia like wire slicing cheese. Heavy infantry with locked shields and drawn swords followed closely behind. The angry crowds clogging the streets were virtually unarmed. Even so, they fought back with anything to hand, but to little purpose.

Any attempt to flee into less crowded streets was cut off by the cavalry that was now savagely working the edges of the crowd, slicing the tightly packed bodies like a butcher cutting salami.

As the enraged mob surged below the Antonia's walls, members of the Sicarii who had secretly infiltrated it seized the opportunity created by the panic and confusion to assassinate a number of prominent Jewish citizens. The men they murdered were killed for their moderate views, dubbed traitors because they had tried to run a civil administration that recognised Rome's authority. It was easy in the turbulence and confusion to take a blade which had been hidden in a sleeve and slip it between a man's ribs, the victim unable to identify his attacker, his shriek of pain inaudible above the pandemonium created by the roaring mob. His assassin would ease himself away from the scene, to lose himself in the crowd. Over a dozen Jews of high standing, men of authority and power, were murdered by the Sicarii during the riot which lasted half a day.

These murders were nothing compare to the
thirty thousand
Jewish citizens who died that day. Most crushed to death in the narrow streets in which Florus' men had penned them.

The Romans suffered no losses but about a hundred men were wounded, two of them seriously. One man had lost an eye and the other had a broken leg.

Florus didn't return to the Antonia. Instead he went to Herod's palace to further the next move in a plan he had conceived during the riot. What he had in mind, was a way of contriving a nationwide revolt. This would forestall any enquires into his own criminal behaviour.

The next day he had a dais erected on the marble veranda overlooking the palace courtyard, where he took his seat. Florus was a tall, heavily built man with reddish hair and pale almost colourless eyes. Dressed in a white toga of finely spun wool he lolled on a golden throne, a goblet of the same metal held loosely in one hand. In the other he held the ivory baton of his
Imperium
, the visible symbol that he was Caesar's legally appointed representative. He was Rome. The power of life and death was in his hands. Only a Roman citizen could appeal his judgement by asking to be sent to Caesar.

In front of the seated prefect, was a low table of marble inlaid with jewels forming an intricate design of flowers and birds - a gift to Herod from an Indian prince.

Florus was attended by a scribe and his staff officers, who stood in a discreet half circle around the seat of judgment.

Ranged along the tops of the palace walls, five hundred hand-picked soldiers armed with javelins stood virtually shoulder to shoulder, while the floor of the courtyard was encircled with a triple row of infantry armed with shields and swords. Several mounted cavalry were positioned strategically, resplendent in dress uniform, crimson capes fastened at the riders' shoulders, draping over their mounts' haunches. Plumed helmets burnished to a parade ground finish, added to the wearers' gravitas. Polished lances decorated with pennants were held at the rest position. This ceremonial cavalry was there as a reminder. The whole wing was standing by ready for action should they be required.

“Sir may the Jews enter?” asked an equerry.

Florus sipped the wine in his goblet and let his eyes travel round the court. Having checked that his men were in place he gave a barely perceived nod. The equerry signalled the men on the gate. The supplicants, who had been waiting in the hot sun for over four hours, could enter.

The first to come in were the chief priests wearing their ceremonial robes. They were led by Ananus. The priests prostrated themselves, before kneeling to address the procurator. Ananus was their spokesman. “Excellency, the whole city is in mourning, on this the eve of our greatest and most joyous celebration. Thousands of its people are dead. The weeping of widows fills the air.”

“Who” cut in Florus “do you blame for these deaths? Point them out to me and I will judge them.”

“Excellency, thousands of innocents were crushed to death as they fled the rioting” Ananus replied, carefully avoiding Florus' part in the massacre.

“I am sick of Jews rioting. I give you peace. You give me war. War that costs me dearly. Tell me, how do you propose recompensing me for the expense of defending the city from troublemakers who inflame the people, causing them to attack the authorities?”

The assembled deputies gasped at the way things were going and muttered amongst themselves. Ananus chewed his beard and said nothing, but his eyes burned with hatred.

“Answer me priest, when will you pay? I demand restitution for the expenses incurred in putting down Jews who riot against authority, who defy Rome.”

Slowly the High Priest stood up. “Excellency, I cannot decide in this matter, therefore let us ask Caesar for a judgement”. The silence that followed this was absolute. The High Priest had dared to question the procurator's judgment.

Florus, his face a mask, showed no emotion. He stared long and hard at the High Priest. Finally he burst out laughing, a mirthless bray that revealed to those who knew him the depths of his anger. He waved a hand carelessly to signal the audience was over. “High Priest, the Temple is fined thirteen talents of silver. I will debate with you no more. We shall look elsewhere for compensation. We have, however, noted before these witnesses, your refusal to redress the injury Jewish people have inflicted on Rome”.

Slowly, with downcast eyes, the High Priest and his entourage backed away. They left tearing their clothes and loudly lamenting their fate, while Florus gave orders that wagons guarded by several
cohorts
of heavy infantry and two wings of cavalry were to proceed immediately to collect the fortune he had just stolen.

He then returned to the business in hand. Earlier he had ordered that many of Jerusalem's most eminent citizens be arrested. While they were Jews, most were also citizens of Rome, many of Equestrian Rank. They had been held overnight to consider the proposition, that in exchange for their lives they could expiate their
crimes
by signing over their property and wealth to the State.

To help them in their deliberations he had one of them stretched over a slow burning charcoal fire, with orders that the fire was to be kept burning all night and the prisoner turned regularly and basted with oil to ensure an even roast. For many hours the prisoners, who had been kept without food or water, were forced to listen to the tormented man's desperate screams. As dawn approached the screams became a continuous low moan, finally falling silent as the sun rose on a new day. The fragrant smell of roast meat drifting through their cells, reminded the prisoners they had had no food for twenty four hours. Before being assembled for transportation to Herod's palace, they refused in horror the only breakfast offered to them.

These men were legally exempt from the Procurator's judgment. They all had the right to be tried by the Emperor. Florus however, had refused to acknowledge their right to petition Caesar.

As they knelt before Florus, a slave holding a bowl of water, a towel draped over one arm, came and stood slightly behind the Procurator's left shoulder. “Well, having slept on my offer of mercy what is your reply?”

Benjaman Sabinus, who had been elected spokesmen, rose to his feet - an action that caused Florus to frown, but he said nothing. “Excellency we deny the charges brought against us and regret the circumstances which cause you to believe otherwise. As we don't even know what it is we are accused of, we ask as is our right as citizens of Rome, to be sent to Caesar”.

“Traitors have no rights” Florus answered coldly standing up. This was a prearranged signal to the slave holding the bowl to come forward. He knelt at the Procurator's feet. Dipping his fingers into it Florus said “I wash my hands of you. We have offered you mercy and you spit in our face. Your treacherous Jewish stubbornness challenges our authority.” He picked up the towel without taking his eyes off the kneeling men. “Very well, so be it.” Turning away he said to the captain of the guard “Scourge them and then ask them if they have had second thoughts”.

The centurion could not help a slight involuntary gasp at these orders. The eyes of the soldiers lining the court and standing guard on the walls, widened in amazement. The staff officers in attendance on the dais sucked in their breaths. They couldn't meet each other's eyes. Florus had just ordered the impossible. Every citizen of Rome was entitled to a fair hearing before Caesar, just as every citizen of Rome was legally exempted from punishments that were considered to be degrading. Scourging and crucifixion were at the top of the list of such punishments.

Florus had ordered the scourging to be inflicted at once. A punishment that entailed the victim being stripped naked and fixed to a tripod, his entire body being lashed with a multi-stranded leather whip that had pieces of metal and shards of bone attached to the tips of the strands.

When the scourging was over, the centurion asked the barely conscious victims to reconsider their refusal to sign away their possessions. When the answer was no, he then produced the victim's death warrant, which had been pre-signed by the Procurator. Death was to be by the slowest, most painful way of dying man had ever devised. Crucifixion.

Of the dozen men Florus had scourged, six refused to sign and died in agony cursing the Procurator from the cross.

Meanwhile, Florus made arrangements for the property and wealth of the other six who had signed, to be transferred to him before sending them and their families into exile – on pain of death never again to set foot in the empire.

6

F
lorus
decided to stay on at the palace. Not only was it an ideal base from which to provoke the civilian population, it was a convenient point from which to manage the wealth and property he had extorted from the men he had scourged.