False God of Rome Read online

  ‘It’s the removal of the foreskin.’

  Vespasian looked at Yosef in disbelief. ‘I’ll never understand you Jews; do you seriously expect me to believe that to become righteous a man has to slice off his foreskin?’

  Yosef shrugged. ‘It’s God’s law.’

  ‘Well, you’re welcome to it if it makes you happy but stop trying to force it upon other people.’

  ‘We don’t, we only preach to our fellow Jews who’ve lapsed. Yeshua was quite clear upon that subject: we shouldn’t take the word of God to the Gentiles or even to the Samaritans who follow a heretical form of the Torah.’

  Vespasian grunted and walked on in silence, down towards the lower city, wondering why these people thought that they had an exclusive insight into the will of God to the extent that they could accept no one else’s point of view.

  Turning right, off the lower city’s riot-damaged main street, as the first rays of the sun hit the high-altitude clouds with an orange glow, Vespasian saw the centuries of auxiliaries forming up to the bawling of their centurions and optiones.

  ‘What a fucking shambles,’ Magnus declared as they passed by the ranks of the chain-mailed soldiers struggling to form a line in the semi-darkness, cursing one another as their oval shields became entangled with their neighbours’ javelins and enduring the savage swipes of their centurions’ vine-sticks.

  ‘This’ll be the first action that most of them have seen,’ Vespasian informed him, wondering whether they would have the discipline to work methodically through the quarter, rooting out the rioters.

  ‘And if they form a line like that it’ll be their last as well.’

  ‘Good morning, quaestor,’ Festus said as they came to the head of the first century. ‘The Jewish elders are waiting for you.’

  ‘Thank you, prefect, have them brought here.’ Vespasian peered down the street; in the dim light he could make out a substantial barricade about a hundred paces away.

  Three old men with bushy grey beards and wearing long white robes and black and white mantles shuffled forward. Vespasian looked them up and down hoping that he might get some sense out of at least one of them.

  ‘Who speaks for you?’ he asked.

  ‘I do, quaestor,’ the middle of the three replied, ‘my name is Menahem.’

  ‘So tell me, Menahem, what caused all this?’

  ‘A man preaching a heresy, quaestor.’

  ‘Shimon?’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I know of him. What could he have said that could justify all this destruction and killing?’

  ‘He has converted hundreds of our people to his way; they no longer follow our teaching.’

  ‘Ah, so that’s the problem, is it: you’re all scared of losing your influence?’

  ‘What he preaches is blasphemous.’

  ‘I thought that the teaching of Yeshua is for Jews to love each other and follow the Torah – what’s blasphemous about that?’

  Menahem’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘You are knowledgeable for a Gentile, quaestor. You’re right, there is nothing blasphemous about that; however, Shimon claims that Yeshua was the Messiah and the son of God. We cannot accept that.’

  ‘So you told your people to kill him and his followers.’

  ‘We didn’t tell them to do anything. There was an agitator in the crowd, someone we’d never seen before; he started it when Shimon made another even more blasphemous claim.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘That after Yeshua was executed he came back to life three days later as proof of the resurrection of the righteous.’

  ‘What nonsense. And you did nothing to try and restrain your people?’

  ‘After this claim the agitator addressed the crowd. He got them so worked up that they wouldn’t listen to us; he said that the shortage of grain and failure of the silphium was God’s judgement on us for listening to Yeshua’s lies.’

  ‘But that’s been failing for years.’

  Menahem shrugged. ‘They’re poor people made poorer by the failure of the crop and now can’t afford the high grain prices so they’re happy to blame any scapegoat. They threw themselves at Shimon’s supporters while the agitator urged them on, shouting that they should get the woman and her children who are always with Shimon. She escaped with the children while Shimon’s supporters held back our people, and since then there have been running battles in the streets as this agitator looks for them.’

  ‘And so now they’ve barricaded themselves into the Jewish Quarter until they find them, I suppose?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Menahem agreed sadly, looking towards the auxiliary centuries that had now managed to form up. ‘This man is a fanatic; he’s caused the deaths of a lot of our people already and a good few more will die before the day is out.’

  ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘He’s quite short with bow legs and has half an ear missing.’

  ‘Well, we should be able to recognise him from that. But tell me, Menahem, what has this man got against the woman and her children?’

  ‘He said that in order to purify God’s chosen people in Cyrene, so that He would make the silphium grow again, Yeshua’s bloodline must be wiped out; he claimed that they were Yeshua’s children.’

  CHAPTER VII

  THE SUN HAD burst over the horizon and there was now enough light to be able to see any ambushes that may be lurking up the narrow alleys to the left and the right of the barricaded road. Looking ahead to the barricade of overturned carts, barrels and broken-up furniture, Vespasian could see a mass of men behind it; a few heads peered over, back towards the Romans. The houses beyond them were more dilapidated than in the rest of the city, attesting to the poverty of the Jewish Quarter.

  ‘Order the advance, Festus,’ he called to the auxiliary prefect standing next to him at the head of the first century, formed up eight abreast.

  Magnus handed him an oval auxiliary shield. ‘I can’t believe that they’re going to be stupid enough to resist us.’

  ‘They’re desperate – since the silphium started to fail they’ve been getting poorer and poorer. Now they believe this liar who tells them that if they kill two children then all their woes will disappear as their god will restore the crop.’

  A cornu blared out four, deep, rumbling notes, and the signiferi of each century dipped their standards; the attack began.

  ‘Shields up!’ Festus shouted.

  Fifty paces from the barricade Vespasian heard the tell-tale hiss of a volley of arrows.

  Vespasian tightened his grip on his shield and hunched down behind it so that he could just see over its curved rim; he felt the auxiliary behind him raise his shield over his head and prayed that the man was experienced enough to hold it firm. An instant later came the staccato hammering of many iron-tipped arrows thumping into the leather-covered wooden roof above the century’s heads. A few screams from within the ranks confirmed the lesser effectiveness of the oval shields in forming a perfect cover and the inexperience of some of the auxiliaries holding them.

  The pounding of the soldiers’ hobnailed sandals striking the paving stones in step reverberated off the brick walls to either side and around the makeshift wooden box encasing them.

  ‘The fucking racing factions never shot arrows at us,’ Magnus grumbled loudly beside him as two barbs from a second volley slammed into his shield with a sudden, double, vibrating report.

  Vespasian felt the wind of a shot passing between the curved rims of his and Magnus’ shields; with a gurgled cry the auxiliary behind him collapsed to the ground, his shield striking Vespasian’s helmet with a ringing blow as he fell. He shook his head to clear it; a moment later he sensed another shield being thrust over him as the file behind closed up to seal the gap.

  With twenty paces to go a third volley buffeted the century.

  ‘Javelins ready; aim over the barricade,’ Festus shouted as the last shots pounded into them. ‘Shields down!’

  The auxiliaries hefted their
javelins overarm, ready to throw.

  ‘Release!’

  Seventy or so sleek missiles soared away from the advancing century, most clearing the top of the barricade, to rain down upon the unshielded defenders as they reloaded. Although not as heavy as a legionary pilum, the auxiliaries’ javelins crunched through unprotected chests and skulls and skewered arms and legs, hurling men to the ground with bursts of blood and howls of pain.

  A ragged volley of arrows followed without doing any damage to the advancing Romans.

  ‘Charge!’ Festus yelled over the screams of the wounded.

  Drawing their swords, the auxiliaries broke into a trot, hunched behind their shields held firm before them.

  Vespasian closed his eyes with the shock of impact as his shield crashed into the barricade; the auxiliary behind thrust his shield into his back pushing him forward as the weight of successive men down the file was added to the momentum. With a rasping of wood grating roughly over stone, the barricade shifted back a few feet, and then suddenly splintered apart as the century behind added their impetus to the heaving scrum. Gasping for breath, Vespasian was hurled forward among the flying debris of the disintegrating obstacle; his feet became entangled with a plank, sending him sprawling forward. He just managed to duck under the wild sword thrust of a bellowing defender and rammed the raised plume of his helmet into the man’s groin. Clattering to the ground, Vespasian felt the auxiliary behind him thrust his sword into the exposed chest of his screaming adversary as he stepped past to fill the gap that his fall had created.

  All around him Roman legs surged forward as he tried to regain his feet in among the chaos of the breakthrough. The yelling auxiliaries did not notice him in their eagerness to close with the poorly armed defenders, and his arms and legs suffered kicks and stampings before he was finally able to heave himself up and then move on to rejoin the surge.

  Clearing the shattered barricade, he kept moving forward and realised that the enemy must have fled under the onslaught. His thought was confirmed a moment later by the low boom of a cornu sounding ‘halt’.

  He pushed through the panting auxiliaries, up to the front of the first century where he found Festus looking at a dozen or so prisoners kneeling fearfully on the ground amid the bloody litter of their dead comrades.

  ‘Ah, quaestor, there you are,’ the prefect said, looking relieved to see him, ‘what do you want me to do with these? I was just about to have them executed.’

  ‘No, leave them alive, prefect; if the Jews see that we’re taking prisoners they might think it sensible to give up this ridiculous affair. Detail one of the less steady centuries to guard them and then let’s fan the other ones out through the quarter and get this over with. Let all the centurions know that from now on I want as little killing as possible, and no women or children are to be harmed under any circumstances.’

  As the first century moved deeper into the Jewish Quarter the scale of the killing became increasingly apparent; bodies lay everywhere either in groups marking the position of a fight or singly as if cut down in an attempt to escape. Most of them were male of varying ages but Vespasian saw a few women and children; however, none looked to him like the ones who had accompanied Shimon.

  Working their way methodically down the main street, with the other centuries taking parallel routes, they had managed to break up a few skirmishes and relieve some houses under siege, sending the beleaguered occupants to safety, taking scores of prisoners and killing the more persistent rioters of either side. As the morning wore on the combined efforts of the cohort were forcing the violence into a smaller and smaller area.

  ‘These Jews must fucking hate this new cult,’ Magnus said, kicking a hairy, severed forearm towards the body that had evidently once owned it. ‘I can’t understand it. Just think of the chaos we’d have if we spent our time fighting among ourselves about whether Mars should have a black bull sacrificed to him and Jupiter should have a white one or the other way round; we’d never get anything done.’

  Vespasian stepped to his left to avoid treading in the spilled intestines of a gutted youth. ‘And there would be a lot fewer of us. No one can take offence because they feel that their favoured god receives less respect than someone else’s when we give every god equal credence. And thank the gods, in equal measure, of course, that we do.’

  ‘Which leaves us free to conquer the world,’ Magnus chuckled as raucous shouting started to emanate from somewhere close by.

  ‘We’ve had our own share of civil wars, don’t forget; but they at least were political and I would suppose that it’s far easier to bridge a political divide than a religious one. According to Sabinus the Jews spend all their time squabbling with each other about religious doctrine, which is probably one reason why they never had an empire, thank the gods; imagine living in a world with this sort of religious intolerance? It would be…’

  ‘Intolerable?’

  ‘Precisely,’ Vespasian agreed, grinning as the main street turned a sharp corner and then opened out into the small agora that was at the heart of the Jewish Quarter.

  ‘Shit!’ Festus spat as the source of the shouting became obvious. ‘Centurion Regulus, have the century form line here and send a couple of runners to get the nearest two centuries to come and support us at the double.’

  ‘Sir!’ the primus pilus of the cohort barked, saluting smartly before turning to carry out his orders.

  Before them, just fifty paces away, was a crowd of at least four hundred rioters concentrating their attention on three houses at the far end of the agora, one of which had already started to burn. Black smoke swirled around the mob.

  The first century streamed in from the main street and formed up, with a clatter of hobnails, two deep across its entrance as the first of the rioters became aware of their presence. With a roar the rear elements of the crowd began to peel off and move towards the thin auxiliary line, brandishing swords, clubs and bows.

  Loud shouts from either side of him drew Vespasian’s attention; a century emerged from each of the two parallel streets and quickly formed up on either flank of the first century.

  The lead rioters stopped in their tracks, not wanting to engage with over two hundred armed and shielded soldiers, while those at the back pressed on, compacting the crowd as more and more of the men at the front refused to move forward.

  At a shouted order from Festus, a cornu sounded; with a resounding clash of swords on shields, the auxiliaries of the three centuries stamped their left legs forward, thrust their shields in front of them and pulled their blades back, to their right hips, angled slightly up, ready to do their deadly work.

  ‘They seem to be getting the hang of it,’ Magnus commented from behind his shield, surprised by the near unison of the manoeuvre.

  ‘Their blood’s up,’ Vespasian said, watching a short man push his way out of the crowd. ‘That looks like the agitator that Menahem described; he’s got a nerve showing himself.’

  ‘Who commands here?’ the man shouted at the Romans.

  ‘I do,’ Vespasian called back, stepping forward from the line but keeping his guard up.

  ‘Meet me in the centre,’ the man ordered, moving forward on his bow legs.

  ‘Why should I parley with you, Jew?’ Vespasian asked, disliking intensely the presumption of the man. ‘Tell your men to put down their weapons and then we’ll talk.’

  ‘Are you Titus Flavius Vespasianus, quaestor of this province?’

  ‘I am,’ Vespasian replied in surprise.

  ‘Well, quaestor, I suggest you talk to me,’ the man said flatly, stopping midway between the two sides.

  With the choice between meeting the Jew or fighting immediately, Vespasian walked forward, wondering what this little man with his imperious attitude could possibly have to say to quell the riots. ‘My name is Gaius Julius Paulus, a citizen of Rome,’ Paulus said. He pulled a scroll out of a bag hanging from his belt, with a self-important sneer. ‘I hold a commission from the High Priest in Je
rusalem, ratified in the name of the Emperor by Pilatus, the prefect of Judaea, and Flaccus, prefect of Egypt. It was also countersigned by your direct superior, Severus Severianus, the Governor of this province, when I visited him in Gortyna last month to ask permission to do my work in this province. Now will you parley?’

  Vespasian looked at the odiously smug little man; half his right ear was missing, confirming that he had been the agitator who had started the riot. ‘I don’t give a fuck who’s signed your little piece of papyrus, Jew,’ he snarled back, unable to control his aversion to him, ‘you’ve started three days of rioting and caused many deaths; I can’t imagine that anyone has given you authority to do that.’

  ‘I am charged to do everything necessary to stamp out the heresy promoted by Yeshua, which his followers call “The Way”. I am further charged with ensuring that all large communities of Jews understand that this new cult is unacceptable and will be the cause of misery for God’s people.’

  ‘Like the rubbish that you spread about it being responsible for the silphium failing?’

  Paulus looked at him slyly. ‘A lie becomes the truth if it gets the result that God wants.’

  ‘Show me that warrant.’

  Paulus thrust the scroll at Vespasian, who sheathed his sword and took it.

  ‘“I, Caiaphas, High Priest of the Jews,”’ Vespasian read aloud, ‘“loyal subject of the Emperor Tiberius, do authorise Gaius Julius Paulus to use whatever means necessary to eradicate the teachings of Yeshua bar Yosef which threaten the Emperor’s peace, both here in Judaea and in the Jewish communities around his dominions.”’ He glanced at the seals and signatures: Caiaphas, Pilatus, Flaccus and Severianus. He handed the scroll back.

  Paulus smiled complacently. ‘So you see, quaestor, I’m a very important man with powerful patrons. I’ve been successful in Caesarea and Alexandria and now I’m nearly done in Cyrene; when I’ve finished here I shall go back East.’

  ‘This does not give you the right to commit murder.’

  ‘This is not murder, it’s execution,’ Paulus replied, ‘and it’s a purely internal Jewish matter. I’ve already put the preacher, Shimon of Cyrene, to death and now in one of those houses behind me are Yeshua’s wife and his children; while they live they will carry on spreading his lies. So, quaestor, allow me to finish God’s will and then I’ll not trouble you any more, for I have work to do in Damascus where this abhorrent sect has also taken root.’