Emperor of Rome Read online

  Not being satisfied with the booty they plundered from the common people they then turned their attention to the priests and aristocracy, murdering all they could find and enriching themselves on their property. The morning after the storming of the Temple, eight and a half thousand bodies lay in the dawn light, untended in a sacrilege that had shown just how far this takeover of the city had got from religious principles. Ananus was murdered on the basis that he had been in contact with Vespasian, something that Vespasian knew all too well had not been the case, and a puppet high priest, who knew nothing of the rituals, was put in his place. An extreme form of the law was imposed, using the harshest interpretations of the Jewish Scriptures, and fear lay over the whole city whilst those who professed to be fighting in the Jewish god’s name enjoyed the power they had seized and conducted themselves in any way that they saw fit.

  In other words, the rebels were doing his job for him, and Vespasian could not help but feel that, for the time being, it was best to leave them to their own murderous devices. But, having said that, Jerusalem still defied Rome; at some point it would have to be broken and the Temple, that monumental symbol of their intolerant religion, would have to be razed to the ground. Vespasian felt it vital that it be shown that the invisible god of the Jews was not only invisible but also non-existent, seeing as it could not prevent the destruction of its people and its Temple.

  ‘What are your orders, sir?’ Placidus asked, bringing Vespasian out of his reverie.

  Vespasian looked again at the thousands of fleeing refugees from Gadara and felt no pity for them. ‘Kill all that do not wish to subject themselves to slavery. There is no mercy, not now; things have gone too far for that.’

  Placidus saluted and went to carry out his orders as Vespasian continued to gaze east, his hands resting on the ancient walls of Jericho, a town almost as old as Arbela where he had been imprisoned for two years over fifteen years ago. He thought of that time, living in the depths of that ancient city with no light, little food and less hope, and reflected that, even in the depths of the despair that he had wallowed in, he had been more attached to life than these people who were happy to throw their lives away for some god whose very existence was impossible to prove. At least, he reasoned, the fanatics who worship Yeshua, the Jew who had been crucified, like so many of his countrymen, had something tangible to believe in, since Yeshua had existed. Vespasian knew that for certain for it had been his brother, Sabinus, who had been in charge of crucifying the man, here in Judaea.

  No, it was time to bring this whole rebellion to a halt and crush the fanaticism out of the Jews; it was time to make them see sense and join the rest of humanity in respect for all gods and tolerance for those who worship differently from others. It was time, and Vespasian felt steeled by the thought after so long fighting a belief that he could not understand.

  He turned and walked along the ancient battlements of the town that had, firstly, refused entry to the fleeing rebels and then had, secondly, flung its gates open to the pursuing Romans in a sure sign that the tide of opinion in Judaea had turned in favour of Rome; the ordinary people had begun to turn their backs on the fanatics who had blighted their lives and brought ruin to their land. Yes, Jericho’s submission was an indication that it was finally time.

  They lined the west bank of the Jordan ten deep, caught between the river, swollen by unseasonal rain, and the blades of their pursuers. A great wail rose from them and many rent their clothes or tore at their hair for they saw the impossibility of crossing the usually placid river as a sign that their god had forsaken them. And, after all the atrocities that had been committed by the Jews in their god’s name, Vespasian was not surprised that he had deserted them – if that god existed in the first place, he mused, as he and his staff pulled their mounts up on a knoll to witness the final destruction of the last rebel force outside Jerusalem.

  Placidus did not waste time sending forward messengers in a futile attempt to parley; neither side expected that any more. Although outnumbered by more than three to one, Placidus showed no fear of what was a poorly armed and badly led rabble. To either side of the Roman formation, two alae of cavalry moved forward at the trot as the central infantry cohorts began a steady and silent advance formed in great blocks.

  Many of the trapped Jews, both male and female, fell to their knees beseeching their absent god for deliverance, but most controlled their anguish, drew their weapons and waited in grim expectation for what was to be visited upon them: death.

  And death was swift to find them. With fifty paces between the sides, the cavalry charged. Facing only a ramshackle line with hardly any long-reach weapons, the horses did not shy but carried their assault home. Both flanks of the Jewish line buckled and split asunder, allowing the mounted troopers to penetrate and then overwhelm them. Down fell many beneath the trampling hoofs of maddened horses; back the rest were pushed before the stabbing and slashing of swords from above as they suffered the inevitable fate of infantry overrun by cavalry. The centre began easing back as they felt their comrades to either side giving way, threatening to expose their flanks, as the Roman war machine bore down on them. In silence the cohorts marched, their measured steps threatening in their steady repetition, until, with the release of thousands of pila, hurtling low towards the foe, they broke into a run, shields in advance, and slammed as one into the broken frontage of the rebels. It could not even be called a fight, Vespasian thought with satisfaction as the Jews were propelled back with the shock of multiple impacts. But there was nowhere to go other than the river; its current surging and swift, it swallowed them whole. In they fell, those who had not perished to pila or blade, their long robes pulling them under as they struggled with unpractised strokes to stay afloat; but even those few who could swim floundered amongst the mass of bodies, dead and alive, packed so close in such a fast-moving stream. And the Romans stood on the bank and laughed as they hacked at those trying to wade out, forcing them back to certain death in a river already clogged with corpses but ever greedy for more.

  ‘That should do it, gentlemen,’ Vespasian said to his staff, and turned his horse, having seen enough. ‘When the Jordan disgorges all those bodies into the Dead Sea they’ll float there for days for all to see; that should focus their thoughts in Jerusalem. I’m returning to Caesarea; send out orders for all legions and all auxiliary cohorts, other than those on garrison duty, to assemble there by the full moon. And send a message to Mucianus in Antioch to ask whether he wants to be consulted, as well as to Tiberius Alexander in Egypt. And then, gentlemen, when we’re all gathered, we shall see what to do about Jerusalem.’

  ‘How did it go?’ Magnus asked through the steam as Vespasian walked into the hot room of the baths in the Governor’s palace overlooking the modern harbour of Caesarea.

  ‘I thought I might find you in here,’ Vespasian said, throwing a towel over the stone bench next to Magnus and sitting down; warm droplets of water dripped from the domed roof, decorated with an aquatic-themed mosaic of fierce sea creatures battling in a startlingly blue environment. ‘It was as expected: a futile waste of life, which, seeing as they seemed determined to die anyway, hopefully brought them some satisfaction; I was certainly pleased to see them dead. I’m told that Placidus managed to capture a couple of thousand alive so that should make us a little money.’

  ‘Not as much as a year ago seeing as you’ve been flooding the market with all the slaves you’ve been sending to Delos, and the same thing is happening in the West with all the Gallic captives after Vindex’s failed revolt a couple of months ago.’

  Vespasian wiped the sweat from his bald pate and contemplated the recent news from Gaul: Vindex, the Gallic Governor of Gallia Lugdunensis, had revolted against Nero’s tax policy and declared his support for Galba as emperor. But the rebellion had failed to take root and had been joined only by three of the sixty-four Gallic tribes. No other governor had supported him with their legions as it looked to be nothing more than a Gallic revolt with G
alba as an unlikely figurehead. Nero had responded by making preparations to travel north to confront the rebels and weep and then lead them in paeans of victory after his tears had melted their hearts; it had, however, been Lucius Verginius Rufus, the Governor of Germania Superior, who had spared the Empire from witnessing Nero’s novel military tactic by defeating Vindex, who had promptly committed suicide.

  What was uncertain, here in Judaea at the other end of the Empire, was Galba’s position, for news of him and his actions had only been sketchy. However, it had been rumoured that he had raised a second legion in addition to the one that was already under his command as a part of his province of Hispania Tarraconensis, and it had been further rumoured that he had named it the VII Galbiana, which in itself was a statement of intent. But more than that Vespasian did not know despite Caenis’ attempts to gather information.

  What was certain, though, was Magnus’ assertion that the price of slaves had tumbled because of the huge number of captives as a result of revolts at either end of the Empire; but Vespasian was sanguine about the result of market forces. ‘Well, that can’t be helped; and, anyway, it doesn’t bother me. Just because I’m getting thirty per cent less per individual, the fact that I’ve been selling in bulk means that overall I haven’t made any less than I would have expected.’

  ‘Fair point, if you look at it that way. Mind you, if you carry on like this, there won’t be a Jew left in Judaea.’

  ‘Would that be such a bad thing? We could settle the land with veterans or give some of it to reasonable people like Malichus and his Nabataean Arabs; we could make it governable again.’

  ‘And what about the Jews?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Well, there’ll still be thousands, hundreds of thousands of them alive throughout the Empire.’

  ‘But they’ll be slaves.’

  ‘Only the ones who you captured; not those living in the big Jewish communities of Alexandria, Antioch and Rome, to name but a few. Now, the way I see it is that to the Jews this country is sacred because they believe that their invisible god lives here and that they are his people. You take that away from them and what will happen? They’ll want it back; demand it back, knowing them.’

  ‘Well, they won’t get it back.’

  ‘Someday they might well get it back, you’ve seen for yourself just how stubborn they are; and then what will happen to all the other people that we settle here, Malichus and his Arabs? They’ll fight to keep what they see as now being theirs; that’s what’ll happen and then we’ll have another problem on our hands.’

  Vespasian let out a long sigh and, resting his elbows on his knees, hung his head, enjoying the heat as he contemplated what his friend had said. ‘I don’t know, Magnus,’ he said eventually. ‘And frankly, I don’t care because it’ll be somebody else’s problem. I’ve had more than my share of it and I’ve still got Jerusalem to deal with.’

  ‘And when are you going to do that?’

  ‘I don’t know at the moment, but I’ve summoned a council to debate the matter; it should convene in three days’ time.’

  ‘My instinct is not to rush into a full-scale siege of Jerusalem whilst they are still fighting each other; but, gentlemen, the problem is so complex and the stakes so high that I would appreciate the benefit of your opinions.’ Vespasian looked around the large, circular table set in the exact centre of a bright, airy room on the first floor of the Governor’s residence; tall, open windows with white marble surrounds looked out over the harbour, bristling with ships, with lighters and other small craft rowing between them, as beyond, the sea glistered in the afternoon glow of a hot August day. Curtains billowed, filled with the soft, warm breeze that flowed through the windows bringing with it the sounds and smells of the fish market lining the south quay, the civilian side of the harbour; to the northern side, the military half, the triremes that had brought Mucianus from Antioch and Tiberius Alexander from Alexandria bobbed at anchor amongst the many other vessels of war that were at Vespasian’s disposal.

  For a while, no one spoke as Vespasian studied each man in turn. The effete Mucianus, who, judging by his colourfully flamboyant dress, was, after eighteen months, adapting well to his post as Governor of Syria, tapped his finger on the table and glanced, rather too lingeringly, at Titus. Seated next to Titus was Tiberius Alexander, one of the three Jews in the room, although only two were accorded a place at the table; swarthy and ruggedly handsome with oiled black hair and beard, he did not look like a Roman prefect of Egypt, but this, Vespasian surmised, was the secret to holding in check that delicate province, so finely balanced between the Greek, Jewish and indigenous populations. Malichus, scratching at his bush of a beard with one hand and fanning himself with the other, sat next to the prefect with Herod Agrippa to his left; Vespasian had not wanted to invite the tetrarch for personal reasons but had been persuaded by Caenis to overcome his antipathy on the basis that Herod might prove useful in any negotiated settlement, in the unlikely event that one could be achieved. It was for that reason too that Yosef was present, standing next to the door; still a prisoner and still wearing his shackles, Yosef had been a source of good background information to the intelligence that Titus had gleaned from his various sources over the year. Vespasian had grown to like him, thinking of him as his pet Jew, and had decided to keep him rather than send him to Rome.

  And then there were the legates of the other two legions, Traianus and Vettulenus – Titus still being in command of the XV Apollinaris. Finally six auxiliary prefects, including Placidus, filled the other places around the table. It was, Vespasian mused, a meeting of the men with the most experience of Judaea and the Jews in the Empire; if they could not come up with sage counsel then no one could – but that was also a likely outcome, for who could say anything sensible about such a nonsensical land?

  ‘We should attack, Father,’ Titus said when it became apparent that no one was going to give their opinion before the general’s son and second in command. ‘They are weak and divided; my sources tell me that, ten days ago, the Idumaeans in the city rampaged through the lower town, killing everyone they could find. The people would surely join us and rise against the Zealots and Idumaeans if we attack.’

  ‘That is something that will never happen,’ Tiberius Alexander said with certainty. ‘No matter what wrong a Jew has been done by a fellow Jew, they will unite in the face of a Gentile enemy. If we lay siege to Jerusalem, we will be fighting almost the entire population.’

  ‘Almost?’ Vespasian asked, leaning forward.

  ‘There’ll always be a few who will see Rome as the answer to the problem of religious fanaticism; fair-minded businessmen from the better-off families in the main, but not more than a few.’

  ‘Then perhaps we should try to contact them. Herod Agrippa, do you have any way of getting messages in and out of the city?’

  Herod considered the matter for long enough to convey the complexity that doing such a favour would involve. Vespasian hid his exasperation by leaning back in his seat and admiring the graceful manoeuvrings of a trireme entering the harbour, hauling down its main- and foresail to dock using just its oars.

  ‘It may well be possible,’ Herod said, bringing Vespasian back from things nautical. ‘I have contacts with a few of what is left of the priestly and aristocratic families, although most of them have been murdered; I shall put my mind to who might be open to negotiation.’

  ‘That is very good of you,’ Vespasian said without a trace of irony. He turned back to Tiberius Alexander. ‘So, you say if we attack we will only succeed in uniting a divided people against us. That would be the height of folly when they appear to be doing so well at slaughtering each other without the loss of one Roman life; it would seem that we should let them get on with doing our work for us for a while. However, they cannot be allowed to defy Rome indefinitely; so the question is: for how long do we let them slaughter one another?’

  The prefect of Egypt did not need long to consider
the matter. ‘It’s now August; the Zealots and the Idumaeans have held the Temple and both the lower and upper towns for most of the year; if even our roughest estimates are correct, then with the number of people who have fled the city and the number who have been slaughtered, there cannot be more than a hundred thousand people left inside. The harvest is coming in now; throw a loose cordon around the city and start to deprive it of supplies.’

  ‘Not a full siege, just a blockade,’ Vespasian said, almost to himself, as he watched the trireme glide into dock and discharge mooring ropes. ‘Yes, as soon as word gets about that anyone taking produce into Jerusalem will have it commandeered by us the traffic will dry up very quickly and the city will begin to starve.’ Vespasian looked across to Yosef. ‘What will they do?’

  ‘The Zealots will ransack the city looking for supplies and keep them all for themselves,’ Yosef said, his chains clinking as he gesticulated. ‘They see themselves as doing the Lord’s work in defending the Temple from us and therefore have a right to be fed; whereas the common people are just there to obey the law as the Zealots interpret it.’

  ‘And what will the common people do when they start to starve?’

  ‘They will try to leave but the Zealots will prevent them from doing so.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘Their ideology is such that they cannot allow people to have free will. You see, everything is about their interpretation of our religion; if they say that the common people must starve so that they can eat and be strong to protect the Lord’s House, then it amounts to a religious command from God himself.’