CHAPTER 19

After two days of travel, we entered Jerusalem late in the afternoon on Sunday, five days before the Jewish celebration of Passover. As always, we entered in grand style. Pilate first, sitting erect on the back of a large white stallion, its harness trimmed with gold and silver. He wore a white tunic with maroon sleeves and the dark-green armor of a legionnaire. A sword glistened at his side. For occasions like this, he had found that the armor garnered more respect than the toga.

Our entire procession was designed to impress and intimidate. The captain of the provincial troops, a burly veteran of the wars in Germania, rode next to Pilate. Three thousand soldiers marched behind, lining the roads six abreast, their swords and shields polished, their sandals kicking up a small dust storm.

Procula and I rode behind them all, eating the dust with the other civil servants and the wagons weighed down with supplies. Hundreds of slaves brought up the rear. It wasn’t easy moving the capital of Judea for a week.

During our sixty-five-mile journey, we had passed a steady stream of Jewish pilgrims making their way to the Holy City. They traveled in small family units, fathers and children walking, mothers sometimes riding a mule or a donkey. They moved slowly, carrying cages with pigeons and pulling along sheep or goats. They would get off the road and stand aside as we passed, gawking at those of us on horses, sometimes averting their eyes when I looked at them. Some of the children waved. Procula and I waved back.

By the time we entered the gates of the city, the streets were bursting with pilgrims. Normally the city housed seventy-five thousand residents. During Passover week, according to our best estimates, the population swelled to nearly two hundred thousand. Add in a few hundred thousand animals, and it was easy to understand why Passover, with its frenetic slaughtering of animals and crowds teeming with patriotic and spiritual zeal, was Pilate’s least favorite week of the year.

The crowds made way as we marched through the center of the city. I was constantly mindful of the looks and murmurs of the Jewish inhabitants. We ended our march at the Praetorium, the fortresslike palace that Herod the Great had built on the western edge of the upper city. The western side was fortified by the wall of the city as well as an inner wall forty-five feet high with towers at regular intervals. On the north side, there were enormous white marble block towers topped with battlements. The Praetorium loomed over the city and was, by all accounts, impenetrable.

There were more than one hundred guest rooms in the palace and dozens of huge banquet halls built with rare stones and cedars from Lebanon. Elegant furniture and gold artifacts adorned the various rooms. Bronze statues, Corinthian pillars, and mosaic marble floors graced the large halls. The lush, green grounds of the palace contained gardens and ponds, patios and groves, with running water gushing out of marble statues.

Pilate hated the place. He couldn’t get over the odor drifting up from the city —the carcasses of animals, the sweaty masses of people, the smell of burning flesh from the animal sacrifices, and the grease from the tens of thousands of cooking fires. We would burn incense inside the palace all day long to cover the smell. We planned to stay until the day after Passover and not a minute longer.

The feast itself had ominous undertones. Passover was the Jews’ most sacred holiday, a celebration of Israel’s delivery from slavery in Egypt more than a thousand years earlier. On the last night before their release, an angel of the Lord had instructed Moses to have his people slaughter lambs —pure lambs without any blemish —and spread the blood on the doorposts of their homes. An angel of death, according to the Jewish legends, then killed all firstborn males of the Egyptian households but passed over the Israelites who had taken refuge under the blood. The next day, there was wailing in Egypt, and the Israelites went free.

As far as I was concerned, the story was pure myth, but the ramifications were real. This was the time of year when the Jewish people celebrated God’s victory over their oppressors. Throughout Judea, there were always murmurs of freedom and revolution. But this week, more than any other, brought those murmurs into the open.

The Passover ceremony incorporated symbolism of bloodshed, sacrifice, and rebellion. Young boys, at the end of the Passover meal, ran to the front doors of their homes to look for a prophet named Elijah, the forerunner to the Jewish Messiah. The Messiah, their long-awaited deliverer, would supposedly do to the Romans what Moses had done to the Egyptians. He would usher in a new golden age for Israel, bringing justice that flowed like a river and righteousness like a never-failing stream.

I was all for righteousness. And I had devoted my life to justice. But for obvious reasons, I wasn’t fond of the ancient Israelite prophecies that talked about the overthrow of Jewish oppressors.

“There have always been God-fearing Gentiles who are friends of Israel,” Joseph of Arimathea once told me. He was perpetually trying to get me to worship the God of the Jews. “Even some of the great leaders of Persia, during the time of Daniel, once worshiped our God.”

“I can handle the worship,” I quipped. “It’s the circumcision that makes me nervous.”

Joseph didn’t smile. He took his religion very seriously.

This year, the rumors had reached the Praetorium before we did. Another entourage had apparently arrived in Jerusalem prior to us. It was led by a man named Jesus, a miracle worker, riding on a donkey, his feet scraping the ground. The crowds had surged toward him, placing their cloaks and palm branches in his path.

Pilate’s Jewish sources reported the scene breathlessly. “People pressed in and shouted, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Women were crying. They held their children out to him, asking for a blessing.”

“Was he armed?” Pilate asked.

“No, Your Excellency.”

“Did he have any soldiers?”

“No, Your Excellency.”

“Was he giving speeches or inciting hatred for Rome?”

“He is not that kind of leader, sir.”

Pilate smirked. Perhaps he was replaying the scene in his mind. “And he was riding a donkey?”

“Exactly.”

Pilate dismissed the men and shook his head. “A donkey,” he said to me as if he couldn’t believe it. Pilate had fought in real battles against ruthless barbarians. Now it was his job to protect Rome from a commander who charged into town on a donkey.

“Let’s hit the baths,” Pilate said.

It sounded like a good idea to me.