The Procurator of Judea

Produced by Michael Wooff
The Procurator of Judea
Anatole France (1844-1924)
Aelius Lamia, born in Italy of illustrious parents, had not yet put off the patrician's white toga with the purple stripe when he went to Athens to study philosophy there in the schools. He afterwards set up in Rome and, in his house in the Exquiliae, led the life of a voluptuary amid debauched youths. But, after having been accused of being in an illegitimate relationship with Lepida, the wife of a consul, Sulpicius Quirinus, and when he was found guilty, he was exiled by Tiberius Caesar. He was then in his twenty-fourth year. For the eighteen years his exile lasted he wandered over Syria, Palestine, Cappadocia and Armenia, staying for long periods in Antioch, Caesarea Maritima and Jerusalem. When, after the death of Tiberius, Caius Julius was raised to the imperial purple, Lamia was allowed to return to Rome. He even recovered a part of his wealth. His woes had made him wise.
He avoided all dealings with free-born women, did not intrigue for public office, kept away from marks of favour and lived hidden in his house in the Exquiliae. Putting into writing the noteworthy things he had seen in his far-off travels, he was creating, he said, from his past sufferings, a diversion for the hours he had these days at his disposal. In the midst of these serene labours, and while he was assiduously thinking on the works of Epicurus, he saw, with a modicum of surprise and a certain amount of sadness, old age creeping up on him. In his sixty-second year, tormented by a quite inconvenient cold, he went to take the waters at Baiae. This shore, formerly dear to common kingfishers, was at that time frequented by wealthy, pleasure-seeking Romans. For a week Lamia had been living alone and friendless in their brilliant company, when, one day, after dinner, feeling fit, he took it into his head to climb the hills which, covered with vines like devotees of Bacchus, overlook the waves of the sea.