"What madness to refuse an aqueduct! But everything Roman is hateful to the Jews. We are for them impure beings and our very presence is a profanity for them. You know they did not dare to enter the praetorium for fear of defiling themselves and that I had to hold court in an open air tribunal, upon that marble pavement that you so often trod. They fear us and despise us. Yet is not Rome the mother and the tutor of peoples who all, ike children, rest and smile at her venerable breast? Our eagles have carried peace and freedom to the limits of the known world. Seeing only friends in those we vanquish, we leave to conquered peoples and ensure their customs and their laws. Is it not only since Pompey conquered it that Syria, formerly torn apart by a multitude of warring kings, has begun to taste peace and plenty? And even when Rome could sell its benefits for gold, has it plundered the treasures that the temples of barbarians overflow with? Has it looted that of the Great Mother Goddess in Galatia, or that of Jupiter in Cappadocia and Cilicia, or that of the God of the Jews in Jerusalem? Antioch, Palmyra, Apamea have all been left alone despite their wealth, and, no longer afraid of the incursions of desert Arabs, raise temples to the genius of Rome and the divine Caesar. Only the Jews hate us and defy us. We have to wrest the tribute from them, and they stubbornly refuse to do military service."
"The Jews," replied Lamia, "are very attached to their ancient customs. They suspected you, for no good reason, I agree, of wanting to abolish their law and to change their habits. Let me tell you, Pontius, that you did not always act in a way designed to dispel their unfortunate error. You took pleasure, in spite of yourself, in fuelling their anxieties, and I saw you more than once fail to hide before them the contempt that their beliefs and religious ceremonies inspired in you. You particularly annoyed them by having the vestments and priestly adornments of the high priest in the Antonia Tower guarded by your legionaries. You must admit that, without having risen as we have to contemplate divinity, the Jews still celebrate mysteries that are venerable in their antiquity."
Pontius Pilate shrugged his shoulders:
"They do not," he said, "have exact knowledge of the nature of the gods. They worship Jupiter, but without giving him a name or face. They do not even venerate him in the form of a stone as certain peoples do in Asia. They know nothing of Apollo, Neptune, Mars, Pluto or of any goddess. I do believe however that they once adored Venus. For even today women offer doves as victims on the altar, and you know as I do that merchants with stalls under the temple's porticos sell pairs of these birds to be sacrificed. I was even told one day that a madman had knocked over the stalls of these merchants with their cages. The priests complained of it to me as a sacrilegious act. I think that that custom of sacrificing turtle doves was set up in honour of Venus. Why are you laughing, Lamia?"
"I'm laughing," said Lamia, "at an amusing idea that, I don't know how, has just gone through my mind. I dreamt that one day the Jove of the Jews might come to Rome to persecute you. Why not? Asia and Africa have already given us a great many gods. We have seen temples erected in Rome in honour of Isis and the barking jackal god Anubis. We find at crossroads and even in quarries the Good Mother goddess of the Syrians, carried by an ass. And did you not know that, in the princedom of Tiberius, a young knight passed himself off as the horned Jupiter of the Egyptians and obtained with this disguise the favours of an illustrious lady, too virtuous to hold anything back from the gods! Pray, Pontius, that the invisible God of the Jews does not disembark one day in Ostia!"
At the idea that a God could come from Judea, a brief smile slid over the stern face of the procurator. Then he solemnly made answer:
"How would the Jews impose their holy law on outsiders when they themselves tear one another apart to interpret that law? Split up into twenty rival sects, you've seen them, Lamia, holding their scrolls in public squares, insulting each other and pulling each other's beards. You've seen them, on the top step of the temple's crepidoma, ripping their grimy robes in grief around some wretch in a prophetic trance. They cannot imagine a peaceful argument, with a soul that's tranquil, about the numinous, which is veiled nevertheless and full of uncertainty. The nature of the immortal gods remains a mystery to us that we are unable to penetrate. I do however think it wise to believe in divine providence. But the Jews are devoid of philosophy and cannot tolerate a diversity of opinions. On the contrary, they judge to be worthy of the ultimate penalty those who express feelings on the subject of God at odds with what their law states about Him. And as, since they have been under Roman rule, the death sentences pronounced by their courts can only be carried out with the approval of the proconsul or the procurator they put constant pressure on Roman magistrates to support their lethal decrees. They assail the praetorium with their demands for capital punishment. A hundred times I've seen them, thronging round me, rich and poor, clinging to their priests, angrily laying siege to my ivory seat, pulling at the folds of my toga and the thongs of my sandals, clamouring for, demanding of me the death of some unfortunate whose crime I was unable to discern and whom I could only hold to be as mad as his accusers. What am I saying? A hundred times? It was every day, every hour of the day. And yet I had to implement their law as I did ours, since Rome had set me up not to destroy but to support their customs, and I had power to pardon or to punish over them. At first I tried to make them see reason, I strove to save their wretched victims from punishment. But this leniency on my part only annoyed them the more. They battened on their prey beating with their wings and pecking with their beaks like vultures. Their priests wrote to Caesar I was infringing their law, and their petitions, backed up by Vitellius, made me much frowned upon. How often the desire came to me to make, as the Greeks say, both the accused and their judges food for the crows! Don't think, Lamia, that I harbour feelings of rancour and senile rage against this people who got the better of all that was Roman and peaceable in me. But I can foresee all too well the drastic action that they will oblige us to take with them sooner or later. If we can't govern them, we'll have to destroy them. Do not doubt that, ever rebellious, hatching plots against us in their overheated souls, they will burst out one day with a fury next to which the wrath of the Numidians and the threat posed by the Parthians will be child's play. They nurture in the shadow crazy hopes and madly conspire at our downfall. How can it be otherwise, given they await, if their prophets are to be believed, a prince of their bloodline who will rule the world? We shall never overcome this people. They need to be obliterated. We need to raze Jerusalem to the ground. Perhaps, old as I am, it will be given to me to see the day when its walls will fall, when flames will devour its houses, when its inhabitants will be struck down by the sword and salt will be strewn where the Temple once stood. And on that day I shall at last be justified."
Lamia endeavoured to put the conversation back on a more even keel.
"Pontius," he said, "I can easily explain to you both your old resentments and your sinister premonitions. Certainly, what you knew of the character of Jews did them no favours. But I, who was curious about Jerusalem and mingled with the people, was able to discover in these men hidden virtues, which were kept concealed from you. I knew Jews full of gentleness, whose simple habits and faithful hearts reminded me of what our poets have to say about the old man of Ebalia. And your yourself, Pontius, saw beaten to death by the rods of legionaries simple men, who, without even saying their name, died for a cause they thought just. Such men do not deserve our contempt. I talk like this because it is fitting to keep measure and balance in all things. But I'll admit I never felt much sympathy for Jewish men. Jewish women, on the other hand, I liked a lot. I was young then, and Syrian women played havoc with my senses. Their red lips, their damp eyes, and their long gazes shining in the shade, struck me to the marrow of my bones. Made up and painted, and smelling of nard and myrrh, steeped in spices, their flesh is rare and delightful."
Pontius listened to these praises impatiently: