But when a few weeks later the Centurion Longinus did sail into the harbor at Caesarea, Claudia had no longer a thought for the Galilean mystic and his reported wonder-working.
The centurion journeyed on a coastal vessel bound from Seleucia to Alexandria. He had sailed from Rome as soon as weather conditions permitted; from Seleucia he had moved on to Antioch to report to the Legate Vitellius. Returning a few days later, he had boarded another vessel destined for the Palestinian ports and Alexandria.
On coming ashore at Caesarea the centurion went first to the garrison headquarters and reported to Sergius Paulus. That duty completed, he visited the Procurator’s Palace, ostensibly to pay his respects to Pontius Pilate. The Procurator, polite but coldly formal, talked with him for only a moment before excusing himself and leaving the palace. Longinus, remarking about it to Claudia, wondered if the Procurator was finally becoming jealous.
“No, he isn’t jealous, by all the gods, and that makes me furious with him!” Claudia had answered. “But he may suspect that you’ve been spying on him and that Vitellius called you to Antioch to report on his administration of affairs in Judaea and then sent you to Rome to relay information and suggestions to Sejanus.”
“He would be entirely right, too, in thinking so. And you can add old Herod Antipas to my watched list.” He thought, with sudden amusement, of the third name on the list given him by Sejanus when first the Prefect sent him out to Palestine, but he did not comment. “And what I told the Prefect about both of them, for the Legate Vitellius and from my own observations, didn’t make them any more secure in their positions, by the gods!”
Quickly he related his experiences in Rome; he had met several times with Sejanus, once to discuss ways of increasing the output of the glassworks in Phoenicia. On another occasion the two had gone out to Capri for an audience with Tiberius. “The Emperor asked about his beloved stepdaughter,” he said, “but I professed to have little information about you. Sejanus also quizzed me—I’m sure he still suspects us—but he, too, learned nothing.”
“But what is going to happen, Longinus—about us, I mean—and when? Is there any likelihood still of Pilate’s being recalled ... soon?”
“Yes, I’d say there was. I know Sejanus is losing patience with Pilate; he seems to hear everything that happens out here, and Pilate’s inability to rule Judaea without continually provoking turmoil and protesting by the Jews angers the Prefect. The only thing that’s kept Pilate as Procurator this long, I suspect, is the fact that Sejanus apparently doesn’t suspect that Pilate is dipping too heavily into the taxes, if he is ... and I can’t say yet that he is. That was one question he kept coming back to in talking with me, if there was any evidence that the Procurator was not sending to Rome all the revenues he was supposed to.”
“Did the Prefect indicate that he might call Pilate to Rome for questioning?”
“I couldn’t say that he did. But if the Procurator should be ordered to the capital to justify his administration of Judaea, he won’t be returned, you can be sure. The same thing is true of Herod Antipas. I believe the Procurator and the Tetrarch stand in precarious positions; the next few months could determine the fate of both.”