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.
having reached the summit, he sat down at the side of a path beneath a terebinth, and allowed his gaze to wander over the beautiful landscape. on his left the phlegraean fields, pallid and bare, stretched out as far as the ruins of cumae. on his right cape misenus dug its sharp spur into the tyrrhenian sea. at his feet, to the west, the rich town of baiae, hugging the shoreline's graceful curve, displayed its gardens, its villas peopled with statues, its porticos and its marble terraces on the edge of the blue sea in which dolphins played. in front of him, on the other side of the gulf, on the campanian coast, gilded by the sun that was already low in the sky, shone the temples, crowned by the bay trees of the pausilipon, and, on the far horizon, vesuvius spluttered and laughed.
lamia pulled from a fold of his toga a roll containing the treatise on nature of epicurus, stretched out on the ground and started to read. but the cries of a slave warned him to get up to make way for a litter that was coming up the narrow path through the vines. as the open litter came nearer, lamia saw, stretched out on the cushions, a hugely fat old man who, head in hand, looked out with an eye both sombre and proud. his aquiline nose came down to his lips, made tight by a prominent chin and powerful jaws.
right away, lamia was sure he knew that face. he hesitated though for a moment in putting a name to it. then he all of a sudden rushed to the litter in a transport of surprise and joy:
"pontius pilate!" he exclaimed. "gods be praised. it has been given to me to see you again!"
the old man motioned to the slaves to stop and focused his attention on the man now greeting him.
"pontius, my dear host," the latter continued. "have twenty years sufficed to make my hair white enough and my cheeks sunken enough for you to no longer recognize your friend aelius lamia?"
on hearing this name, pontius pilate got down from the litter in as sprightly a manner as the weariness due to his age and the gravity of his bearing allowed him. and he twice hugged aelius lamia.
"it's certainly good to see you again," he said. "alas, you remind me of the old days, when i was procurator of judea in the province of syria. i saw you for the first time thirty years ago. it was in caesarea where you came to drag out the vexations of your exile. i was quite happy to mitigate them somewhat, and you, out of friendship, lamia, followed me to that sad jerusalem where the jews filled me to the brim with bitterness and disgust. you stayed as my guest and my companion for more than ten years, and we both of us, talking of rome, consoled ourselves, you for your misfortunes, me for my promotions."
lamia again embraced him.
"that's not all, pontius. you fail to recall that you used in my favour your credit with herod antipas and opened your purse to me liberally."
"don't even mention it," pontius replied, "since, when you were back in rome, you sent me by one of your freed men a sum of money that paid me off with interest."
"i don't think i'm out of your debt for any amount of money,
pontius. but tell me, have the gods granted what your heart
desired? do you enjoy all the happiness that you deserve?
speak to me of your family, your fortune, your health!"
"i've retired to sicily where i own lands that i cultivate and sell the wheat. my eldest daughter, my very dear pontia, now a widow, lives with me and keeps house for me. thanks be to the gods, i have not lost the strength of my faculties or my memory. but old age does not come without a long procession of aches and pains. i suffer atrociously from gout. and you see me at present seeking in the phlegraean fields a remedy for my afflictions. this land that burns, from which, at night, flames escape, exhales acrid vapours of sulphur which, so they say, soothe pain and restore flexibility to joints and limbs. that's what the doctors assure me of anyway."
"may it be what you experience yourself, pontius! but, gout and insect bites notwithstanding, you hardly look as old as me, though you are, in fact, ten years older. it's certain you've retained more vigour than i ever had, and i'm glad to find you still so robust. why, dear heart, did you so prematurely reject public office? why, after you left your governorship in judea, did you live on your estates in sicily in voluntary exile? tell me what you got up to from the moment that i ceased to be there as a witness to your actions. you were preparing to put down a samaritan revolt when i left for cappadocia, where i was hoping to derive some profit from raising mules and horses. since then i haven't laid eyes on you. what was the success of that expedition? tell me about it. i'm interested in everything that's happened to you."
pontius pilate shook his head sadly.
"a natural solicitude," he said, "and a feeling of duty led me to perform my public functions not only diligently but with love of them too. but hatred dogged me constantly. intrigue and slander broke my life while the sap was still rising and blasted the fruit it should have made ripe. you've asked me about the samaritan revolt. let's sit down on this mound. i can tell you about it in just a few words. those events are as fresh in my mind today as if they had happened yesterday. a man of the people, potently eloquent, as many are in syria, persuaded the samaritans to take up arms and gather on mount gerizim, which is held to be a holy place in this region, and he swore to show them the sacred vessels that an eponymous hero, or rather a local prophet by the name of moses, had hidden there back in the time of evander and aeneas, our founding father. on the strength of this assurance the samaritans revolted. but, warned in time to stop them, i had the mountain occupied by infantry detachments and positioned cavalry to keep watch over approaches to it. these prudent measures were needed urgently. already the rebels were besieging the town of tyrathaba, to be found at the foot of mount gerizim. i dispersed them easily and nipped the revolt in the bud. then, to make an example with a minimum of victims, i had the revolt's leaders executed. but you know, lamia, how dependent i was on the goodwill of proconsul vitellius who governed the province of syria not for rome but against rome and thought that the provinces of the empire could be portioned out like farms to tetrarchs. the principal men among the samaritans fell weeping with hatred of me at his feet. to hear them, nothing was further from their mind than to disobey caesar. i had acted provocatively, and it was to resist my violent attack on them that they had gathered about tyrathaba. and vitellius heard their complaints and, entrusting the affairs of judea to his friend marcellus, he ordered me to justify how i had acted before the emperor. my heart heavy with pain and resentment, i took to the sea. as i drew near to the coast of italy, tiberius, worn out by age and the cares of empire, died suddenly on cape misenus, the horn of which you can see from here lengthening in the evening mist. i pleaded my case to caius, his successor, who was naturally bright and was well acquainted with the affairs of syria. but marvel with me at this, lamia, at how my misfortune persisted till it brought about my downfall. caius had kept close to him in rome the jew agrippa, his companion, his childhood friend, whom he loved more than his life. agrippa looked with favour on vitellius because vitellius was the enemy of antipas, whom agrippa hated most intensely. the emperor sided with his jewish friend and would not even grant me an audience. i was forced to stay under a cloud of undeserved disgrace. swallowing my tears, nourished by gall, i retired to my lands in sicily where i should have died of regret had my sweet pontia not come to console her father. i planted wheat and grew the fattest ears of it in all the island. today my life is done. posterity will judge between vitellius and me."
"pontius," lamia replied, "i'm convinced that you acted towards the samaritans to the best of your ability and in the sole interest of rome. but did you not on that occasion give in too easily to that impetuous bravery that always dragged you into things? you know that in judea, even though younger than you were and therefore more ardent, it often fell to me to enjoin on you mildness and leniency."
"leniency to jews!" cried pontius pilate. "despite your having lived among them, you know little of these enemies of the human race. both proud and base, combining ignominious cowardice with invincible obstinacy, they undermine both love and hate. my way of thinking, lamia, is founded on the maxims of the divine augustus. already, when i was appointed procurator of judea, the earth was majestically robed in the pax romana. proconsuls no longer got rich from the sack of provinces as they were seen to do during our civil wars. i was careful only to use wisdom and moderation. as the gods are my witnesses, i was only stiff necked in holding back. what good did these benevolent thoughts do me? you saw me, lamia, at the beginning of my governorship, when the first revolt broke out. do i need to remind you of the circumstances? the garrison in caesarea had gone to take up its winter quarters in jerusalem. the legionaries carried on their standards pictures of caesar. these images gave offence to the jerusalemites who did not recognize the emperor's divinity, as if, under orders to obey, it was not more honourable to obey a god than a man. the nation's priests came before my tribunal to ask me with haughty humility to have the standards removed from the sacred precincts. i refused out of respect for the divinity of caesar and the majesty of the empire. then the plebs, joining forces with the priests, raised their voices threateningly round the praetorium. i ordered the soldiers to form a phalanx in front of the antonia tower, and to go, armed with sticks, like lictors, to disperse that insolent crowd. but, oblivious to the blows, the jews kept on begging me and the most stubborn among them lay on the ground, held out their throats and let themselves be beaten to death by the rods. you then witnessed my humiliation, lamia. on vitellius's order, i had to send the standards back to caesarea. surely that was a shame that i did not deserve. here, in full view of the immortal gods, i swear that, during my governorship, i did not offend once against justice and the laws. but i am old. my enemies and all those who informed on me are dead. i shall die unavenged. who will defend my memory?"
he groaned and stopped speaking. lamia answered him:
"it is wise not to place either fear or hope in an uncertain future. what does it matter what men will think of us? our only witnesses and judges are ourselves. rest assured, pontius pilate, of the witness you yourself have borne to your virtue. be content with your own esteem and that of your friends. besides, peoples are not governed by gentleness alone. that love of humanity philosophy counsels us to show has little to do with the actions of public figures."
"let's talk about something else," said pontius. "the sulphurous vapours exhaled by the phlegraean fields are more efficacious when they come up from a ground still made warm by the rays of the sun. i'd better hurry. goodbye! but, since i've found a friend, i want to take advantage of this piece of luck. aelius lamia, do me the honour of coming to take supper with me tomorrow. my house is to be found on the sea shore, at the end of the town, going towards misenus. you will recognize it easily from the portico on which you'll see a painting showing orpheus among lions and tigers he is charming with the sounds of his lyre. till tomorrow, lamia," he said, climbing back in his litter. "tomorrow we shall talk of judea."
the following day, at suppertime, aelius lamia went to the house of pontius pilate. two couches only awaited the supper guests. the table, unobtrusive but decently laid, supported silver plates in which had been prepared warblers in honey, thrushes, oysters from lake lucrino and lampreys from sicily. pontius and lamia questioned each other as they ate about their infirmities whose symptoms they described at length and they told each other of various remedies which had been recommended to them. then, congratulating themselves on having been brought back together again in baiae, they vied with one another in praising the beauty of this coastline and the mildness of the air one breathed there. lamia vaunted the grace of the courtesans who went by on the beach, laden with gold and dragging behind them trains embroidered by barbarians. but the old procurator deplored an ostentatiousness that, for the sake of tawdry stones and spiders' webs woven by hand, made roman coinage circulate among foreign peoples and even among enemies of the empire. they afterwards came to talk about the great feats of civil engineering carried out in the region, that huge bridge that caius had had built between puteoli and baiae, and the canals ordered dug by augustus to bring water from the sea to the lakes of avernus and lucrino.
"i too," said pontius with a sigh, "wanted to undertake great public works. when i was given, for my sins, the governorship of judea, i traced the plan for an aqueduct two hundred stadia long that was to have brought to jerusalem an abundant supply of pure water. height of levels, capacity of modules, obliquity of bronze containers for the pipes to be adjusted to, i had studied everything and, in the opinion of the engineers, solved all the problems myself. i prepared a statute to regulate the use of the water, so that no one individual could make illegal use of it. the architects and workers were ordered and i gave the command to start the work. but, far from watching satisfied that conduit was being erected which, on powerful arches, was to bring health as well as water to their town, the people of jerusalem cried out in loud lamentations. tumultuously, accusing us of sacrilege and impiety, they attacked the workers and scattered the foundation stones. can you imagine filthier barbarians, lamia? nevertheless vitellius took their part and i received the order to discontinue the work."
"it's a big question," said lamia, "as to whether one should make people happy in spite of themselves."
pontius pilate carried on regardless:
"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:
"i wasn't a man to fall into the honey traps set by jewesses," he said, "and since you lead me to say it, lamia, i never approved of your lack of self-restraint. if i didn't emphasize enough to you in days gone by that i held you to be very much at fault for having seduced, back in rome, the wife of a consul, i think it was because you were then paying dearly for that crime. marriage is a sacred institution for patricians, one that rome counts on. as for slaves or foreign women, the relations you could strike up with them would count for little were it not that your body gets used to in them a shameful softness. you sacrificed too freely to the goddess of crossroads, i must say, and what i find most to blame in you, lamia, is that you did not marry legitimately and give children to rome as every good citizen should do."
but the man exiled by tiberius was no longer listening to the old magistrate. having emptied his cup of its vinum falernum, he was smiling at some invisible picture.
after a moment of silence, he continued in a very low voice that gradually grew louder:
"they dance so languorously, the women of syria. i knew then in jerusalem a jewess who, in a hovel, by the light of a small smoky lamp, on a bad carpet, danced raising her arms to clash her cymbals. her back arched, her head thrown back and as if dragged down by her heavy auburn hair, her eyes drowned in voluptuousness, ardent and languishing, supple, she'd have made cleopatra herself pale with envy. i loved her barbaric dances, her slightly husky and yet so sweet singing, the smell of her incense, the semi-sleeping state she seemed to live in. i followed her everywhere. i mixed in with the vile crowd of soldiers, boatmen and publicans she was surrounded with. one day she disappeared and i never saw her again. i looked for a long time for her in doubtful alleyways and taverns. she was harder for me to do without than greek wine. a few months after i had lost track of her, i learned, quite by chance, that she had joined a small group of men and women who were followers of a young galilean miracle worker. he was called jesus, came from nazareth, and was crucified, for what crime i don't know. do you remember that man, pontius?"
pontius pilate frowned, bringing his hand to his forehead like someone who is trying to remember. then, after a few moments of silence, he murmured:
"jesus. jesus. from nazareth? no. i can't bring him to mind."
