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.Antipas warmed to this new subject immediately.'In my experience, Prefect, atheists make the best priests.''Are you then an atheist yourself?' Procula asked.Herodias, perhaps observing the discomfort of her guests, or simply taking the opportunity of their discomfort, chided her husband gently with the answer she gave for him.'My husband is an atheist only late at night when the gods sleep and he has drunk himself into oblivion.During the daytime and the early evening hours he honors every superstition known to humankind and even invents a few of his own.Otherwise, it seems to me, he would already have shown the courage of his convictions by arresting the prophet John for his open sedition.''The one they call the Baptist?' Procula asked.'The very same.It is not as if he is difficult to find.The man stands in the river Jordon every day at the same time and place.''I believe more Jews should follow his example,'Pilate quipped.'I for one cannot understand their aversion to bathing.''Do you want to know why he hesitates?' Herodias pressed, quite ignoring Pilate's joke.'Silence!' Antipas roared.The chatter in the hall ceased.As Herodias well knew, Antipas had intended his command for only his wife, but she pretended he had silenced the crowd so they could hear her speech, and continued in a fashion that no Roman wife would have dared.'It is because he fears the man will place a spell upon him if he does.Now I ask you, can an atheist fear the curse of a holy man? Have you ever heard such a thing?''I fear no such thing! John is simply more dangerous as a martyr than he is wandering around in the desert like a fool.''Your father had no such scruples.''The times are different.''As are the men.' Seeing her husband had no response to this, Herodias smiled pleasantly at Procula.'Antipas believes your husband brought himself trouble with the Jews when he refused to kill ten thousand of them.Isn't it so, Antipas?''I believe an opportunity was missed to set an example, but each man rules differently and for different ends, as I have said.'Pilate reached for his wine cup, reminding himself that he was a guest this evening and that this man, no matter how overbearing his insult, enjoyed some kind of friendship with Tiberius.'I was prepared for disobedience,' he answered, quoting his own letter to Sejanus, which he wrote the morning after the affair.'Receiving none, nothing at all beyond prayers to their god that I might change my mind, I chose to reward those individuals who petitioned me in a perfectly legal manner rather than set an example of brutality.The difference between East and West, I suppose.''Do you mean to say, Prefect,' Herodias responded with a coyness Pilate found quite pleasant, all things considered, 'you did not fear the ghosts of ten thousand men?'Pilate permitted himself a slight smile at his host's expense.He liked this woman far better than her husband! 'I confess, Lady, the thought did not cross my mind.'The insult Herod Antipas delivered to him at the banquet stayed with Pilate much longer than it should have.Pilate tried to persuade himself that he was comfortable with his decision to show mercy.It angered him inordinately that Antipas, and certainly others, observed not his reasonableness but mistook it for an unwillingness to rule from a position of strength.He reminded himself what was obvious, that Antipas was insignificant, that Antipas was both brutal as an administrator and cowardly as a man.What mattered was the opinion of Tiberius, not the court gossip of a backwater tetrarchy run by a woman in all but name.The emperor's opinion was waiting when he returned.Tiberius himself had sent the letter - not Sejanus.Pilate had not been sent to Judaea, he said, to create a war.He had been sent to maintain the peace and collect taxes.Agitating a hostile city made his work more difficult.On the other hand, having stirred resistance the emperor could not celebrate Pilate's choice to stand down without so much as a single arrest.The emperor regretted, he said, the unusual slowness of his response, but he had taken some effort to acquire an objective view before making his judgment [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]