CHAPTER X

THE VENGEANCE OF FLORUS

Florus was in Jerusalem, and--sinister omen!--an armed legion with him.

Following fast upon the dispatch of his letter demanding the seventeen talents, he had taken up his abode in the old palace erected by Herod the Great upon Mount Zion. This, as being the usual residence of the procurators while at Jerusalem, had received the Roman name of Prætorium.

Its two colossal wings of white marble, the Cæsareum and the Agrippeum, named respectively after Augustus and his great minister, were united by a long terrace, which, from its tesselated flooring, was called by the Romans the Pavement, but by the Jews Gabbatha, or the Elevation.

On the morning after the arrival of Florus, a vast concourse of Jewish citizens assembled in front of this terrace when it became known that the procurator had summoned the members of the Sanhedrim thither for the purpose of interrogating them as to the riot that had taken place three days previously.

Among those who came was the crafty Sadducean priest Ananias, who hoped, by reason of his private friendship with Florus, to dispose that tyrant to pacific measures.

Beside him, glooming within himself, was his eldest son, the fierce, dark-browed Eleazar, captain of the temple, whose wrath was scarcely to be restrained by the whispered admonitions of his more politic father.

Florus, disposed for reasons of his own to receive the Sanhedrim in the open air, had given orders for his curule chair to be brought forth, and set down upon the Pavement midway between the two wings.

In the rear of this elevated tribunal and along its whole length glittered the brazen bucklers and crested helmets of the legionaries; they flanked the walls of the two wings likewise, so that the whole military force formed the three sides of a rectangle, the fourth being open to the view of the public.

These troops were the Twentieth Legion, a force drawn, not like Rufus’ Italic Cohort, from native Romans, but from the dregs of the Syrian populace who were forced to a military service from which the Jew, by reason of his religion, was exempt. Hence the feeling of these troops towards the Jewish nation was one of fierce hatred, a hatred that had often shown itself in deeds of blood. Let Florus give but the word and they would not hesitate to massacre every man, woman, and child before the tribunal.

On this particular morning, as they stood awaiting the coming of the procurator, there was in their manner something so sinister and expectant that a secret misgiving, a sense as of tragedy to come, seized upon many of the Sanhedrim.

Florus appeared at last, and contemptuously ignoring the fawning smiles of Ananias stalked to the curule chair, dark, haughty, frowning.

The herald called for silence, an unnecessary order, seeing that a death-like stillness had fallen upon the occupants both of Gabbatha and the public square.

Florus’ mood was shown by his first question to the Sanhedrim.

“Is it true that my person has been mocked by the youth of this city, who have gone about, basket on arm, and crying aloud, ‘Give an obolus for Florus the Pauper?’”

The members of the Sanhedrim looked at one another in alarm. Finally they glanced at Ananias as if inviting him to be their spokesman.

Hiding both hands within the folds of his robe--an Oriental way of showing respect and humility--and making a profound obeisance, Ananias spoke:

“O Florus, live forever----”

(“Now heaven preserve us from that calamity!” muttered Eleazar.)

“That certain youth _have_ behaved ill is but too true, and we cannot deny it. But----”

Florus cut him short.

“Ye see in me the representative of Cæsar----”

“None more worthy to represent him, O Florus,” said Eleazar, caustically.

“And he who mocks me, mocks Cæsar,” continued the procurator with a side glance at Eleazar. “I therefore demand of you, the Sanhedrim, who are responsible for the due maintenance of order in this city, that the youths who have affronted me be handed over here and now to be dealt with as their misdeeds deserve. And if ye fail to produce these malefactors, know that for many days to come ye shall have a tale of sorrow to tell.”

Miserable Sanhedrim! Among the elder of them were some who, thirty years before, on an occasion never to be forgotten as long as time shall last, had said, and that, too, on the very spot where they were now standing, “We have no king but Cæsar.” Thus had they made their choice. Verily, then, let them not repine if Cæsar, or his representative, should treat them in a manner not according to their liking!

The hapless Ananias, collecting with difficulty his wits, which had been somewhat scattered by Florus’ fierce air, stammered out a deprecatory speech.

What he said amounted to this: that the people were as a whole peaceably disposed; some few had done amiss, and for these let pardon be granted, for it was no wonder that in so great a multitude there should be some more daring than they ought to be, and by reason of their youth foolish also. It was, too, a very difficult matter to distinguish the innocent from the guilty; and seeing that all alike, those who had offended as well as those who had not, were sorry for what had happened, it would become the clemency of Florus to overlook the affair, lest a too stern application of justice should bring about disorders even more grave than those that had already taken place.

“That last is in the nature of a threat!” exclaimed Florus fiercely. “Yours is just the sort of speech one would expect from a man who has plotted against the life of a Roman citizen,” he continued, with a fine forgetfulness of his own delinquencies. “Disorders more grave will undoubtedly ensue, if the guilty are allowed to walk unpunished. Say without periphrases whether you will, or will not, give up these malefactors.”

Ananias hesitated, but Johanan ben Zacchai was bolder than the ex-high priest.

“We cannot,” said he, “consent to give up these youths.”

At this there came a shout of approval from the people assembled before the tribunal.

Florus glared at them for a moment, and then resumed:

“And yet refuse to make a grant to Cæsar of seventeen talents from the Corban?”

“Shall man rob God?” exclaimed Eleazar, fiercely. “This, too, we will not do.”

Again a shout of applause, this time louder, from the populace. Florus accepted it for what it was meant, defiance of himself. Turning to the troops in his rear, he cried:

“Put these rebels to the rout. Plunder the Upper Market. Slay all who oppose.”

Plunder! What more agreeable order for the soldier? They required no second bidding. Like tigers suddenly let loose they raced across the bema, sweeping the helpless Sanhedrim aside, and drawing their trenchant broadswords they precipitated themselves upon the defenseless people, striking out right and left, and using not the flat of the blade, but the point and edge.

It was all the work of a moment. Taken completely by surprise, and without arms to defend themselves, the front ranks, hideously gashed, sank moaning to the ground. The rest of the crowd, aghast at the sight, and suddenly realizing that a massacre was intended, strove to avoid the Roman blades. But for those nearest the bema flight was impossible owing to the density of the throng. Then began a horrible struggle for life; he who fell in that crowd never rose again, but was trampled to death, trampled out of all recognition; moved by the instinct of self-preservation everyone strove to thrust his body forward betwixt his neighbors, or failing this, tried to drag his fellow back in the attempt to interpose something between himself and the terrible swords that were steadily coming on from behind.

With the flight of those farthest from the bema, the mass became gradually loosened, and finally breaking into detached groups, fled in all directions, pursued by the shouting and triumphant legionaries.

But the Romans were not to have it all their own way. Many of the Jews, escaping to the streets adjacent to the square, took refuge in the first houses they came to, and having barred the gates, they ascended to the roofs and proceeded to assail the enemy below with tiles and stones. Others who had fled farther afield, procuring weapons or whatever implements might serve as such, retraced their steps, and favored by their knowledge of the narrow and winding streets, ventured to give battle to the Romans, and what is more, contrived for a time to hold them in check.

The streets of Zion rang with the clang of arms, and the shouts of the combatants.

News of what was happening came quickly to the ears of Berenice, producing in her mind not only consternation, but an agonizing sense of self-reproach. She felt herself to be indirectly the cause of it all. It was Florus’ revenge for her rejection of him. Her first impulse was to fly to the procurator, and appeal to him to stay his hand. Her pride revolted from this step. But, as the sound of the fray grew louder and fiercer, she became more agitated; casting her pride away she resolved to hasten to his tribunal and intercede on behalf of her people.

As a royal princess, she deemed herself secure from molestation by the Roman soldiery; but, forgetful of the fact that she was unknown by sight to the majority of them, she ran forth from her palace without a single attendant. Fortunately she was seen by her master of the horse, who, collecting as many of her household troops as he conveniently could at a moment’s notice, went after her with all speed.

On coming within sight of the tribunal Berenice paused aghast. Hell itself seemed to be let loose that day. The Jews, captured in the neighboring streets, were being dragged into the square to be ruthlessly slaughtered before the very eyes of Florus. No distinction was made as to age or sex. Even infants, torn from the arms of shrieking mothers, were tossed aloft and caught upon the points of spears. Young girls, tied naked to stakes, were exposed to the brutal jests of the soldiery, who offered their captives liberty if they would but consent to taste a morsel of swine’s flesh.

As Berenice, with reeling brain, stepped forward, she caught sight of a group of drunken soldiers, standing around a bright-eyed Jewish boy, whose age could not have exceeded twelve years.

“Tell us the name of your God?” exclaimed a soldier.

“He is called the Lord,” answered the boy, nothing daunted by the ring of fierce faces around him.

“Well, curse the Lord and you shall live,” said a second soldier, menacing the lad with his spear.

But the little fellow had been too well drilled in the shibboleths of Judaism to do their bidding.

“Cursed be all they that serve graven images,” he replied defiantly.

“This wolfling will grow up into a brave wolf,” laughed the first soldier.

“That shall he not,” cried the second savagely; and, raising his pike with both hands, he drove the weapon through the breast of the boy, who, with the one word “Mother!” fell dead upon the spot.

“O God!” gasped Berenice, “canst thou look on and let these men live?”

Scarcely able to move for horror, she made her way up the steps of the bema, and drew near to Florus. With hands clasped at the back of his neck, and with one leg thrown carelessly over the other, the procurator was lolling at ease in his curule chair, amusing himself with the fears of a numerous body of richly-dressed captives, who were said, rightly or wrongly, by his spies, to be the very youths that, three days before, had gone about begging money for the indigent Florus.

“By the way,” said he, “why don’t you Jews eat pork?”

The question drew loud laughter from the senseless soldiers standing by.

One of the captives ventured the remark that there were some nations that did not eat lamb.

“And they are quite right,” commented Florus. “Lamb is very insipid; but pork--ah! that is one of the choicest delicacies the gods have conferred upon mankind, and I swear by Pluto that if ye will not eat of it ye shall die.”

“Florus, in the name of God I adjure you to have pity upon these youths,” cried Berenice. “Refrain from further bloodshed.”

The feeling of Florus was a strange mingling of love and hatred as he beheld the distressed princess in all her wild beauty, her hair loosened, her feet bare.

His first mad impulse--he had been drinking heavily--was to clasp her in his arms and kiss her passionately regardless of the spectators; his next, as he recalled her scornful language at Cæsarea, was to spurn her with language equally scornful.

Hatred triumphed. He had gone too far now to recede, and since he could not have the sweetness of love, he would have the sweetness of revenge.

Among the captives was a beautiful youth, whose unmistakable air of fearlessness had given secret umbrage to the procurator.

“Marcus, you here?” cried Berenice in dismay. He was known to her as being a worshiper in the Royal Synagogue.

“Fear not for me, princess. _I_ am safe.”

Self-confidence such as this moved Florus to a frenzy of wrath.

“Lictors, crucify me this knave who considers himself so safe.”

“Oh, no! no!” cried Berenice in an agony of grief.

The youth, with a proud smile, gave utterance to words that in every province of the empire, save one, had power to stay the hand of even Cæsar himself:

“CIVIS ROMANUS SUM--I am a Roman citizen!”

“Ah! So _that_ is thy hope? Well, it shall not avail thee. A Roman citizen? Pah! How easy to become such nowadays! Damas the Jew is a knave, but he has two oboli to spare; so the prætor touches him with a wand, twirls him round, and lo! Damas the Jew becomes Marcus the Roman, and struts about in a toga.”

And here Florus, leaping up, illustrated his words by strutting about with an air of mock dignity, amid the laughter of his satellites.

“I am a freeborn Roman; nay, more--I am of equestrian rank.”

“A knight--eh? Well, we’ll acknowledge thy dignity by giving thee a higher cross and painting it purple. Lictors, bring hither a stock.”

In his mad desire to torment to the uttermost the soul of Berenice, Florus did not hesitate to defy Roman law by an outrage so great that Cicero confesses his inability to find a name for it. “It is an offense to bind a Roman citizen; a crime to scourge him; almost a parricide to kill him; what, then, shall I say of _crucifying_ him?”

Such an outrage on the part of a Roman governor might be deemed incredible were it not attested by a contemporary historian.

“Florus,” says Josephus, “dared to do what no governor before his time had ever done--to have men of the equestrian order scourged and nailed to the cross in front of his tribunal, who, although they were Jews by birth, were yet of Roman dignity notwithstanding.”

Desirous of adding not so much to the agony of Marcus as to that of Berenice, Florus, with a cruel smile, issued a fresh order.

“Hold! before crucifying the knave we’ll scourge him.”

A strange thing is the heart of a woman! Berenice, who had been willing to subject a young girl to scourging, now shuddered when a similar torture was proposed for a young man.

As for the victim himself, vainly did he urge his legal right to be transferred from the tribunal of Florus to that of Nero.

“_Appello Cæsarem_--I appeal unto Cæsar,” he cried.

“Cæsar’s a long way off,” laughed Florus. “In Greece, playing the fool. You’ll have to shout a good deal louder, if he’s to hear you.”

Deaf to his protests, the lictors stripped the youth of his garments and tied his wrists to a column. He tried to be brave, but where is the man that _could_ be brave when subjected to the strokes of the “_horrible flagellum_”?

A thrilling scream burst from Marcus’ lips as the leathern thongs, weighted with triangular pieces of lead, descended upon his naked, quivering flesh.

“O Apollo! How sweet a voice!” cried Florus mockingly. “By the gods, Nero must look to his laurels, for he hath a rival. Give him a second stroke. Ah! a higher note this time. Swing the flagellum again. We’ll run him through the whole octave.”

The rest of the captives, apprehensive of the same fate, looked on with blanched cheeks and terror-stricken eyes.

Berenice’s distress of mind made her look like some wild thing. Her manifest agony was a luxury to the soul of Florus.

“There are twenty of these youths,” he whispered, “and they shall all suffer the same fate, scourging and crucifixion. But you can save them, if you will.”

“How?” gasped Berenice.

Florus’ whispered reply was of a character so infamous that the indignant princess raised her hand and struck her open palm against his cheek; struck, too, with all her force.

Smarting with the pain, Florus started back with a very ugly look upon his face.

“Guards, remove this woman from the bema. What hath she to do with these matters?”

And the rough soldiery, paying little respect either to her womanhood or to her rank, drove her down the steps of the tribunal.[13]

* * * * *

Night fell, calm and beautiful.

The Syrian stars looked down upon the tribunal, whose stones, could they have spoken, might have told how, thirty years before, a wicked populace had cried, “_His blood be on us, and on our children!_”

That self-invoked curse was working out its fulfillment.

There, on the very spot where those words had been uttered, stood a multitude of crosses, each lifting a ghastly victim to the midnight sky!