Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
sign that he had not abandoned them: so their hopes lived, and served
their patience, and helped them wait grimly the son of Judah who was to
rule Israel.
Judea had been a Roman province eighty years and more—ample time for
the Cæsars to study the idiosyncrasies of the people—time enough, at
least, to learn that the Jew, with all his pride, could be quietly
governed if his religion were respected. Proceeding upon that policy,
the predecessors of Gratus had carefully abstained from interfering
with any of the sacred observances of their subjects. But he chose a
different course: almost his first official act was to expel Hannas
from the high-priesthood, and give the place to Ishmael, son of Fabus.
Whether the act was directed by Augustus, or proceeded from Gratus
himself, its impolicy became speedily apparent. The reader shall be
spared a chapter on Jewish politics; a few words upon the subject,
however, are essential to such as may follow the succeeding narration
critically. At this time, leaving origin out of view, there were in
Judea the party of the nobles and the Separatist or popular party. Upon
Herod’s death, the two united against Archelaus; from temple to palace,
from Jerusalem to Rome, they fought him; sometimes with intrigue,
sometimes with the actual weapons of war. More than once the holy
cloisters on Moriah resounded with the cries of fighting-men. Finally,
they drove him into exile. Meantime throughout this struggle the allies
had their diverse objects in view. The nobles hated Joazar, the
high-priest; the Separatists, on the other hand, were his zealous
adherents. When Herod’s settlement went down with Archelaus, Joazar
shared the fall. Hannas, the son of Seth, was selected by the nobles to
fill the great office; thereupon the allies divided. The induction of
the Sethian brought them face to face in fierce hostility.
In the course of the struggle with the unfortunate ethnarch, the nobles
had found it expedient to attach themselves to Rome. Discerning that
when the existing settlement was broken up some form of government must
needs follow, they suggested the conversion of Judea into a province.
The fact furnished the Separatists an additional cause for attack; and,
when Samaria was made part of the province, the nobles sank into a
minority, with nothing to support them but the imperial court and the
prestige of their rank and wealth; yet for fifteen years—down, indeed,
to the coming of Valerius Gratus—they managed to maintain themselves in
both palace and Temple.
Hannas, the idol of his party, had used his power faithfully in the
interest of his imperial patron. A Roman garrison held the Tower of
Antonia; a Roman guard kept the gates of the palace; a Roman judge
dispensed justice civil and criminal; a Roman system of taxation,
mercilessly executed, crushed both city and country; daily, hourly, and
in a thousand ways, the people were bruised and galled, and taught the
difference between a life of independence and a life of subjection; yet
Hannas kept them in comparative quiet. Rome had no truer friend; and he
made his loss instantly felt. Delivering his vestments to Ishmael, the
new appointee, he walked from the courts of the Temple into the
councils of the Separatists, and became the head of a new combination,
Bethusian and Sethian.
Gratus, the procurator, left thus without a party, saw the fires which,
in the fifteen years, had sunk into sodden smoke begin to glow with
returning life. A month after Ishmael took the office, the Roman found
it necessary to visit him in Jerusalem. When from the walls, hooting
and hissing him, the Jews beheld his guard enter the north gate of the
city and march to the Tower of Antonia, they understood the real
purpose of the visit—a full cohort of legionaries was added to the
former garrison, and the keys of their yoke could now be tightened with
impunity. If the procurator deemed it important to make an example,
alas for the first offender!
CHAPTER II
With the foregoing explanation in mind, the reader is invited to look
into one of the gardens of the palace on Mount Zion. The time was
noonday in the middle of July, when the heat of summer was at its
highest.
The garden was bounded on every side by buildings, which in places
arose two stories, with verandas shading the doors and windows of the
lower story, while retreating galleries, guarded by strong balustrades,
adorned and protected the upper. Here and there, moreover, the
structures fell into what appeared low colonnades, permitting the
passage of such winds as chanced to blow, and allowing other parts of
the house to be seen, the better to realize its magnitude and beauty.
The arrangement of the ground was equally pleasant to the eye. There
were walks, and patches of grass and shrubbery, and a few large trees,
rare specimens of the palm, grouped with the carob, apricot, and
walnut. In all directions the grade sloped gently from the centre,
where there was a reservoir, or deep marble basin, broken at intervals
by little gates which, when raised, emptied the water into sluices
bordering the walks—a cunning device for the rescue of the place from
the aridity too prevalent elsewhere in the region.
Not far from the fountain, there was a small pool of clear water
nourishing a clump of cane and oleander, such as grow on the Jordan and
down by the Dead Sea. Between the clump and the pool, unmindful of the
sun shining full upon them in the breathless air, two boys, one about
nineteen, the other seventeen, sat engaged in earnest conversation.
They were both handsome, and, at first glance, would have been
pronounced brothers. Both had hair and eyes black; their faces were
deeply browned; and, sitting, they seemed of a size proper for the
difference in their ages.
The elder was bareheaded. A loose tunic, dropping to the knees, was his
attire complete, except sandals and a light-blue mantle spread under
him on the seat. The costume left his arms and legs exposed, and they
were brown as the face; nevertheless, a certain grace of manner,
refinement of features, and culture of voice decided his rank. The
tunic, of softest woollen, gray-tinted, at the neck, sleeves, and edge
of the skirt bordered with red, and bound to the waist by a tasselled
silken cord, certified him the Roman he was. And if in speech he now
and then gazed haughtily at his companion and addressed him as an
inferior, he might almost be excused, for he was of a family noble even
in Rome—a circumstance which in that age justified any assumption. In
the terrible wars between the first Cæsar and his great enemies, a
Messala had been the friend of Brutus. After Philippi, without
sacrifice of his honor, he and the conqueror became reconciled. Yet
later, when Octavius disputed for the empire, Messala supported him.
Octavius, as the Emperor Augustus, remembered the service, and showered
the family with honors. Among other things, Judea being reduced to a
province, he sent the son of his old client or retainer to Jerusalem,
charged with the receipt and management of the taxes levied in that
region; and in that service the son had since remained, sharing the
palace with the high-priest. The youth just described was his son,
whose habit it was to carry about with him all too faithfully a
remembrance of the relation between his grandfather and the great
Romans of his day.
The associate of the Messala was slighter in form, and his garments
were of fine white linen and of the prevalent style in Jerusalem; a
cloth covered his head, held by a yellow cord, and arranged so as to
fall away from the forehead down low over the back of the neck. An
observer skilled in the distinctions of race, and studying his features
more than his costume, would have soon discovered him to be of Jewish
descent. The forehead of the Roman was high and narrow, his nose sharp
and aquiline, while his lips were thin and straight, and his eyes cold
and close under the brows. The front of the Israelite, on the other
hand, was low and broad; his nose long, with expanded nostrils; his
upper lip, slightly shading the lower one, short and curving to the
dimpled corners, like a Cupid’s bow; points which, in connection with
the round chin, full eyes, and oval cheeks reddened with a wine-like
glow, gave his face the softness, strength, and beauty peculiar to his
race. The comeliness of the Roman was severe and chaste, that of the
Jew rich and voluptuous.
“Did you not say the new procurator is to arrive to-morrow?”
The question proceeded from the younger of the friends, and was couched
in Greek, at the time, singularly enough, the language everywhere
prevalent in the politer circles of Judea; having passed from the
palace into the camp and college; thence, nobody knew exactly when or
how, into the Temple itself, and, for that matter, into precincts of
the Temple far beyond the gates and cloisters—precincts of a sanctity
intolerable for a Gentile.
“Yes, to-morrow,” Messala answered.
“Who told you?”
“I heard Ishmael, the new governor in the palace—you call him high
priest—tell my father so last night. The news had been more credible, I
grant you, coming from an Egyptian, who is of a race that has forgotten
what truth is, or even from an Idumaean, whose people never knew what
truth was; but, to make quite certain, I saw a centurion from the Tower
this morning, and he told me preparations were going on for the
reception; that the armorers were furbishing the helmets and shields,
and regilding the eagles and globes; and that apartments long unused
were being cleansed and aired as if for an addition to the garrison—the
body-guard, probably, of the great man.”
A perfect idea of the manner in which the answer was given cannot be
conveyed, as its fine points continually escape the power behind the
pen. The reader’s fancy must come to his aid; and for that he must be
reminded that reverence as a quality of the Roman mind was fast
breaking down, or, rather, it was becoming unfashionable. The old
religion had nearly ceased to be a faith; at most it was a mere habit
of thought and expression, cherished principally by the priests who
found service in the Temple profitable, and the poets who, in the turn
of their verses, could not dispense with the familiar deities: there
are singers of this age who are similarly given. As philosophy was
taking the place of religion, satire was fast substituting reverence;
insomuch that in Latin opinion it was to every speech, even to the
little diatribes of conversation, as salt to viands, and aroma to wine.
The young Messala, educated in Rome, but lately returned, had caught
the habit and manner; the scarce perceptible movement of the outer
corner of the lower eyelid, the decided curl of the corresponding
nostril, and a languid utterance affected as the best vehicle to convey
the idea of general indifference, but more particularly because of the
opportunities it afforded for certain rhetorical pauses thought to be
of prime importance to enable the listener to take the happy conceit or
receive the virus of the stinging epigram. Such a stop occurred in the
answer just given, at the end of the allusion to the Egyptian and
Idumaean. The color in the Jewish lad’s cheeks deepened, and he may not
have heard the rest of the speech, for he remained silent, looking
absently into the depths of the pool.
“Our farewell took place in this garden. ‘The peace of the Lord go with
you!’—your last words. ‘The gods keep you!’ I said. Do you remember?
How many years have passed since then?”
“Five,” answered the Jew, gazing into the water.
“Well, you have reason to be thankful to—whom shall I say? The gods? No
matter. You have grown handsome; the Greeks would call you
beautiful—happy achievement of the years! If Jupiter would stay content