“Did you tell him anything? I saw you in conversation for a considerable time.”
“I told him nothing—at least nothing he wanted to know. He told how badly he and his brothers agreed when they were young; and the way was wide open for me to tell him how Antipas and Antipater and I hate the sight of one another. But I did not do so. In fact, I think, sir, what I left him with the impression that I was somewhat slow in the uptake.”
“Never fear that! It’s the slow-witted ones who gulp down the bait, my boy.”
From under their hooded lids his bright eyes looked at Archelaus with something like approval. The boy had his wits about him. From Herod’s point of view there was only one thing wrong with him—apart, of course, from what was wrong with every human being, untrustworthiness—he was the son of the wrong mother! Whenever he approved of Archelaus he was bound to reflect that if he could breed such a boy upon an ordinary woman, how exceptional his sons by Mariamne would have been. They, however, Alexander and Aristobulus, had allowed their untrustworthiness to become blatant, and he had been obliged to have them murdered.
This, however, was no moment to think of Mariamne or her sons. He gave his attention to his capital.
Most of the streets they rode along were narrow and steep, presenting, under the heavy grey of the sky, a dull, ancient, rather grim appearance. The people, huddled against the cold, looked dull too. In many places the sullenness of the sky was reflected in the faces turned towards the clattering little cavalcade. To many Jews Herod was a semi-barbarian, a usurper, a man who endeavoured both openly and secretly to bring them, their city, their way of life, into line with the pagan ways that masqueraded under the term ‘civilisation’.
“I often think,” Herod remarked as they passed a group of men who stared, silent and hostile, ‘that of all rulers, he who governs a theocracy has the most thankless task. People are so busy praising God for his mercies—mainly invisible—that they can’t be ordinarily grateful for tangible advantages.”
Archelaus privately decided that when he was King—as he fully intended to be, by craft and corruption if qualification was not enough—he
would do something about these surly, stubbornpeople. If they wouldn’t smile and cheer from loyalty and gratitude, they should do it from fear. He looked at his father and thought, with some bewilderment, that you couldn’t honestly say that he was a soft man; he’d killed hundreds and would not hesitate to kill again; but he was oddly careless about the attitude of the ordinary man towards him.
Once, on a similar ride, a man, safely anonymous in a crowd, had flung a taunt; “Son of Esau!” he had shouted, referring to Herod’s ancestry. Herod had turned in his saddle and laughed and shouted back, “Thank you!”
Archelaus, younger then, had said, “But sir, that was an insult.”
“From a Jew, a compliment,” Herod said.
“If you must go picking over your pedigree like a race-horse, who wouldn’t rather be a descendant of Esau, the first-born, the good hunter, than that lying, cheating, mother’s darling who spawned this lot?”
Archelaus remembered that incident, and thought—Well, that’s one way of looking at it; that’s one way of governing, so completely to despise those you rule that whether they cheer or not doesn’t matter: all the same, when I ride these streets as King, people will cheer or I shall know why!
In places they were cheered. Anywhere where there was building going on. Even a Jewish builder knew the value of full employment and over the rebuilding of the Temple alone, ten thousand workmen had been employed steadily for six years. There were loud acclamations, too, from people about the theatre, the amphitheatre and the hippodrome where the workers were mainly Greeks or half-breeds of one kind or another, with some Jews who were prepared to accept civilising influences in the proper spirit. In places where the reception was warm and friendly Archelaus responded with a guarded enthusiasm. To be popular for yourself alone, and to endeavour to foster popularity was not a safe thing, if you were Herod’s son. Antipater, at the moment, enjoyed great popularity, simply because he and his father were always quarrelling. They would have a row in the Palace overnight, and somehow the word would spread and be all over the city by morning and on And pater’s next appearance he would have a tumultuous greeting. But that kind of thing merely worsened the situation between father and son, and Archelaus was clever enough to realise it. He was risking nothing; after all, Herod was seventy, and the Romans had enough respect for his judgement, and enough awareness of all he had done to keep this province of the Empire peaceful and prosperous, to take some note of any wish he expressed on his deathbed. Archelaus intended to wait.
When, with the wind growing colder and the grey sky darkening towards twilight, they passed the Royal Portico of the Temple, on their way back to the Palace, Herod said:
“I have the High Priest and five other Sanhedrin members dining with me this evening. It’s amusing to think that they have probably spent most of the day composing a complaint to send to Rome because I allowed Saturnalia to be celebrated. Unless Octavius lost his sense of humour when he became Augustus, he must often have a good laugh over these deputations.”
“They show such poor judgement,” agreed Archelaus who had once been in Rome when such a deputation arrived.
“One deputation, I remember, complained, hardly pausing for breath between, that three men had been unjustly tried and sentenced to death and that you wore the toga. Augustus did smile—he seldom laughs outright—and he said, “Which of these is a serious crime? One I commit regularly myself!” ‘ They have too much money; too much money by far,” Herod said darkly.
“Jews scattered all over the face of the earth, prosperous some of them, many poor, but all sending back money, sending back money, for the Temple funds. But when the harvest failed—oh, long before you were born—and pestilence broke out; did the damned priests lift a finger or give a sesterci to help the people? Did they even remit their tithes? They did not. I remitted my tax, my income, for a whole year. I also sold treasures from my Palace that I have never been able to replace. My best gold candlesticks ended up in Pontus, I believe; and there was a table of lapsis lazuli…. I bought corn from Egypt, they’d had a good harvest, and I gave it away, free. And what thanks did I get? I was trying, they said, to pauperise upright Jewish
citizens by imitating the dole-giving in Rome. They said that with their mouths full of my bread. Ingrates!”
There again, Archelaus thought, the contradictory streak; if when he ruled a year of famine came, he wouldn’t sell a candle to help, leave alone a candlestick!
“Well,” Herod said, ‘that’s over. They know I’m alive and well, and early next week I can go to Caesarea.”
That was a new town, his own creation, a beautiful place. It was cosmopolitan too, and the heavy leaden hand of the Jewish faith lay there so lightly as hardly to be felt at all. There he would not be expected to dine with six priests and spend the evening in solemn conversation.
Archelaus said, “May I come with you?” eagerly.
“It’s about time you went to Rome again,” Herod said.
“You can do a double errand there. You can give Caesar a first-hand account of my health. I think you’ll know what to say about that I And you can find out his favourite sculptor and his favourite pose and order a statue, twice life-size, to go in the atrium of the new baths at Calirrhoe. I owe my throne to the Emperor and my life to Calirrhoe, and that would be a suitable way of combining my expressions of gratitude. You can let that information fall in a casual way. Even flattery profits by a touch of subtlety; always remember that, my boy.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Archelaus said, thinking-That’s clever!
“I believe you do; otherwise I should not be sending you. You can come to Caesarea and take ship from there. Now I will go and don my detested toga, so that the High Priest’s disapproval lends some flavour to this dismal meal.”
It would be, as always on these occasions, as nearly meagre as could be served at a King’s table. The Jews had all these ridiculous rules about what could and what could not be eaten or drunk; let them abide by them. The meal this evening would be just that served in any well-to-do Jewish family’s household; mutton and beans, onions and horse-radish. And the wine would be a cheap local product, from grapes grown on Jewish soil, gathered by Jewish hands, the wine of Kiddush. Herod himself much preferred Falernian.