All God’s Children

The tumultuous story of A.D. 31—71

How the first Christians challenged the Roman world and shaped the next 2000 years.

An historical novel by

JAMES D. SNYDER

Lucky is he who can say he has been happily married for 42 years.

But what an added delight it is to find that your mate is also your most enthusiastic

travel companion, skilled photographer, discerning editor and honest critic.

To Sue, my wife and best friend.

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

PREFACE

LETTER FROM ROME––MAY, A.D. 79

BOOK I: The Sowing

LETTER FROM ROME––OCTOBER, A.D. 79

BOOK II: The Growing

LETTER FROM ROME––JULY A.D. 80

BOOK III: The Reaping

LETTER FROM ROME––JULY A.D. 81

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

APPENDICES:

ENDNOTES

SUGGESTED READING

MODERN NAMES of ANCIENT PLACES

LIST of VISUALS

ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS & PHOTOGRAPHS

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

COPYRIGHT PAGE

Senators: However ancient any institution seems,

once upon a time it was new!

–– Claudius

PREFACE

The subject of this book began as a casual inquiry and led to a 20-year odyssey that took me to nearly all of the places you will read about. What made it so absorbing was the growing conviction at each step along the way that the years A.D. 31—71 were probably the most dramatic in the history of western civilization and without a doubt the most crucial years in understanding the underpinnings of its two major religions.

Obviously, no story of this magnitude simply begins precisely in a certain year — especially when it spans 3,000 miles, three cultures and a 40-year period 2,000 years ago. I will begin this one with Octavian Cæsar Augustus, who had already been dead for 17 years by A.D. 31, but whose legacy would affect everyone who lived throughout this story.

However, we can set the stage aptly enough in modern Rome. Just a mile or so northwest of the Forum ruins, where the stone walls lining the Tiber meet the Ponte Cavour and dozens of smelly buses take tourists across the river to the Vatican, squats a government-gray building with as much distinction as a traffic island.

Inside is a marble monument that was modest even by imperial standards when erected in Augustus’ reign. But it may have symbolized his proudest achievement. Named the Ara Pacis, or Altar of Peace, it was built simply to celebrate having achieved what Augustus deemed to be lasting peace and stability. The intricate carvings around its marbled sides depict the happy members of the imperial family and their cheerful retainers from many lands all sacrificing to the gods of peace and plenty.

You’ll need this reminder when you begin reading of the horrible acts and unspeakable cruelties that ensued at Rome’s hands during A.D. 31—71, because things were not always so.

Next, let us cross the street to a square block containing a circular ruin that might have been an arena or warehouse that was shelled in World War II and never rebuilt. A few evergreens remain around the fringes, but they are difficult to admire in a sea of empty bottles from idlers and litter from passing cars. A simple metal sign marks it as the Mausoleum of Augustus.

Let us imagine it just shortly after the emperor’s death and deification in A.D. 14.

We stand in front of a perfectly round wall of white marble. At a second level atop the walls, as on the second layer of a wedding cake, stands a grove of slim evergreens. In its center is the mausoleum itself, with the circular roof topped by a gilt-bronze statue of the blond Augustus in his handsomest years.

At street level, we see the morning sun casting long shadows on the pink obelisks that stand at the entrance. And just inside we see the bronze tablets that describe the testimonial of Cæsar Augustus during a rule that encompassed 55 years:

At the age of nineteen I raised an army which liberated the Republic...About 500,000 citizens were under military oath to me...I was acclaimed imperator twenty one times...I was ranking senator for 40 years...have been Pontifex Maximus, Augur, member of the College of Fifteen for performing sacrifices, member of the College of Seven for conducting religious banquets...

I gave gladiatorial shows three times in my own name and five times in the names of my sons or grandsons...I extended the frontiers of all the provinces of the Roman people on whose boundaries were peoples not subject to our empire.

In my sixth and seventh consulships, after I had put an end to the civil wars, having attained supreme power by universal consent, I transferred the state from my own power to the control of the Roman Senate and people. For this service I received the title of Augustus... When I held my thirteenth consulship, the Senate, the equestrian order and the entire Roman people gave me the title of father of the country and decreed that this title should be inscribed in the vestibule of my house...¹

And so forth. Had the average Roman of that time been allowed to inscribe those bronze tablets, he probably would have added that Augustus, despite all the great wealth available to him, lived in a relatively modest home and governed graciously. His dress was as simple as the occasion would allow and his manner was calm and mild.

He governed with forbearance, as well, our common man would continue. He accepted criticism with patience. And no citizen — save perhaps some deserving members of his own household — lost a night’s sleep worrying that he might be banished or flung into the Tiber for making a careless remark.

He was generous from the beginning, when he shared with citizens the spoils of the civil war that brought him power, to the end, when his estate bequeathed the million or so residents of Rome what was probably over $20 million in today’s currency. During his reign, when leading citizens left him portions of their estates in the usual gesture of respect, he usually repaid the sums to their children with interest when they became of age. He also rendered an annual accounting of public finances, a practice that his successors, to the empire’s detriment, saw fit to overlook.

Let’s also visit the Mausoleum of Augustus as it would have looked at the end of our story in A.D. 71. We’ll assume that the visitor’s gate has been unlocked by a young Augustale, one of the priests of the cult of deified emperors who oversees sacred places like this. We now proceed up the entranceway to the upper level, through the grove of evergreens. We are now inside the mausoleum rotunda with the great statue of Augustus directly over us. All around us are the galleries containing the urns and ashes of the Julio-Claudian family:

•the emperor’s wife, Livia, who outlived him by 15 years;

•his sister, Octavia, once wed to and shed by Marcus Antonius;

•his grandsons Marcellus, Gaius and Lucius, all heirs who died in the flower of their youth;

•Agrippa, his lifelong partner in building and soldiering, then ultimately his adopted son;

•Drusus, son of Livia;

•Germanicus, son of Drusus;

•Tiberius, younger brother of Drusus and adopted son of Augustus;

•the poor deranged Gaius Caligula;

•and Claudius, the lame, stammering family embarrassment until he, too, became emperor and managed to rule for 14 years.

This site symbolizes both the 55 years of peace under Augustus and the 40 years of awful turmoil that followed. While history can thank Octavian Cæsar Augustus for the strength and genius that produced his golden age, it can also indict him for creating an enterprise that required greater management skills than possessed by any of the lesser mortals who succeeded him.

All these, who so often schemed together and/or scorned one another and strew so many broken bodies and families and fortunes in their own tortured paths, now sleep quietly in the same house. And in its strange way, those in this house also symbolize both the strength and essence of the period. They enabled the world of Rome to endure. And the world somehow endured in spite of them.

Now let us complete the tour. Cross the Ponte Cavour to the other side of the Tiber and within a minute you are soon swept up in the immensity of St. Peter’s Basilica, embodying the grandeur of today’s Rome as it glistens after having been scrubbed and polished for the 2000th Jubilee Year of Christianity.

Finally, if you head south for a short distance and take the bridges across Tiber Island, you will be at the foot of an unpretentious gray synagogue housing an active congregation. This particular building was rebuilt in the 19th century, but on the same spot a synagogue has stood since even before the reign of Augustus when the neighborhood was a ghetto of Jewish leather workers and tradesmen. It stands as a living symbol of pride, independence and endurance through unimaginable adversity.

AT THE BEGINNING of our 40-year period, the Roman empire encompassed about 54 million persons, including nearly 7 million Jews and probably fewer than 2,000 devout followers of Jesus. At the end of it one can guess the number of Christians at closer to 100,000. Why, in this well-ordered empire with its many gods, idols and temples to choose from, did the Jews cling so stubbornly to their nameless monotheistic deity and empty temple sanctuary despite obstacles that ranged from dietary inconveniences to certain death? And why did the even more radical Christians (in the eyes of Rome at least), make their choice at even greater personal peril?

Discovering those answers is what this book is all about. The only way to find them is to excavate through layers of centuries: back before there were popes, cathedrals, pogroms, reformations, inquisitions, crusades, schisms and saints — back even 200 years before the emperor Constantine declared himself a Christian and all but made Christianity the Roman Empire’s official religion. Only by scraping away the patina of time can we appreciate that the reason why so many people wholeheartedly embraced a Jewish prophet whose path had led only to an ugly crucifixion was that they had personally seen him and/or knew others who had.

What keeps so many intelligent, otherwise curious people from discovering more about this period on their own is simply that it’s such a daunting chore. One finds, for instance, that the 21 epistles of the New Testament aren’t organized chronologically and that scholars still debate who wrote many of them. The works of Josephus, the indispensable Jewish historian of the time, consume over 1,000 pages of small print and archaic prose. Linking an event to a specific year is often difficult because first-century writers didn’t assign numerals to years, instead identifying an event as happening in the consulship of one, two or three Roman senators who may or may not have left us something more than their names.

And those very names were often maddeningly similar. For example, many nobles took the name Agrippa (after Cæsar Augustus’ illustrious deputy) while many wives and daughters of all nationalities were named Agrippina. Adding to the confusion is that the careers of great personages over this 40-year period can be explained only by parading on-stage countless sons, slaves, scribes, soldiers and other supporting actors.

Thus, I have seen my chief task as sorting and assembling this information so that you will be spurred along your route of discovery rather than feeling that you are alone digging through a 2,000-year-old archeological site with a teaspoon. To this end I have used the following tools:

1.The book is narrated by an ex-slave named Attalos, whose ancestors were from Pergamum in Asia Minor (now Turkey), and whose slave days were spent largely in Alexandria, Egypt. He writes from his adopted home of Rome during the years A.D. 79—81 as he looks back over 40 years that shook his world. Attalos lived at a time when the first eyewitness accounts of Jesus and letters of his apostles were being assembled in print. Attalos serves as your constant reminder that there was no perspective beyond that — no popes, cathedrals and all, as I have already noted.

2.The story is told chronologically in three books. By using numbered years for chapter headings, I have broken the rules for your convenience. Moreover, no one writing in this period actually thought in terms of B.C. and A.D.

I believe that chronology is by far the most important determinant of historical events, and the most logical way to explain them. Should this seem like stating the obvious, consider that many histories are organized into chapters on economics, politics, sociology and the like. For example, most works on the apostle Paul tend to be analyses of his positions on various theological issues, all of which flit back and forth across timelines of his travels and writings. I believe the best way to understand the motives and actions of Paul or anyone is to realize where he was at the time and what events were apt to color his thinking as he peered into an uncertain future.

Organizing that chronology was the most intricate and time-consuming task. Although this may be the most detailed chronology of A.D. 31—71 ever compiled, I readily acknowledge that conjecture and/or scholarly dispute loom large over these years—especially in the case of early Christian history. Thus, whenever the narrator, Attalos, is not on firm ground, he lets you know it.

In that regard, you should note in advance that the greatest of all uncertainties are those surrounding the final days and deaths of Peter and Paul. I have concluded that the oral traditions, which the Catholic Church has largely adopted, are the most likely scenario, and these are further explained in the Epilogue. To a lesser extent, debate continues over the year of Jesus’ crucifixion. Most scholars have narrowed the probabilities to either Friday, April 7, A.D. 30 or Friday, April 3, A.D. 33. I have used the former.

3.I have done everything possible to spare you unnecessary begats, characters with confusing names and rambling footnotes. Direct passages from ancient writers are presented in contrasting type, and you will find the sources listed in the Endnotes at the back of the book. Also in the appendix is a list of the places mentioned in the text and their present names.

You will also find several maps as well as liberal use of navigational directions and distances in miles. The intent is to help you appreciate, for example, how difficult it was for Paul to walk across Asia Minor or how relatively easily one could board a ship at Cæsarea and sail to a wide choice of Greek ports. Another purpose is to demonstrate how closely people of all nationalities interacted and passed on news.

The subject of money also looms large in the book, for the simple reason that people thought and talked about it just as much as they do today. Although many client states had their own coinage (for example, the Jewish shekel²) the prevailing monetary units were the Roman as, sesterce and denarius. In general, four as comprised a sesterce and four of these a denarius. It took roughly 6,000 denarii to make a silver talent.

For convenience sake, one might roughly equate a sesterce to today’s U.S. quarter (25¢) and the denarius to $1. But precise comparisons are frustrating for several reasons. Cash was less crucial to ancient economies because most households produced more of their own goods and bartered for trade than today. Although the as (6.25¢ by the above reckoning) would buy six loaves of bread, it doesn’t follow that an as should be valued at $6 just because we may pay a $1 for a loaf of bread today. The reason is that the value of human labor was more akin to that in today’s least developed economies. A typical Roman soldier, for example, earned 900 sesterces a year. And to further complicate comparisons, the value of that pay would have been worth more in A.D. 31 and perhaps one-third less by A.D. 71. The reason: inflation took its toll then as it does now.

FINALLY, please keep in mind that there is nothing in these pages that did not actually happen according to someone who lived at the time or not long afterwards. Everything comes from the same primary sources that await all historians: The Bible (Revised Standard Version), the Jewish historians Josephus and Philo, and the Roman historians Tacitus, Suetonius and Dio Cassius. Among what one might label supporting sources are works by those such as the Roman philosopher-statesman Seneca, the early Christian bishop Eusebius, the biographer Philostratus (his two volumes on the philosopher Apollonius) and the Roman diarist Pliny the Younger. I have also drawn on several literary figures who wrote at the time, including Livy, Martial, Lucan and Seneca (the latter being listed twice because he was also a playwright).

The lone exceptions to the above statement are the Letters from Rome by the ex-slave Attalos, which appear at the beginning of each of the three books and following Book III. Attalos and the characters he addresses are fictitious. However, the events he describes (such as the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the first attempts to develop the modern book, or codex format) actually happened in the times described.

You will soon read that the fictitious Attalos made his living as a book publisher. Scholars agree that Mark, the first of the gospels, was probably published sometime between A.D. 65 and 70. They agree that the letters of Paul were probably first assembled and published sometime during A.D. 80—90. Thus, if one were to speculate on who would have been the most logical person to compile and publish such works, why not an existing book publisher who realized a new market in the rapidly growing Christian community?

I give you Attalos.

LETTER FROM ROME –– MAY, A. D. 79

To My cousin and partner Eumenes back home in Pergamum, my fondest greetings. And a warm embrace to your wife Polias and your enigmatic offspring Epidarus, in whose hands the survival of our pimple of a dynasty would seem to rest.

I affirm that I am well and even allowing myself to feel a bit jubilant! But first I ask that you extend a family welcome to Diodoros, the young carrier of this letter and the heavy trunk he has sagged beneath and guarded for so long. Yes, this is the very Diodoros I mentioned to you three years ago when he became an apprentice at our fledgling bookstore and scriptorium in Rome. He has since become my trusted assistant and has the skills to do you much good in Pergamum. So I ask that you invite Diodoros into your home for supper, and then, as soon as you can, help him find decent lodgings.

Why spend all that money to send Diodoros in person when I could have shipped this cargo? What’s in those bundles? A portion, I assure you, dear partner, is your share of the profits to date. As for the remaining contents, well, right now I know you are far more interested in my gossip from Rome than about some mere bundles that could make you the wealthiest book publisher in the Asian province and one of its leading citizens!

The business at my end of the partnership had been steady but unspectacular until recently, Just as you have proven that Asians and Greeks will buy books on the various temples and travel sites in Italy, I have justified our expectation that Roman families and libraries will pay for well-done guidebooks on similar sites along the Ægean. Our little shop in the Argiletum doesn’t exactly compare to the emporia of Dorus or the Sosius Brothers on the Street of Booksellers, but we have our little niche and the scriptorium is keeping very busy.

I have now taken an apartment in the Subura, which is just a half-mile walk from the Argiletum and a joy to me for reasons that might escape you with your roomy villa and olive grove. The whole time I labored at the Tabularium during Nero’s reign, I lived in one room or another in somebody’s lodging house. And even when I became in charge of the Octavian library I slept in a converted storeroom in order to save the money for our little venture on the Street of Booksellers. Now, having four rooms is like being Nero in his Golden House. Oh, to be sure, I keep the doorway and the shutters unpainted and rough-looking so the neighbors in the courtyard won’t ' be covetous. But inside, the light from the outer wall is ample and my third-story windows look out towards the new Baths of Titus and that interminable construction project, the Flavian Amphitheater. Moreover, I have haunted second-hand shops with a discerning-enough eye to have fetched a lovely old Minerva figurine and some other small statuary that, when impeccably arranged, casts beguiling reflections that play off the lamplight at night. Allow me to boast enough to relate that one recent dinner guest said she felt as if I’m in a miniature palace on the Palatine.

Yes, yes, you say, but what about those bundles Diodoros brought? I’m getting there. I just told you that the scriptorium is very busy, but in fact it’s a confused jumble. Remember that small upstairs space, the one that we were renting out to the tailor when you first visited? Right now we have six copyists up there all bumping elbows and getting ink on each other. And the light is so bad that some of them prefer to sit outside at makeshift tables and risk some passerby spattering their scrolls with mud — or worse!

What I am trying to say is that we are at a crossroads in this business. One path leads to growth and opportunity. Admittedly, I myself brought this about in recent weeks by deciding to try something different. Remember how many people devoured The Civil War when Lucan first wrote it? Well, as you may know, Nero banned the book and soon forced this young man of not quite 30 years to open his veins. I mention all this because three months ago one of our frequent customers walked into the shop and matter-of-factly asked if we’d make him three copies of The Civil War.

Now don’t faint, Eumenes. This man is one of Rome’s wealthiest merchants and a patron of poets and publishers. His request was made so routinely that I said without any hesitation, Well, why not? After all, the book was banned 14 years ago and it wasn’t because of the book or the subject. It was all because Nero thought Lucan’s poetry rivaled his own (what an insult!) and because this passionate young Spaniard got himself embroiled in that famous conspiracy plot with Calpurnius Piso. And it wasn’t as if I were being asked to publish a new and untested commodity. If this leading citizen isn’t afraid to own a copy, why should I worry about manufacturing one?

So did we produce the three copies? Well, you’d be thefrst to say that would be a waste of time when one reader can dictate to six copyists as easily as three. So, no, we made 15, three for the customer and 12 for the store. And you’ll probably be as amazed as I was when I tell you that we sold them all within two weeks. What’s more, we got 200 sesterces apiece, which of course is like selling two dozen of our Pilgrim’s Guide to the Ephesian Temple of Artemis.

What I’m taking too long to tell you, dear cousin (who is more like a brother to me), is that we now have the patron we have sought for so long! And, yes, he is that same shopper, a man I will now refer to only as Literato. He came back to the shop a couple of weeks later and was amazed to learn about Lucan’s good fortune to be reborn with our midwifery. Pretty soon we were in earnest conversation about the possibilities for publishing other luminaries and promising authors. I wish you could meet him because he quickly sized up the way things are on the Street of Booksellers and because he agrees with what you and I have been saying all these years. He and other high-placed friends are sick of the high prices charged by the Argiletum Oligarchy and they are bored with the same old offerings. The Sosius Brothers sell Horace over and over; with Quintus Atticus it’s Cicereo ad nauseum while Dorus continues scribbling his Seneca day after day, and so forth down the street. What Romans really want are new works written in this refreshing era of freedom. These old-time publishers merely cringe and roll their eyes and whisper about what happened to brave publishers under Tiberius and Caligula and Nero; but thanks to the sensible Vespasian (he becomes even better with age) we have now had almost a decade of civilized, common-sense government, and I truly believe that the young Titus will give us even more decades of the same when his time comes.

I’m now getting nearer to those bundles Diodoros brought. Each of the five sets of scrolls in the trunk that accompanied Diodoros includes specific instructions; but I want to prepare you for the fact that some of these works will be different from the tourist books we are accustomed to producing. For instance, Literato is also a patron of one Martial, a droll denizen of the taverns who has been penning epigrams around town for years, but who will soon become famous if Literato has his way and publishes them as an anthology for the private libraries of sophisticated, wealthy readers.

Epigrams, you ask? Yes: little verses for all occasions, such as this one for publishers like us:

You blame my verse; to publish you decline;

Show us your own, or cease to carp at mine.

Here’s one from Martial for you and your copyists:

A rumor says that you recite

As yours the verses that I write.

Friend, if you’ll credit them to me

I’ll send you all my poems for free;

But if as yours you'd have them known,

Buy them, and they’ll become your own.

Other publishing possibilities are all over Rome — and no doubt in a dozen Pergamums as well. For instance, how would you like to copy a manuscript that could yield 250 pages and maybe ten scrolls? That could happen because Literato knows of a certain Josephus, a Jewish priest and general who was brought back by Vespasian after the destruction of Jerusalem. Reportedly, he is finishing work on a history of the Jewish war for the consumption of Vespasian’s court, the Senate and the multitude of veterans who sit around in the taverns telling how they singlehandedly vaulted the temple walls in Jerusalem. Literato is going to write a friend of his in the imperial household to see if we can establish an introduction to this Josephus.

If that doesn ’t work out, then consider Quintilian. You may have gotten word out there in your provincial pastures last year when Vespasian appointed him the first official, state-paid Teacher of Rhetoric in Roman history. Literato has already collected several of Quintilian’s speeches, which strike me as even windier than Cicero’s. Now, cousin, I don’t think the rabble of Rome is going to gobble up the rhetoric of Quintilian, but our new patron feels that a handsome anthology of such speeches will find its way into private libraries from Rome to Antioch to Ephesus.

At this point, my always-cautious, cynical partner, I can see your eyes blinking like hummingbird wings when you get anxious and flustered. In fact, I will now anticipate three matters that have you worried.

First, just who is this mysterious patron? Why do you call him Literato and not by name? My reply: he is very reputable and trustworthy. If he has asked that we not use his name, I will not quibble. Frankly, I think he wants to shield his good reputation and find another publisher to invest in should you and I squander our good fortune and get tossed out of the Argiletum. And, yes, there’s no reason he should suffer should some new book of ours incur the displeasure of someone in the palace. Now don’t get excited. It’s I who would be flayed and flung into the Tiber, not you or Literato.

Next, are we giving up our books for pilgrims and vacationers? Why, not at all, good Eumenes! These will continue to provide our daily bread and wine. In fact, Diodoros has also brought you two short manuscripts to add to the collection: The Sacred House of the Vestal Virgins and a new version of the Jupiter Capitoline that includes drawings of the impressive rebuilding work since the fire of ten years ago. I assume that you’ll first supply our direct customers along the Ephesus-Miletus-Assos road before you reserve any copies for outside distributors. I still don’t trust these people, what with their requests for credit and special discounts. Remember that so-called dealer from Crete who disappeared with half your inventory? (Well, it seemed like half to hear you wail about it!)

I have a request from Rome as well. There is increasing interest here in The Asclepieum of Pergamum as a spa and treatment center for the infirm (which seems to include me half the time). Yes, I know it is already part of the book on Pergamum, but there are many people who don't want to read all that stuff on the city’s illustrious history.

I would rather see you expand on The Asclepieum as the separate entity it is. We need to entice people more with the background of the sacred healing waters, the hospital, the mud treatments, dream interpretation center, temples, theater and so forth. You can also fill up the scroll with the whole history of Asclepieus, his cult and the mystical rites going back 500 years. My experience is that sick people have the time to read and are looking earnestly for painless cures in pleasant surroundings. We can sell as many of these as we do of the Pergamum book, so get busy!

Finally, you are asking: How on earth will we copy and sell all these new books?

Now I’ll stop teasing you, dear brother, because here is another reason why I choose not to quibble with Literato’s simple request for anonymity. In Diodoros’ bundles are 100,000 sesterces and a bank draft for 150,000 more which our patron gave us in exchange for one-third of our future profits. Now do you feel better about him? I thought so!

You are the most important part of this arrangement — and for several reasons. The main one is that whereas we must indeed expand our scriptorium, Rome is not the place for it. Literato agrees that shipping books from Asia is inexpensive compared to the cost of expanding in the Argiletum, even if we could find the room. And even if we did find the space we would soon be conspicuous enough to arouse the suspicion of our dear neighbors, The Oligopoly. This, again, is why I have sent you Diodoros: to help you organize and operate a new scriptorium.

Now where should we put it? No, not where you are now in the Upper Citadel. This may be painful to read, but I am convinced that your present shop by the Great Library is not up to the challenge that lies ahead. You remain there, my loyal Eumenes, because our family name is identified with that of the great Pergamum Library and because this brings you respectability. But the fact is that our sales are limited to the library itself, the palaces of a few wealthy families and the tourists who trudge up that hill for the view when the weather is sunny enough.

Well, I have a way where you no longer have to climb up there every day at just the time when your 50-year-old legs are beginning to give out! I want you to take 150,000 of this money and use it to outfit a large shop and even larger scriptorium down in the city where the crowds are. Specifically, I would suggest it be right on the Via Tecta where you have the entrance to Pergamum on one side, and on the other, the beginning of the tourist shops that lead to the Asclepieum. There you’ll have it all: crowds of locals, pilgrims to the Asclepieum and business travelers from all over the Mediterranean. And you won’t be far from the street of parchment makers, either.

Parchment makers? O Yes! I know your old ditty about being able to smell them before you see them, but hear me out because this is important to our plan. Literato and I want you to take another 50,000 sesterces and start work on a new way of making books.

We want you to find at least one parchment maker who will help you produce a book in what is called codex form. Forget that you ever heard of a scroll. Under the concept Diodoros and I have come up with, the parchment vellum is stretched over a larger frame so that the sheets are nine or 12 inches high by perhaps 24 or 25 inches wide (you’ll have to experiment to find the exact size). Instead of gluing these sheets side by side for a scroll, you lay them out horizontally on top of one another and stitch them up the middle. Once you fold over the two sides of vellum you need a protective cover. Leather might be suitable. Or you might take two wooden writing tablets and bind them together by a thong. The exact method is up to you, the parchment house and Diodoros.

But why, you say. Let us think first of the reader. A codex is easier to store and pick up. It can include much more reading material between the covers than a scroll, which means it’s easier to store on a library shelf. It doesn’t wrinkle like papyrus and can support better illustrations, which pleases rich people and makes them want to pay more. Finally, it will last longer, which is why some librarians I’ve talked to in Rome are interested in it. When many people handle a papyrus book, it doesn’t last very long.

Let us think about cost as well. With a codex you don’t need scroll knobs or roller wood. But the main thing is that I believe the cost difference between parchment and papyrus itself is continuing to narrow. It’s because the Roman-owned estates that harvest most of the papyrus reeds along the Nile have grown fewer in number and larger in size. It is no surprise that this ever-cozier cabal has caused the price of all grades of papyrus to rise gradually with no end in sight. And all this is a big reason why all of us who work on the Street of Booksellers must charge so much for our scrolls.

Literato and Diodoros are convinced we can break this stronghold through wiser, more imaginative use of parchment. Indeed, Literato roared with laughter when I also told him that this is your chance to match your namesake, Eumenes II, who invented our famous Pergamum parchment nearly 300 years ago. And all because the Egyptians were so jealous that our library might surpass their wondrous library at Alexandria that they blocked the export of papyrus to Asia!

There’s a sweet treat in this revenge for me, too, if you haven’t guessed already. Around 120 years ago when Marcus Antonius looted our library so that Cleopatra could replace the books that burned in the great Alexandria fire, my great grandfather was one of the young scribes they carted off to look after the new supply in Egypt. Looking back, I would have to say that this event had more to do with molding my own peripatetic fate than anything I’ve been able to effect on my own. So I should think you and I would derive a delicious little bonus from all this if it helped our little family phœnix rise over the pyramids of Egypt, if even for but a moment in history!

Now let me turn to the 50,000 sesterces remaining in your new dowry. Once you get the new codex process perfected, we want you to use it to produce a few of the larger works we have discussed. Among them is the last of the bundles in Diodoros’ baggage, which consists of a manuscript about one-third completed. All I ask of you at this point is that you keep the incomplete manuscript in a safe place until we decide when the time has come to publish it.

How’s that? Well, of course I'll tell you what it’s about! But before I do so, summon Polias and allow her to read this, because I know she has had some contact with the people I am about to mention.

Literato and I want to produce a work on the history and beliefs of the Christians: how they sprang from the Jews and why their numbers continue to grow despite all the forces that seem to conspire against them. We are ideally suited for this because of the active Christian communities in Rome and — even more so — in the Ægean coastal region to be served by your expanded facility. Moreover, this might one day present a book market throughout the empire because there are already growing Christian communities as far-flung as Alexandria, Palestine, Tarsus, Cappadocia, Spain, Gaul and even Britain.

I hear you grumbling again. What? Where are these Christian book buyers? How many have ever walked into my shop in the Citadel? I hear they give their possessions away, so how do they have money for books?

I strongly suggest, Eumenes, that there are many more Christians than you think, if for no other reason than they don’t necessarily go where you go. They seldom frequent wine shops, the games or temples. Further, they have no special dress to mark them and have built no temples in which to congregate conspicuously. But if you look about, you will find many Christians — women, slaves, shopkeepers, even some prominent citizens. They meet mostly in private homes where they share readings, sing a lot and share meals together.

Take my word for it. I once took scant notice of them; but on my weekly strolls around Rome on my days of rest I have encountered numerous Christians along the city’s southern outskirts. There the earth is laced underneath with tufa that has been hewn into corridors and grottos, and where Christians bury their dead.

I see the same to the west of Rome in the Vatican section. This district used to be dominated by the old Circus of Caligula and Nero, but it has fallen into idle disrepair for the last dozen years, and many lower-class opportunists have seized a chance to build family mausoleums on a hill just across from it. There you’ll also find the tombs of many Christian leaders who fell at the hand of Nero. I mention this because there are constantly crowds around these Christian graves — people wearing the dress of all parts of the empire — and they have left hundreds of reverent inscriptions and votaries all around so that one might think it had been a busy day at the Temple of Artemis.

All this, of course, shows an intensity in their devotion to Jesus, the founder, and for us should mean an interest in having books that explain his teachings and the history of their religion. These are sorely lacking because most Christians — at least those in Rome — have lived in such fear ever since the Neronian persecutions that it’s no wonder there are few books. Who would want to have his name on them? Or even be mentioned in them? Imagine that the authorities had just swooped down on your Asclepieum and carried off all the patients and physicians. Do you think you would want to admit you’d ever had so much as a mud bath there?

As you can see, I have developed a great interest in the subject and a concern that so few have written about it. Thus, you should not be surprised when I tell you that I am the author of the partially-completed manuscript that I am asking you to store.

And why not Attalos? Am I not addicted to reading? Do I not know every pigeonhole and mousehole in the leading libraries of Rome? It is, I maintain, but a puddle jump from Attalos the librarian to Attalos the writer. Besides, I have acquired several letters and a diary or two that shed light on the story. With these and the histories already available to me in the libraries of Rome, I have the means to answer some intriguing questions, such as: Why did some people turn from religion that offered the most splendid temple in the world to a new one that had no temples or idols at all? What caused the Jews of Jerusalem to revolt? Why did Rome destroy all the Jews in Jerusalem but let Christians go free? Why do the Christians keep growing in numbers?

I can now hear you saying that we are beginning to sail in dangerous waters. Here I will not tease or trifle with you, cousin. Yes, there may well be some risk here, which is why you should put this manuscript in a safe place until we have a better opportunity to divine the omens. I admit that writing about dead and deified emperors is safer than about events that can be read by the living. Indeed, as a general, Vespasian had both feet in the Palestine that harvested the first Christians. But you, Eumenes, must admit that in his nine years as Emperor, Vespasian has proven to be a just and noble man, patient and lenient even with his severest critics. Recently a group of well-meaning Greek scholars went to great lengths to trace the origin of his family to Hercules. When they appeared with the evidence at one of the emperor’s receptions, he simply waved them off, laughing that so much work could go into so ludicrous an exercise.

But worry not about the manuscript, Eumenes. You have a large and ambitious undertaking ahead and I urge you to concentrate on it for now. I hope that my absence in this endeavor will be compensated for by the presence of Diodoros, the money in his baggage and the assurance that we have a powerful patron on our side. I bid you and your family a fond farewell and hope you will write often with news of your progress.

––Attalos

THE SOWING

BOOK I

A. D. 31 — 32

Ibegin this history in the 17th year after Augustus’ death and deification. On the Isle of Capri, Tiberius was in his 72nd year and beyond embitterment at having had to govern the world for so long. In Judea, it was also the year in which the followers of Jesus faced a frightening new existence without him. And for the Jews of Jerusalem it was another year of tension and taxation under the unchecked Governor Pontius Pilate.

In Rome, what had begun as just another sultry summer day had burst into a fireball of repressed hate and rage. Sejanus was dead, and by nightfall the frenzied rabble had seen to it that not even enough body parts could be found in one place to effect a funeral. It should have been an equally jubilant time for what remained of the patrician and equestrian classes, but instead an eerie calm prevailed as people waited warily to see what the truculent old tyrant on Capri would do now that he had removed his upstart, once-presumed heir and partner of my labors. For, since having removed himself and a small court of cronies, Prætorians, chamberlains and astrologers to this rocky outpost five years before, Tiberius Claudius Nero had not set foot in Rome. And his moods could be divined only from his occasional visitors or official correspondence with the Senate.

Oh what a contrast was Tiberius with his predecessor as he sat brooding atop his cliff-top villa. When Cæsar Augustus was 76 and in his last day of his life, he still had the grace and good nature to call some close friends to his bedside, and with a wan twinkle in his eye, recall the lines of a comedy actor at the end of his play:

Since I’ve played well, with joy your voices raise

And from the stage dismiss me with your praise.¹

And then left alone, he passed away peacefully in the embrace of his wife, Livia.

Although an emperor can rule millions with a command, his ability to guarantee a wise and noble successor seems to be no better than his chances of turning up the dog with a throw of the dice. Augustus, who had a daughter by his first marriage and outlived two eligible grandsons, wound up having to choose between two stepsons Livia brought him when she became his second wife. When Drusus, the eldest and more outgoing, died in a far-off military camp, Augustus’ realm was left at last to the candidate he least wanted and the candidate who probably least wanted it.

And that is one reason why I feel a mixture of pity and compassion for Tiberius the man, even though the spirits of many murdered patricians will no doubt curse me for saying so. Did he perhaps know instinctively that Cæsar Augustus simply created too large a persona and too large a responsibility for anyone but the equally gifted to inherit? And did Augustus himself not break the spirit of that successor even before he was called upon — yea, ordered — to rule?

Consider his case, O jury of readers. When Tiberius was but a small boy he was torn away from his real father when the young Octavian wooed away (some say abducted) his mother, Livia. From the age of 12 on, his only life was one of unquestioning and exhausting service to his stepfather. At various times he might be taking charge of the grain supply or leading a Senate investigation of slave prison conditions. He led an expeditionary force that restored Tigranes to the throne of Armenia. He journeyed to the easternmost borders of the empire to recover the Roman standards that the Parthians had snatched in battle. He was governor of southern Gaul. Tall, physically strong and the essence of the model Roman soldier, he led armies in Pannonia, in Dalmatia and throughout Germany. And at the proper times for his age and station, he served as quæstor, prætor and consul twice.

But honors always came at a cost and obligation. In his early manhood, Tiberius’ burdens were lightened by his marriage to Agrippina (but not the Agrippina we will soon read much more about). He adored her and she bore him a son, Drusus, named in honor of his brother and fellow general. Then, when she was happily carrying his second child, he was forced to divorce her and to contract a hurried marriage with Julia, the unruly, unmanageable daughter of Augustus.

What a sad event indeed for all concerned! Julia was the daughter of Augustus’ first marriage to Scribonia, whom he divorced in his twenties for her shrewish disposition. But Julia remained his to contend with. Rebellious, flirtatious and all too fond of wine, she was given first to the son of Augustus’ only sister. When he died, Augustus turned to a man his own age, his trusted confidant Marcus Agrippa, and prevailed on him to wed and tame the young widow.

Agrippa and Julia produced three sons before she was widowed again, but already tongues were wagging about her obvious infatuation with Tiberius. He, however, avoided her as though she were a leper — both because she was the emperor’s daughter and because he was deeply in love with his own wife. But one day Tiberius got the greatest shock of his life when Augustus demanded the ultimate sacrifice: that he dissolve his happy marriage and marry Julia for the good of the empire.

Tiberius had been commonly described as stern and taciturn. Now the more accurate adjectives would become sullen and morose. Although Julia’s maudlin advances were now sanctioned by wedlock and Tiberius did his best to satisfy them, it soon became a hellish arrangement. First, the despondent Tiberius longed for his former wife to the point of following her in a crowd or staring like a sorrowful puppy whenever she turned around in his presence. Meanwhile, he had only succeeded in making Julia more repulsive. She was drinking more than ever, publicly mocking her husband as cold and callous. And the same flirtatious eyes that had beckoned Tiberius were already luring other men to her bed.

Augustus insisted that producing a child would rejuvenate the union, and the pair dutifully complied. But after the baby died in infancy, Tiberius and Julia were soon living apart for good. Augustus at first sided with his daughter. But soon the emperor became so outraged at her behavior that he banished her from the household, from his will and even from a place in the magnificent mausoleum that he had already built to glorify the imperial family after death.

Perhaps it was Julia. Perhaps it was the sudden death of his vigorous, able brother Drusus in Germany and the long and sad trip to retrieve his body. But shortly after his return Tiberius had made up his mind on a new course. In the prime of life and imperial service he announced his firm resolve to retire. Unofficially, he let it be known that he did not want to interfere with any succession plans Augustus might have for his grandsons (by Julia) Gaius and Lucius, both of whom were now strong and healthy boys about to embark on their official princely duties. But I think Tiberius simply didn’t like his own life or the prospect of ruling. And had Augustus accepted it, how differently the times might have turned out!

Officially, Tiberius said he was weary of his offices and desired a rest. Neither the entreaties of his mother Livia nor his stepfather, the emperor, could change his mind. In fact, when they began scolding and insisting, he refused to take food for four days. And one day when Augustus ended yet another argument by throwing up his arms in despair, Tiberius chose to take it as a gesture of dismissal. He rushed away with his baggage and headed for the port of Ostia so quickly that he scarcely said a word of good-bye to anyone.

Tiberius sailed directly to Rhodes and spent the next eight years on this healthful island, living in a modest villa in the interior so as not to cause notice. He was noticed, of course, but always took pains to arrive at the gymnasium with a single lictor or to shun the attentions of the many generals and magistrates who sought to pay him homage during their travels to Greece. He even gave up his usual exercises with horses and arms and assumed the Greek dress.

However, the following incident shows how even the best of intentions can take a wrong turn when one happens to be a royal from Rome. During one of his first days on Rhodes, Tiberius announced his wish to visit whatever sick people there were in the city. Misunderstanding his intent, an attendant went to the village and ordered that all the sick should be taken to a public portico and arranged in groups according to their type of illness. When Tiberius came upon the shocking sight of so many feeble people tottering in the hot sun, he went to each person, apologizing profusely, no matter how humble their station.

It was another misunderstanding that ended his otherwise happy sabbatical after eight years. Upon learning that Gaius, his stepson by the marriage to Julia, was lodging on the nearby isle of Samos, Tiberius thought it proper to pay his respects. However, he was startled to find Gaius cold and distant. After returning to Rhodes, Tiberius learned that an overly protective aide of Gaius had spread rumors that he had designs on the young heir’s life. So, too, came a report that a hot-headed young friend of Giaus had stood up at a dinner party and vowed that at his patron’s command he would gladly set sail at once for Rhodes and bring back the head of the exile, as Tiberius’ detractors called him.

With just a few retainers and his modest villa offering no fortification, Tiberius actually began to fear for his own safety. This was probably the reason why he soon petitioned the emperor for a recall to Rome. Augustus, still bitter at being abandoned by his chief lieutenant in government, agreed to the return (mainly at Livia’s urging), but only on condition that Tiberius not take part in public affairs.

No one, I suspect, would have been happier to comply than Tiberius. He soon moved to a modest (compared to the palace) suburban home and reappeared only when formal occasions dictated. But again, neither Augustus nor fate would leave Tiberius alone for long. When Augustus’ two grandsons, Gaius and Lucius, both died within three years, he formally adopted Tiberius. In turn, the emperor compelled Tiberius to adopt Germanicus, the 30-year-old son of his late older brother Drusus. Succession would not come officially for many more years, but Tiberius was clearly back in the center of the arena and not enjoying it. When it did come, he reportedly told a friend just after Augustus’ death, I am holding a wolf by the ears.

In the first years afterward, Tiberius was regarded as diligent in his attention and fair in the way he administered taxes. But his prudence was matched by his austerity with the public purse. For two whole years after becoming Emperor he did not set foot outside the gates of Rome. Indeed, he sponsored few games, erected few public buildings and renovated disheveled ones at such a sluggish pace that many projects remained uncompleted at his death.

It is probably accurate to say that Tiberius thought of himself as a simple and modest man during those early years. He so loathed flattery that he would not allow any senator to approach his litter to pay his respects. If anyone in conversation or a speech referred to him in too flattering a manner he would not hesitate to interrupt and deflate the speaker on the spot.

The emperor’s attitude was perhaps best reflected when a delegation from Asia requested permission to build a shrine to him. Noting that Augustus had allowed one temple to himself at Pergamum, he said that one such acceptance may be pardonable. But to have my statue worshipped among the gods in every province would be presumptuous and arrogant. Looking up from the petition at his Senate colleagues, he added: I emphasize that I am human, performing human tasks, and content to occupy first place among men. That is what I want future generations to remember. They will do more than justice to my memory if they judge me worthy of my ancestors, careful of your interests, steadfast in danger and fearless of animosities incurred in public service.

Of all the burdens on the new ruler, perhaps none was more omnipresent nor stifling than simply the presence and sincere loyalty of Germanicus. Where Tiberius was at best seen as austere and aloof and at worse morose, his brother’s son — now his adoptive, presumed heir — was a ray of sunshine in the Forum. Athletic, admired by his troops, radiant of smile, he was also unswervingly loyal to Tiberius in two counsulships and endless military tasks. For example, when the army in Germany had been on the brink of mutiny over low pay and wretched conditions, it was Germanicus who came to quell them, invoking in his pleas the glorious past victories of these very brigades who served under the generalship of none other than Tiberius. And when some soldiers spontaneously shouted that they would support Germanicus if he wanted the throne, he leapt off the dais as if it had become polluted by their criminal intentions. Shouting that death was better than disloyalty, he pulled his sword from his belt. He lifted it as though to plunge it into his own chest, but the men around him clutched his arm.and stopped him by force.

Agrippina, mother of his six children, was just as renowned and revered by soldiers and Romans alike. Acting almost as deputy commander in Germany, she took charge of dispensing clothes to needy soldiers and dressing the wounded. When the victorious but battle-weary legionaries returned across a bridge they had built across the Rhine, Agrippina was said to have stood at the bridgehead to thank and congratulate every soldier. Her children often visited the camp for long periods, and they warmed the hearts of men whose families had faded into distant memories. When her little Gaius tottered about the men in a German camp, someone made him a soldier suit, complete with boots, tin breast plate, sword, helmet and shield. Spoiled by everyone, he soon became camp mascot and was nicknamed Caligula, or Little Boots.

To the common Roman, Germanicus and his family genuinely and effortlessly defined what they thought patricians should be — certainly more so than the solitary and suspicious Tiberius. As the grandson of Antonius and grandnephew of Augustus, Germanicus embodied to everyone who crossed his path the deeds and battles that were already joining the pantheon of Roman mythology. This, too, because Germanicus united the Claudian-Augustan household itself. He was not only son of the Emperor’s brother Drusus, he had married Agrippina, one of the five children of Augustus’ daughter Julia.

One man coveted the shadows, the other the sunlight. Yet their stations in life were reversed and neither could escape. How irritated the emperor Tiberius must have felt as his litter passed by buildings scrawled with graffiti that said, Give us Germanicus! Or by striding through the Senate house and overhearing a back bencher whisper Ah, if only Germanicus held imperium.

Thus, the emperor must have had strikingly mixed emotions when he read a dispatch from Syria that Germanicus was severely ill. A week later he read another one announcing the death of his adopted son. All Rome knew that Germanicus had gone there to censure the rambunctious Syrian legate Cnæus Calpurnius Piso and that he had been met with a sulking insolence. But now came rumors that Piso and his ambitious wife had actually poisoned Germanicus. Some said Tiberius had put them up to it.

If the emperor had once feared Gaius’s friends in Rhodes, how much more he must have shuddered when he witnessed the outpouring of grief for Germanicus, the widow and her beautiful but helpless children. The wailing had begun in Syrian Antioch, where the body was burned and eulogies offered by foreign kings and disconsolate members of his general staff. Some even likened him to Alexander the Great in that both were handsome, died soon after 30 and succumbed in a foreign land. But Germanicus, they added, was no less a warrior, yet also kind to his friends and modest in his pleasures.

In