Chapter 08
"How far are you going today?" Marcus asked over breakfast.
"I'm not sure," Publius answered. "What did the horse doctor have to say? Do you think we could get to Paneas today?"
Marcus thought for a moment and then shook his head. "I doubt it, not even if you took all the shortcuts - and even if your horses were in good condition I wouldn't advise it, not on your own. Galilee breeds the toughest sort of Jew and if they're not actually sicarii themselves, they support them. You stick to the main roads and you'll be safe."
"So what do you advise?" Publius asked.
"The vet said that your horse will be fine so long as you take it easy for a couple of days. If you want my advice, go down to Tiberias. You can stay with the garrison there with all mod cons - bath house, theatre, the lot."
"I was hoping to get further than that today," Publius protested.
"Well, if you want to go a bit further you could go on to Capernaum. It's a miserable little village but you can stay with old Rufus - he's a retired centurion and he's always glad to pass the time of day with a fellow soldier. You don't mind being bored with reminiscences of what it was like in Pompey's day, do you?"
Publius laughed. "No, I think I could put up with a few old yarns for the sake of bed and lodging."
"Fine, tell him that you know me. He's a good sort, but he does go on a bit."
The horses had clearly profited from their overnight rest and feed, for the limp was almost indetectable as they picked their way down the steep track to the valley and onto the paved highway again. Despite the fact that it was perceptibly hotter in the valley Publius almost felt like singing as they rode over the gently rolling countryside.
"We'll have lunch in Tiberias," Publius told Geta some four hours later as they came over the brow of a hill and saw the lake below them. "I don't want to stay there overnight but I suppose I ought to look up this Fortunatus Cornelius told me about. He's a philosopher in Herod's employ so the palace will probably be the place to make enquiries."
Tiberias proved to be a bustling little town though a somewhat depressing one with its narrow streets shut in by black basalt walls and paved with the same black stone. The few bits of white limestone that picked out windows and doorways merely emphasised the blackness of the rest of the town. Publius and Geta found a cheap eating house down by the harbour where they shared a delicious fish more or less straight from the lake. Publius made some enquiries there but the owner had never heard of Fortunatus, though he did direct Publius to the palace.
The guard at the palace gate proved more helpful and was able to summon the philosopher from the royal library, where he was engaged in cataloguing the books.
"Though truth to tell," Fortunatus told Publius as they sat beside an open window looking out over the lake, "the work is not onerous. Herod isn't exactly the reading type. He's got all the regular books - Aristotle, Plato, the Jewish holy books, and so on - but he never reads them or has them read to him. Occasionally he'll send for me to read him a play after dinner - usually a comedy - but that's about all. He's only got some sixty books - sixty-seven to be precise - so I had them all catalogued in my first week and now I just take them down and dust them once a month or so. The rest of the time's my own."
"So how do you pass your days?" Publius asked.
"Oh, I do a bit of tutoring. Herod's steward has a couple of lads who are quite bright, though they're usually out fishing or seeing to his farm or something."
"I suppose you spend some of the time discussing philosophy with the Jewish philosophers here?" Publius suggested. Most of the philosophers he knew loved nothing better than a debate.
Fortunatus laughed shortly. "Not a chance! You see, this city is all new. There was a village of sorts near here round the hot springs and rather than stir up trouble by clearing the houses away Herod just built on a patch of empty level ground to the north. The trouble was that when they were digging the foundations the builders turned up some human bones, so somewhere along the way the site must have been used as a cemetery - and one of the superstitions these Jews have is that they will offend their God if they touch a human bone or even walk over a tomb. As a result the Jews keep well away from Tiberias."
"All of them?" Publius raised his eyebrows.
"All the ones that count," Fortunatus sniffed. "Of course, the place is stuffed with Herod's toadies and courtiers, and the common people come here to work in the palace or supply the market, but you can't discuss philosophy with people like that. If I want to talk to someone intelligent I have to go off to one of the nearby towns. Just up the coast in Capernaum there's a quite decent chap called Jairus who doesn't mind talking to a gentile - provided we meet out in the open - and on the other side of the lake there's a Cynic philosopher at Safita - but that's quite a climb, I can tell you, so I don't go there often."
"I don't suppose you have come across a Jewish teacher called Joshua - Rabbi Joshua?" Publius asked.
"I have, actually," Fortunatus nodded. "He's a most interesting character. He's never set foot in Tiberias, of course, though from some of the things he says I get the impression that he isn't quite so hide-bound by their superstitions as the rest of them. The trouble is that if he came here he'd lose most of his followers."
"You've heard him?" Publius interrupted. "You understand this Aramaic, then?"
"I get by," Fortunatus said. "I'd probably be lost in any real discussion of philosophy, but Joshua doesn't go in for that. The first time I met him I was on my way to Capernaum when I saw this big crowd down by the shore near Magdala, the first village you come to once you leave town. I'm as curious as the next man, I'm afraid, so when I heard a roar of laughter I went over to investigate and found an ordinary-looking chap sitting on an upturned boat and telling a hilarious story that had the crowd in fits."
"What was it about?" Publius asked.
"Well, I couldn't follow all of it - there were a few technical terms I didn't understand - but I gathered it was about a rather inept farmer who went out to sow his field and ended up casting the seed in all sorts of unlikely places. I forget all the details but birds ate some of his seed and weeds got most of the rest and so on. It had the crowd absolutely falling about laughing."
"And he's a philosopher?" Publius sounded incredulous.
"That's the amazing thing," Fortunatus explained. "I asked someone what was going on and he told me that this was the famous Rabbi Joshua and indicated that the story had a deeper meaning, though he couldn't tell me just what. Anyway later that same day I heard that Joshua had arrived in Capernaum and was in the house of one of his followers, a rather respectable local fisherman. I asked Jairus about him and he said that he thought Joshua would be willing to talk to me, even though I am a Gentile, so I borrowed one of his servants to lead me to the house and ended up having quite a long conversation with the rabbi. Outside in the street, of course. I couldn't expect him to let me actually enter his house."
"So what did the story mean?" Publius asked.
"I'm coming to that," Fortunatus reproved. "At first I was a bit cautious because most Jews won't have anything to do with Gentiles and rabbis are the worst of the lot, but to my surprise Joshua greeted me in quite passable Greek. You see, we're on one of the major trade routes and you've got the Decapolis over the other side of the lake, so most people pick up a bit of Greek just in the course of their daily life. However I've made some enquiries and it seems that Joshua grew up in Nazareth, where you've got that big garrison, so he speaks quite passable Greek and can even make shift in Latin. Dreadful accent, mind. A mixture of Syrian and the lowest of low-class Roman, with the awful Galileean twang added in."
Publius laughed; he had encountered the type in various places and even though he wasn't sure what a "Galileean twang" sounded like he knew the other accents and could imagine how the mix would grate on the ear.
"Anyway, when I explained that I was a philosopher and was interested in discovering the meaning of the story I had heard him tell, Rav Yeshua ben Yusuf, to give him his full name, explained that the seed is his teachings and the different places where the seed fell are the different people who listen to him: some are fertile soil, some are hard hearted and will not be changed, some are fickle and rush off after the newest popular rabbi, and so on. When you think about it, he is quite right and it was a very clever way of telling people to take a look at themselves. Those who are willing to learn will either guess the meaning for themselves or take the trouble to find out, those who aren't will go away thinking they've just heard a funny story - but they won't forget it and maybe in later years they will remember it and discover the hidden meaning."
"So what are his teachings?" Publius asked. "Centurion Marcus suspects him of being a troublemaker."
Fortunatus shook his head. "I don't think so." He leaned towards Publius and lowered his voice. "I think he is like that preacher my king put to death a month or so ago. Have you heard of John the Baptiser, who taught ritual washing for all? In my opinion they're both more concerned with purity of life than with politics and to that extent I'd say that they are both true philsophers."
The two men talked through the heat of the afternoon, relaxing in the shade of the library and enjoying the cool breeze that blew off the lake. As the shadows started to lengthen, however, Publius rose to take his leave of Fortunatus and then remembered that he still hadn't asked the important question.
"Before I go, have you heard of a woman called Secunda? She was married to a centurion of the Third Legion, the Galica, called Saturnus and after he was killed in battle she settled down in Paneas."
"Secunda?" Fortunatus brow furrowed as he thought. "I'm not sure. I'm afraid that there are all too many military widows in this part of the world. I'll tell you who might be able to help you, though. Didn't you say that you were hoping to stay with Centurion Rufus in Capernaum tonight?"
"That's right," Publius nodded.
"Well, he's your typical old soldier. He'll have every legion in the east off by heart. I'm sure he'll know about this Saturnus. He lives in one of the larger houses at the top end of the village. Just ask anyone, they all know him. Greet him from me."
