Killing Jesus: A History Read online

  Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were traveling in complete anonymity, avoiding anything that would draw attention to them. The old man’s name was Simeon, and he was of the belief that he would not die until he laid eyes upon the new king of the Jews. Simeon asked if he might hold the newborn. Mary and Joseph agreed. As Simeon took Jesus into his arms, he offered a prayer to God, thanking him for the chance to see this new king with his own eyes. Then Simeon handed Jesus back to Mary with these words: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul, too.”

  At that very moment, a woman named Anna8 also approached. She was an eighty-four-year-old widowed prophetess who spent all her waking hours in the Temple, fasting and praying. Simeon’s words were still ringing in Mary’s and Joseph’s ears when Anna stepped forth and also praised Jesus. She loudly thanked God for bringing this very special baby boy into the world. Then she made a most unusual claim, predicting to Mary and Joseph that their son would free Jerusalem from Roman rule.

  Mary and Joseph marveled at Simeon’s and Anna’s words, flattered for the attention as all new parents would be, but also unsure what all this talk about swords and redemption truly meant. They finished their business and departed from the Temple into the bustling city of Jerusalem, both elated and fearful for the life their son might be destined to lead.

  * * *

  If only Herod had known that Jesus had been so close—literally, less than six hundred yards from his throne room—his torment could have been relieved. But Jesus and his parents were just three more bodies making their way through the noisy bazaars and narrow, twisting streets en route to the Temple that day.

  It is a temple that will stand forever as a monument to Herod’s greatness—or so he believes. Ironically, he is barely welcome inside its walls, thanks to his utter lack of devotion or faith and his ruthlessness in subjugating the Jewish people.

  Beyond the Temple, on the far side of the Kidron Valley, rises the steep Mount of Olives, where shepherds tend their flocks on the grasses of the limestone-flecked hillsides. Soon will come the Passover feast, bringing with it tens of thousands of Hebrew pilgrims from all around Herod’s kingdom, eager to pay good money to purchase those sheep for a sacrificial slaughter in the great Temple.

  In many ways, the slaughter of the babies in Bethlehem is no different. They are being sacrificed for the good of Herod’s rule—which is the same as saying they are being murdered in the name of the Roman Empire. Herod is nothing without Rome, a puppet who owes his kingdom completely to that brutal and all-powerful republic. It is his right and duty to propagate its oppressive ways. For Herod’s kingdom is different from any other under Rome’s iron fist. The Jewish people are an ancient civilization founded upon a belief system that is at odds with Rome’s, which worships many pagan deities instead of the one solitary Jewish god.

  Herod is the intermediary in this precarious relationship. The Romans will hold him accountable for any problems caused by an alleged new king of the Jews. They will not tolerate a ruler they have not themselves chosen. And if the followers of this new “king” foment revolution, it is certain that the Romans will immediately step in to brutally crush this voice of dissent. Better that Herod handle it himself.

  Herod cannot see Bethlehem from his palace, but it is roughly six miles away, on the far side of some low green hills. He cannot see the blood flowing in its streets right now, nor hear the wails of the terrified children and their parents. As Herod gazes out from his palace, he does so with a clean conscience. Let others condemn him for murdering more than a dozen infants. He will sleep well tonight, knowing that the killings are for the good of his reign, the good of Judea, and the good of Rome. If Caesar Augustus hears of this slaughter, he will surely understand: Herod is doing what must be done.

  * * *

  Jesus and his family barely get out of Bethlehem alive. Joseph awakes from a terrifying dream and has a vision of what is to come. He rouses Mary and Jesus in the dead of night and they escape. Herod’s soldiers arrive too late. They butcher the babies in vain, fulfilling a prophecy made five hundred years earlier by the contrarian prophet Jeremiah.9

  There are many more prophecies about the life of Jesus outlined in Scripture. Slowly but surely, as this child grows to manhood, those predictions will also come true. Jesus’s behavior will see him branded as a revolutionary, known throughout Judea for his startling speeches and offbeat teachings. He will be adored by the Jewish people but will become a threat to those who profit from the populace: the high priests, the scribes, the elders, the puppet rulers of Judea, and, most of all, the Roman Empire.

  And Rome does not tolerate a threat. Thanks to the examples of empires such as those of the Macedonians, Greeks, and Persians that came before them, the Romans have learned and mastered the arts of torture and persecution. Revolutionaries and troublemakers are dealt with in harsh and horrific fashion, in order that others won’t be tempted to copy their ways.

  So it will be with Jesus. This, too, will fulfill prophecy.

  All of that is to come. For now, Jesus is still an infant, cared for and loved by Mary and Joseph. He was born in a stable, visited by the Magi, presented with their lavish gifts, and is now on the run from Herod and the Roman Empire.10

  CHAPTER TWO

  ROME

  MARCH 15, 44 B.C.

  11 A.M.

  The dictator with one hour to live rides atop the shoulders of slaves. Julius Caesar sits comfortably inside his litter, dressed in his usual dapper fashion: a loose belt, a purple wool toga over a white silk tunic, and a wreath of oak leaves atop his head that attests to his heroism while also hiding the bald spot he so despises. Lately Caesar has developed a passion for wearing high red boots, but on this morning his feet are clad in sandals.

  He is barely contemplating his upcoming meeting with the Roman Senate, for which he is already late. The thoughts most on his mind are rumors of a death—his own. But of course Caesar has no idea that the whispered gossip of his impending demise will prove all too true this time.

  Julius Caesar is the most powerful man in the world, so mighty that he has not only changed the number of days per year but will soon have the month of his birth and the entire calendar renamed after himself. Today is the equivalent of Wednesday in the seven-day Jewish week. But the Romans use the eight-day cycle and give their days a letter rather than a name, so today is simply “G.” They also believe in giving each sunrise a number, so now it is the fifteenth day of Martius in the year 44 B.C. on Caesar’s brand-new Julian calendar.

  Or, as it is also known, the Ides of March. And as the great Roman orator and lawyer Cicero will soon write, “The Ides changed everything.”

  The fifty-five-year-old Divus Julius—“Julius the God,” as the Roman Senate will later proclaim him—is being carried through Rome. The day is warm but not hot, and the people stand back in awe as Caesar passes by. He is a man of average height but extraordinary determination, having successfully conquered, invaded, or allied Rome with what will later be called Spain, Britain, France, Egypt, and Italy. Caesar is a study of conflict in his personal life, eating little and drinking even less, even as he spends money with abandon—such as when he commissioned the construction of a new villa, only to tear it down as soon as it was completed because he felt it wasn’t perfect. And while many Roman men are wary of their sex drives, believing that too much sex will drain the virility from their bodies, Caesar has no such compunction. Calpurnia is his third wife, but he has had many mistresses, including the ambitious Cleopatra of Egypt.

  Julius Caesar

  Now, reclined in his litter, the well-muscled warrior statesman contemplates the subject of murder—his own. Friends, soothsayers, and even his beloved Calpurnia—whom he first bedded when he was forty and she was a sixteen-year-old virgin—have warned him that something terrible will happen today. It was Calpur
nia who made Caesar late this morning. Last night she dreamed in most vivid fashion that he would be assassinated, and she begged him not to go to the Senate. Under normal circumstances, Caesar would have ignored her forebodings, but in the past few days informants have urgently warned him about a conspiracy to kill him. Given the choice of heeding those warnings or ignoring them, Caesar has chosen to brush them off—and even make light of them.

  “What is the sweetest way to die?” asked Lepidus, Caesar’s second in command, two nights earlier over dinner.

  “The kind that comes without warning,” the dictator shot back.

  Caesar indulged Calpurnia’s fears for much of this morning. He even sent word that the Senate be dismissed. But then Decimus Brutus, the great general who had crushed the Venetian fleet during the Gallic Wars, arrived at Caesar’s home and pleaded with him to ignore Calpurnia’s nightmares. He reminded Caesar of his impending journey to Parthia, the land west of Judea where Rome’s legions had suffered one of their most bruising defeats at the Battle of Carrhae nearly ten years earlier. Caesar’s aim is to subjugate the Parthians—who hail from the mountainous deserts of the modern-day Middle East—and continue the expansion of Rome’s global empire.

  The scheduled departure is March 18, just three days away. Caesar could be gone for months, perhaps a year. So it’s urgent that he meet with the Senate and clear up any unfinished business. Brutus also hints that there might be a nice surprise awaiting Caesar. A month ago the nine hundred members of the Senate named Caesar dictator for life. Now Brutus is intimating that they might also name Caesar king this morning, meaning that he will become the first monarch Rome has known in almost five hundred years.

  The citizens of Rome have enjoyed a republic ever since Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was overthrown in 509 B.C., and they are so averse to the idea of an absolute ruler that the Latin word for “king,” rex, is considered repugnant. But as Caesar draws closer and closer to his meeting with the Senate, he is sure that the people feel differently about him. He has long been devoted to keeping the masses happy. One way to do this is by ensuring that popular entertainment is available to one and all, distracting them from any issues they might have about their government. Right now, for instance, as Caesar’s path to the Senate takes him from his home on the Via Sacra and out beyond the pomerium, Rome’s sacred boundary, he can hear the roar of the crowds in the Theater of Pompey’s grand arena as they gather to watch a blood-soaked gladiatorial battle.

  The Theater of Pompey was built by, and named after, Caesar’s greatest rival. The eleven-year-old columned structure is made of stone and concrete, unlike the wooden theaters that have long been a staple of Roman life. It is an enormous and complex work of architecture—so monumental, in fact, that in the entire seven-hundred-year history of Rome, there has never been a larger or more elaborate entertainment venue. One half is comprised of the D-shaped amphitheater where popular entertainments such as plays and gladiatorial competitions take place. Mock battles with elephants have been staged there, as well as very real combat between lions and men.

  The garden area features lavish flower beds and arcades decorated with fountains and statuary and is partially covered to allow people escape from the rain or sun. Still another portion of this “theater” is the cool and quiet marble-floored great hall, where the Roman Senate meets. Caesar could have changed the facility’s title after Pompey’s execution, but demeaning his rival’s memory would have served no useful political purpose. So it is that Pompey’s name still adorns this magnificent structure and that a giant marble statue of the fallen general watches over the portico of the great hall, as if listening in on everything the Senate has to say.

  The people of Rome joyfully mob Caesar’s litter as the slaves carry him toward the Campus Martius, an open plain along the Tiber River where Roman legions assemble before marching off to war. Once, to ensure his popularity with those armies, Caesar gave each soldier his own personal slave, taken from the ranks of the Gauls they had just defeated in battle. The legionaries have never forgotten that gift and continue to reciprocate by showing Caesar their unconditional support. So, unlike many rulers, Caesar is quite sure of his personal safety. He has even reassigned the two thousand soldiers who once served as his personal guards and is unafraid to walk freely through the streets of Rome, so that one and all can see that he is not a tyrant. “I would rather die,” Caesar has noted, “than be feared.”

  As the journey comes to an end at Pompey’s theater, Caesar spies a familiar face in the crowd. “The day which you warned me against is here,” Caesar calls out to Spurinna, the fortune-teller who was bold enough to predict that a terrible fate would befall the empire’s leader on this very day. Spurinna divined this knowledge by studying the raw livers of sacrificed sheep and chickens. The goddess Venus Genetrix is Caesar’s personal deity, and he has dedicated a large temple in her honor, but on this morning Caesar has little use for religion or superstition. He wears a confident smile on his face—but it is one that quickly vanishes when Spurinna offers his reply.

  “Yes,” the Etruscan haruspex shouts over the clamor of the loyal people of Rome, who now press in around Caesar’s litter. Spurinna is quite sure of his prediction and not at all fearful of being reprimanded for what he is about to say. “It is here, but it is not yet gone.”

  Caesar hears those words but does not respond. Gathering his purple toga to his body with his left arm, he steps from his litter, hoping to soon become king of Rome.

  * * *

  But there will be no coronation. Instead, a team of assassins waits for Caesar inside the Senate. These killers are not soldiers or angry citizens but self-styled “Liberators” comprised of dozens of Caesar’s closest friends and trusted allies, men of regal bearing and upbringing whom he trusts completely and with whom he has shared many a meal and battlefield victory. These rogue senators are uneasy about Caesar’s ever-growing power and his desire to be king. Such a promotion would ensure not only Caesar’s authority for life but also that it be passed down through his will to the heir of his choice. That Caesar publicly refused a crown when his good friend Marc Antony recently tried to place one upon his head does not appease them. With these thoughts, along with nagging doubts that they might not have the guts to follow through on their assassination plan, the rebel senators have waited in their Senate seats all morning, freshly sharpened pugiones concealed beneath the thick folds of their togas.

  The Liberators are in the minority—just sixty men among nine hundred—and if they lose their nerve, there is every chance they will be imprisoned, executed, or exiled. Caesar is known to be a benevolent man, but he is also quick to exact revenge, such as the time he ordered the crucifixion of a band of pirates who had kidnapped him. “Benevolent” in that instance meant executioners dragging the razor-like steel of a pugio across each pirate’s windpipe before nailing him to the cross, so that his death might be quicker.

  Some of the senators, such as general and statesman Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, have fought in battle and are well acquainted with the act of killing. Brutus, as he is known, was the one sent to Caesar’s home to lure him to the Senate when it appeared he might not show up this morning. It was Caesar who named Brutus to the position of praetor, or magistrate. But Brutus’s family has a long tradition of rejecting tyrants, beginning in 509 B.C. with Junius Brutus, the man credited with overthrowing Tarquinius Superbus and ending the Roman monarchy. That act of rebellion was as cold-blooded as the murder the Liberators have planned for Caesar.

  Other senators, such as the heavy-drinking Lucius Tillius Cimber and his ally Publius Servilius Casca Longus, have the soft and uncallused hands of elected officials. Wielding a killing blade will be a new sensation for them.

  Murdering Caesar is the boldest—and most dangerous—of ideas. He is not like other men. In fact, he has become the greatest living symbol of Roman power and aggression. Caesar has so completely consolidated his hold on Roman politics that the only likely outcome of th
is murder will be anarchy, and perhaps even the end of the Roman Republic.

  * * *

  This is hardly the first time someone has wanted Julius Caesar dead. The one million inhabitants of the city of Rome are reactive and unpredictable. Caesar is known by everyone and admired by most. Since the age of fifteen, when his father suddenly died while putting on his shoes one morning, Caesar has endured one challenge after another in order to make himself a success. But each contest has made him stronger, and with each hard-won triumph his legend—and his power—has grown.

  But in terms of sheer glory, legend, and impact, no moment will ever match the morning of January 10, 49 B.C. Caesar is a great general now, a fifty-year-old man who has spent much of the last decade in Gaul, conquering the local tribes and getting very rich in the process. It is dusk. He stands on the north side of a swollen, half-frozen river known as the Rubicon. Behind him stand the four thousand heavily armed soldiers of the Legio XIII Gemina, a battle-hardened group that has served under him for the last nine years. Rome is 260 miles due south. The Rubicon is the dividing line between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy—or, more germane to Caesar’s current situation, between freedom and treason.

  The population of Gaul has been devastated by Caesar’s wars. Of the four million people who inhabited the region stretching from the Alps to the Atlantic, one million have been killed in battle and another million taken into slavery. After capturing Uxellodunum, a town along the Dordogne River near modern-day Vayrac, Caesar cut off the hands of every man who’d fought against him. And during his epic siege of Alesia, in the hills near what is now called Dijon, he surrounded the fortress with sixty thousand men and nine miles of fierce fortifications. All this could be viewed from above, from tall towers erected by Caesar’s engineers, allowing the Roman archers to rain arrows down on the enemy forces. In order to break out of the besieged town, the trapped Gauls would have to find a way through this killing zone.