friend Barbillus, I have refused as appearing somewhat offensive to my fellow-men, and it is now to be dedicated to the Goddess Roma; the other shall be carried in your processions in whatever way you think best, on the appropriate birthdays; and you may provide it with a throne too, suitably decorated. It would perhaps be foolish, while accepting these great honours at your hands, to refuse to introduce a Claudian tribe and sanction sacred precincts for each Egyptian district; so I permit you to do both these things and, if you wish, to set up, too, the equestrian statue of my Governor, Vitrasius Pollio. Also, I give my consent to the erection of the four-horse chariots which you wish to establish in my honour at the frontiers: one at Taposiris in Libya, one at the Pharos in Alexandria, the third at Pelusium in Lower Egypt. But I must ask you not to appoint a High Priest for my worship or to build temples in my honour, for I do not wish to be offensive to my fellow men and it is quite clear to my mind that shrines and temples have, throughout history, been built in honour of the Gods, as their peculiar due.
As for the requests which you are so anxious for me to grant, these are my decisions: all Alexandrians who had officially come of age before I entered on the monarchy I confirm in their citizenship with all the privileges and amenities that this carries with it; the only exceptions being such pretenders, born of slave mothers, as may have contrived to intrude themselves among the free-born. And it is also my pleasure that all those favours which were granted you by my predecessors shall be confirmed, and those favours too which were granted by your former kings and City Prefects and confirmed by the God Augustus. It is my pleasure that the ministers of the Temple of the God Augustus of Alexandria shall be chosen by lot, like the ministers of his Temple at Canopus. I commend your plan for making the municipal magistracies triennial as a very sensible one; for the magistrates will behave with the greater prudence during their terms of office for knowing that when it ends they will be called upon to account for any maladministration of which they may have been guilty. As for the question about re-establishing the Senate, I am unable to say offhand what your custom was under the Ptolemies, but you know as well as I do that you have not had a Senate-under any one of my predecessors of the House of Augustus. So since this is an entirely novel proposal and I am not sure whether it will prove either to your advantage or mine to adopt, it, I have written to your City. Prefect, Aemilius Rectus, to hold an inquiry and report whether a Senatorial Order should be formed, and, if so, in what way it should be formed.
As for the question as to who must bear responsibility for the recent riots and the feud or to speak frankly - the war that has been waged between you and the Jews, I have been unwilling to commit myself to a decision on this matter, though your envoys, especially Dionysius, son of Theon, pleaded your cause with great spirit in the presence of their Jewish opponents. But I must reserve for myself a stern indignation against whichever party it was that started this new disturbance; and I wish you to understand that if both parties do not desist from this destructive and obstinate, hostility I shall be compelled to show you what a benevolent ruler can do when roused to righteous anger. I therefore once more beg you Alexandrians to show a friendly tolerance to the Jews who have been your neighbours in Alexandria for so many years, and offer no outrage to their feelings whilst they are engaged in worshipping their God according to their ancestral rites. Let them practise all their national customs as in the days of the God Augustus, for I have confirmed their right to do so after an impartial hearing of both sides in the dispute. On the other hand, I desire the Jews to press for no privileges in excess of those that they already hold, and never again to send me a separate embassy as if you and they lived in, different cities - a quite unheard of procedure! - nor to enter competitors for athletic and other contests at Public Games. They must content themselves with what they have, enjoying the abundance supplied by a great city of which they are not the original inhabitants; and they must not 'introduce anymore Jews from Syria or from other parts of Egypt into the city, or they will fall more deeply under my suspicion than at present. If they fail to take this warning I shall certainly take vengeance on them as deliberately fomenting a worldwide plague. So long therefore as both sides abstain from this antagonism and live in mutual forbearance and goodwill, I undertake to show' the same friendly solicitude for the interests of Alexandria as my family has always shown in the past.
I must testify here to the constant zeal for your interests which my friend Barbillus has now once again shown in his exertions on your behalf and also to a similar zeal on the part of my friend Tiberius Claudius
Farewell.
This Barbillus was an astrologer of Ephesus, in whose powers Messalina had complete faith, and 1 must admit that he was a very clever fellow, second only in the accuracy of his prognostications to the great Thrasyllus. He had studied in India and among the Chaldees. His zeal for Alexandria was due to the hospitality he had-been shown- by the principal men of the city when forced, many years before, to leave Rome because Tiberius had banished from Italy all astrologers and soothsayers except his favourite Thrasyllus.
I received a letter from Herod a month or two later formally congratulating me on my victories, on the birth of my son, and on having won the title of Emperor by my victories in Germany. He enclosed his usual private letter:
What a great warrior you are, Marmoset, to be sure! You just have to put pen to paper and order a campaign, and presto! banners wave, swords fly from their scabbards, heads roll on the grass, towns and temples go .up in flames! What fearful destruction you would cause if one day you were to mount on an elephant and take the field in person! I remember your dear mother once speaking of you, not very hopefully, as a future conqueror of the Island of Britain. Why not? For myself, I contemplate no military triumphs. Peace and security are all that I ask. I am busy putting my dominion in a state of defence against a possible Parthian invasion. Cypros and I are very happy and well, and so are the children. They are learning to be good Jews. They learn faster than I do, because they are younger. By the way, I don't like Vibius Marsus, your new Governor of Syria. I am afraid that he and I will fall out one day soon if he doesn't mind his own business. I was sorry when Petronius's term, came town end: a fine fellow. Poor Silas is still in confinement. I have given him the pleasantest possible prison quarters, however,, and allowed him writing materials as a vent for his sense of my ingratitude. Not parchment or paper, of course, only a wax tablet, so that when he comes to the end of one complaint he must scrape it off before starting on another.
You are extremely popular here with the Jews and the severe phrases in your letter to the Alexandrians were not taken amiss: Jews are quick at reading between the lines. I have heard from my old friend Alexander
the Alabarch that copies were circulated to the various city-wards of Alexandria to be posted up, with the following endorsement by the City Prefect:
Proclamation by Lucius Aemilius Rectus
Since the whole populace was unable owing to its numbers to assist at the reading of that most sacred and gracious letter to the City, I have found it necessary to, post it up publicly so that individual readers may admire the Majesty of our God Caesar Augustus and show their gratitude for His goodwill towards the City.
Fourteenth day of August, in the second: year of the reign of Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, Emperor.
They'll make you a God in spite of yourself; but keep your health and spirits, eat well, sleep sound, and trust nobody.
THE BRIGAND
Herod's schoolboy taunt about the ease with which I had won my title of Emperor touched me in a sensitive spot. His reminder of my mother's remark influenced me too: it touched me in a superstitious spot. She had once many years before declared in a fit of annoyance when I was telling her of my proposal for adding three new letters to the Latin alphabet: 'There are three notably impossible things in this world: the first that shops should stretch across the Bay of Naples yonder, the second that you should conquer the island of Britain, the third that a single one of your ridiculous new letters should ever be put into general circulation.' Yet the first impossible thing had already come to pass - on the day that Caligula built his famous bridge from Bauli to Puteoli and lined it with shops. The third impossible thing could be accomplished any day that I pleased, merely by asking the Senate's permission and why not the second?
A letter came from Marsus a few days later marked `urgent and confidential'. Marsus was a capable governor, and an upright man though a - most uncongenial companion - reserved, cold in his manner, perpetually sarcastic, and without either follies or vices. I had given him his appointment in gratitude for the prominent part he had taken more, than twenty years before, while commanding a regiment in the East, in bringing Piso to trial for the murder of my brother Germanicus. He wrote:
... My neighbour, your friend King Herod Agrippa, is, I am informed, fortifying Jerusalem. You are probably- aware of this, but Iwrite to
make it plain to you that the fortifications, when completed will make the city impregnable. I wish to make no accusations of disloyalty against your friend King Herod, but 'as Governor of Syria I view the matter with alarm.
