The last prisoner of the day had caused the biggest stir in the city. Aulus Valerius Festus was a member of the Boule of Ephesus and held the rank of a Roman equestrian. He entered court dressed in a Greek tunic and cloak. He stood quietly. He was newly shaved, his thinning hair carefully combed back, hands clasped in front of himself in the pose seen in statues of the great antique orator Demosthenes. He looked for all the world a model of Hellenic civic responsibility.
Aulus answered the standard questions and, without fuss, averred that he was a Christian. Ballista wondered why he should have chosen to enter a Roman court in a Greek tunic and himation rather than a Roman toga with the narrow purple stripe to which he was entitled. It might be an unspoken rejection of the imperium of the Romans but, there again, there might be any number of more prosaic reasons. It was important not to overinterpret a man's every action.
'Tell me, Aulus Valerius Festus, why a man of your rank, one of the honestiores, should choose to associate with a cult composed of the unwashed, of the humiliores?' Ballista pitched his voice at an amiable, conversational level.
'It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.' Aulus intoned the poetic-sounding but mysterious words with assurance. Only a small fidgeting of the thumbs of his clasped hands betrayed any inner turmoil.
'The cult stands accused of cannibalism and incest.'
'It is a lie. We neither indulge in Oedipean marriages or Thyestes-like dinners. It would be sinful for us even to think of or speak about such things.' Aulus smiled. 'I doubt such things have ever happened among men at all.'
'You are an educated man. Most Christians are not.'
'It is written, 'I shall destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the learning of the learned.' '
Ballista decided to try a different approach. 'What is the name of your God?'
'God has no name as men have.'
'Who is the Christian god?' Ballista persevered.
'If you are worthy, you will know.' A low, angry muttering ran through the court. The vicarius might have barbarian origins, but in this courtroom Ballista was the embodiment of the majesty of the Roman people. The maiestas of Rome was not to be insulted.
Ballista silenced the courtroom with a gesture. He had had enough of this. 'The edict of the emperor is explicit concerning men of rank, concerning the honestiores – you will lose your status and property. The emperor's mercy, his clementia, allows you a chance to reconsider. You will remain in jail. If you persist in your evil, you will die.'
After Aulus had been led out, there was a shout from beyond the curtain.
'I am a Christian, and I want to die!'
'Who said that?' Ballista snapped. 'Bring him in.'
There was a scuffle, and two soldiers propelled a youth into the court. They pinioned his arms. He was already bleeding from a cut to the head.
'Name? Race? Slave or free?' Ballista could feel his grip on his temper slipping. This was degenerating into farce.
'I am a Christian, and I want to die!' The youth was wild-eyed, shouting.
'There are plenty of cliffs here, and I am sure ropes can be found down at the docks.' Ballista waited for the laughter to fade before repeating: 'Name? Race? Slave or free?'
The youth did not answer. Instead, he jerked forward and spat at the images of the emperors. 'The gods of the nations are daemons,' he yelled. 'It is better to die than worship stones!'
'Which?' Ballista said.
Confused, the youth glared defiance.
Ballista pointed to the imperial images. 'Which? Stones or daemons?'
The youth snorted his contempt. 'I wish to be with Christ!'
Ballista smiled a savage smile. 'I will send you to him directly.'
Laughter rang round the court. Ballista felt a strong wave of disgust; at the obstinate zealotry of the Christians, at the cruel, sycophantic laughter of the courtiers, at his own role in all this. 'Enough,' he shouted. 'Take him away!'
XVII
The palace of the Proconsul had the best site in Ephesus: facing west, high on the central mount, perched above the theatre. If the view did not inspire you, there was something wrong with your soul. To the left, the neighbouring mountain range curled round towards the sea, slanting down before rearing up in a last, solitary peak topped with a bastion. The red-tiled roofs of close-packed houses climbed the lower slopes; above, the hard, grey limestone poked through the brush. Ahead, your eye soared down dizzily over the steep bank of the theatre to the wide, column-lined road that ran ruler-straight to the curved harbour with its toy-sized ships and on to the glittering Aegean beyond. Off to the right meandered the mud-coloured Caystros, through the broad, flat plain the river's own silt had created, and, beyond, usually blue with distance, were more mountains.
The best site in the city but, Ballista thought, everything comes at a price. The path down was steep. A close- laid buttress wall to the left, a vertiginous drop to the right; to start, the path ran above the theatre. Gesturing at the tiered seating, the northerner said that, long ago, a Christian holy man and wonder worker had been tried there. Despite being both an ex-tax collector and a notorious troublemaker, somehow the man had got off. His name was Paul, Saul… or something like that.
Demetrius snorted with derision. For his own good, Ballista thought, I must give him his freedom soon, or rein him in.
'Christians to the lion,' said the Greek youth. 'A real holy man performed a genuine miracle there. No Christian trickery. There was plague in the town. The Ephesians begged Apollonius of Tyana to come to them and be the physician of their infirmity. He led them into the theatre. There was an old blind beggar sat there, squalid, clad in rags, a wallet with a scrap of bread by his side. Apollonius spoke to the men of Ephesus: 'Pick up as many stones as you can and hurl them at this enemy of the gods.' The Ephesians were shocked at the idea of murdering a stranger. The beggar was praying and pleading for mercy. But the man of Tyana urged them on. He was implacable. He cast the first stone himself. Soon, stones were flying. As the first ones hit, the beggar glared at them, his blindness gone. There was fire in his eyes. Then they recognized him for what he was – a daemon. He turned this way and that, but there was no escape. The stones flew thick and fast – so many they heaped a cairn over him. Apollonius told the Ephesians to remove the stones. With trembling hands, they did. And there lay a huge hound. It had the shape of a Molossian hunting mastiff, but it was the size of a lion. Pounded to a pulp, it was vomiting foam, as mad dogs do. The plague-bringer was no more.'
'Great stuff,' said Ballista. 'Although I do not remember the holy man casting the first stone in Philostratus' Life of Apollonius.'
'My rhetoric may have overcome me,' admitted Demetrius.
'I do not believe it,' said Maximus, 'a Greek getting carried away with his own words.'
'You know how it is.' Demetrius grinned.
'Me? Gods below, never in life,' the Hibernian answered.
As it neared the main thoroughfare, the path became so steep that it was cut into steps. The three men walked carefully, in single file. As they emerged on to the Embolos, the sacred way, Ballista looked to the left, towards the civic centre and the scene of his distasteful judicial duties of the day before. By one of those quirks that can happen even in the most populous of cities, there was not a soul in sight. Between its columns and honorific statues, the road ran away up the slope, broad and white, beneath a sky of intense blue.
Turning to the right to face downhill, Ballista now saw the people. Above their bobbing heads, just beyond where the Embolos appears to end but actually turns sharp right, was the library of Celsus. He and the others walked down to it and stopped in the square in front.
The library was not just a memorial to Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, benefactor of Ephesus, magnate
