Free A Long Way to Shiloh by Lionel Davidson Page B

The emperor’s offensive was on again. With the amusing and knowledgeable ben Matthias at his side he attacked Jerusalem on the 10th May, and took it just over eleven weeks later. The Temple took him longer – over a month longer, so tenacious and fanatical was the resistance of the emaciated and starving defenders. But fall it did, on the 29th August of the year 70, the 9th of Ab of the Jewish calendar which thus began its long history as a day of fasting and desolation. Three or four weeks more, and the very last pockets of resistance, in the upper city, were silenced. It was over. The massacres took place, the wholesale transportation of the population into slavery, the parcelling out of the land among the delighted neighbours. Vespasian and his jolly son, immortals both, had settled the hash of this superior and supercilious people once and for all.
    All that remained was to assemble the spoil – the great Temple lamp, the Menorah, having apparently been damaged in the fighting, was away being repaired – and take it back to Rome for the Triumph. And all, in time, came about. The following June the Triumph was held, the streets of Rome running like a river with the precious spoil, as the historian Flavius Josephus observed. The proceedings closed when the last Zealot leader, specially preserved for the occasion, was ceremonially strangled.
    Ben Matthias was there, too. He had gone along with Titus, still his bosom pal. Vespasian was so taken with the young man that he adopted him. Ben Matthias took the emperor’s family name, Flavius; and while he was at it, dropped his Hebrew name Joseph in favour of the latinized Josephus. As Flavius Josephus, historian, he began to write the history of his interesting life.
    *
    That was it: the story of a hopeless revolution and of a hopeful young man. But was it only this young man’s winning ways that had saved him in his hour of peril?
    Agrot, when he’d recapped the story at Ein Gedi, had presented another theory. The consignment that had included the Menorah had also included nearly two tons of gold. And the Governor of Northern Command, according to the priest’s scroll, had got wind of it … A lot of gold in one handy parcel for a man who didn’t expect to win. A handsome bribe for an impecunious general who still had lingering ambitions and friends to be won …
    Certainly there was much in the historical record to support the theory. There was an element almost of gratitude in the way Vespasian, in his hour of triumph, had adopted his young friend. And he had not stopped short at the adoption papers. The young man had become a pensioner for life. He had died a rich and respected Roman.
    How right of the young man’s rival, ben Levi, to be suspicious of him; and how derelict of the Jerusalem junta to send only 2,500 men to bring him back; and how audacious of ben Matthias himself to recount the incident even though, as he wrote ‘the reason (for the rumours about him) was not explained ’. Or was this ingenious man simply coat-trailing to see if there were any of his countrymen yet alive who knew enough about the matter to postulate a reason? For although he might have got the gold, it did not seem that he could have got the Menorah. And perhaps he still wanted the Menorah. Perhaps he had gone on wanting it, years and years after, in his prosperous Roman respectability. He’d certainly, years later, acquired titles to land in Judea. Why should he want land there, in a country he was glad to see the back of, where his name was detested?
    Supposing he had tried to look for the Menorah, how far would he have got? He’d know the area where it was buried, because the gold had been buried in the same area. But without any more definite indication, he’d be looking for a needle in a haystack. Unless he made a regular expedition of it – which in the nature of things he couldn’t – he’d have to wait until specific information turned up. And the only information was