Jews were still arriving in the Sector from the outside, only now the legionnaires brought them.
The new arrivals related that thirty-eight members of the council of elders had been seized outside Delta and in north Delta, and they had been imprisoned by Flaccus in the Akra. If there were ten councilors in south Delta, then there must still be another twenty-two lying low somewhere. Maybe they were doing something on the outside; maybe they were getting organized, stealing weapons, maybe traipsing around with the alabarch’s army somewhere. Wherever they were, council members were nonetheless important people, with authority like mini-pharaohs over the clans and the Kahals, and only they were in a position to protect the Sector against the rebels.
The new arrivals also told them that the Greeks had placed statues or portraits of the emperor in every synagogue that had not been completely trashed. They had desecrated all of the Jewish houses of prayer! There was no longer any place to pray! The largest of the statues had been installed in the Basilica — it was bigger than the statue of Augustus in the Sebasteion. Even there! Yes, even there.
Uri laughed out loud.
“They’re dumping their surplus statues on us!”
He would have done better keeping this to himself, because he was almost beaten up for saying so.
In the Basilica Greeks were selling off cheaply the things they had plundered, wailed the new arrivals. One of them had seen his own menorah, a real curiosity, a huge silver piece weighing eight and a half pounds with a lion at its base! The seventy golden chairs no longer had their gilding: that had been prized off and filched by the Greeks!
The members of the council conferred with their confidants; by now there were twelve of them, Tryphon and Andron had by now also turned up. Tryphon had been lying ill in a relative’s house; Andron had been picked up by soldiers who had no idea who they were dealing with. Uri was glad that there were now two more councilors, besides Euodus, who had seen him at dinners at the alabarch’s palace: they eyed him suspiciously, it is true, but their recognition enhanced his prestige. His relationship with the alabarch was not enough in itself: Uri needed to sing something for his supper.
But then it couldn’t be any more difficult to stand his own ground among the Jews here than it had been in the Gymnasium.
He could read Greek authors, the Jews couldn’t. In a town under siege autocracy is advisable, and sooner or later that is what will come into being.
Uri proposed that all kitchen knives be rounded up and then used to equip the forces of law and order before the rebels collected them. This was debated by the members of council and accepted. Uri pointed out that under no circumstances should an attack be made on the soldiers guarding them; that may well be precisely what they are waiting for — a genuine casus belli.
Andron was astonished.
“I’d never have expected that a myopic bookworm had such a practical head on his shoulders,” he said.
“I’m a strategos gone wrong,” Uri chuckled.
Families were loathe to hand over their knives, and the bulk of them were hidden away, but they ended up with enough to arm the Gerusia’s policemen.
The men applying to be policemen were young and fit; Uri specifically requested that not all of them be taken on, as there were almost certainly some rebels among them. So long as they were in the minority, they would accommodate the will of the majority, unlike their companions who were left out. This too was debated, and not all of them were taken.
Stocks gradually ran down; the local inhabitants still had some flour, salt, and oil on hand, but they only let relatives have any and they tried to conceal their stores, so the council of elders passed a strict decree against hoarding of food. This was displayed, but could not be implemented. Uri proposed that the council ought to requisition all stocks and dole them out in equal rations, but the elders, after prolonged discussion, were unwilling to agree, perhaps because they would do better with things left the way they were, perhaps because they did not feel that their motley forces were strong enough to enforce such a rule.
Uri went with a pair of the new recruits to the southern wall. They found that the soldiers, not considering construction to be their job, had broken off reinforcement work. Uri found several points in the makeshift structure where one could break through. He reported it, proposing that anyone who was very hungry be allowed to make a break for it, on the chance that they might find food somewhere; there was plenty of money within the Sector, but hardly any food. The elders discussed and rejected the proposal. Uri looked around: confidential advisers and young men armed with knives were thronging the room. The idea was going to spread soon enough.
The very next day, Jews broke out at several points, surprising the soldiers, who did not dare leave their sentry posts; whole families, dozens of people rushed out past them. Uri was watching from the upper story of one of the buildings as the Jews raced to the west along deserted streets.
That night a few stole back, reporting that at first the Greeks in the marketplaces had accepted their money and had given them something to eat in return, but then the mob had attacked, slaughtering many women and children, while elderly people had been bound and taken away. Once again fires were lit and anyone the Greek rioters caught was smoked to death.
Two of them had seen a burned-out synagogue; there were corpses of men littering the ground in front, their heads and genitals cut off. They may well have resisted when Greeks attacked the house of prayer.
In the Sector there was chanting of psalms and prayers.
On the Friday, a Septuagint was brought out of one of the houses and as the Sun went down many hundreds prayed in the street, scattering earth over themselves.
The Greeks patched up and strengthened the walls. They worked slowly, under military supervision, no longer showing the enthusiasm they had when it had been motivated by their own rage.
Infants with bloated stomachs lay in the streets, their emaciated mothers trying in vain to breast-feed them; the men looked straight ahead with madly gleaming eyes.
The elderly went hungry too.
Everyone was famished, but all the same the streets became covered with excreta: people were no longer continent; by now their own tissues were being eaten up.
I need to get out while I still have the strength, Uri thought. He was hunched over on the banks of the canal, his legs drawn up so that his knees were pressing into his stomach to relieve the pain; around him were people chewing on weeds. Uri was not chewing anything but keeping a close eye out in case a mouse or rat that he could swat were to appear.
It was the last week in August. He needed to get out by September at the latest. Which is to say, by Germanicus.
Not yet though: he first needed to weather the Egyptian New Year, then the emperor’s birthday. The Greeks were bound to go rabid during the celebrations.
The elders conferred, quite needlessly, but they still conferred. Uri held his peace, feeling only a leaden weariness, his head drooping every now and then.
“What is that spy doing here?” someone called out in a high-pitched voice.
Uri was startled to consciousness.
It was Tryphon’s son, Demetrius, who was standing in front of him, his big nostrils pulsating angrily.
Uri got to his feet.
“This is the alabarch’s spy!” Demetrius squeaked.