Jerusalem. The Biography

rushed to the emperor’s residence on Capri to stake his own claim and undermine his uncle’s. He found Tiberius residing gloomily at the Jupiter Villa, his jaded appetites, according to the historian Suetonius, fed by boys known as his ‘minnows’, trained to suck his privates as he swam in the pool.
    Tiberius welcomed Agrippa – until he heard about the string of unpaid debts he had left around the Mediterranean. But Agrippa, a born gambler, persuaded his mother’s friend Antonia to lend him money and appeal to the emperor. Severe and chaste, Antonia, daughter of Mark Antony, was respected by Tiberius as the ideal Roman aristocrat. He took her advice and forgave the Jewish rascal. Agrippa used the cash not to pay off his debts but to give a generous present to another bankrupt princeling, Caligula, who with the child Gemellus, son of Agrippa’s late friend Drusus, was Tiberius’ joint heir. The emperor asked the Herodian to look after Gemellus.
    Instead the opportunistic Agrippa became best friends with Gaius Caligula, who ever since being paraded before the legions as a childmascot in a mini-military uniform (including army boots,
caligae –
hence the nickname ‘Bootkins’), was beloved for being the son of the popular general Germanicus. Now twenty-five, balding and gangly, Caligula had grown up spoilt, dissolute and quite possibly insane, but he remained the people’s darling and he was impatient to inherit the empire. Caligula and Herod Agrippa are likely to have shared a life of extravagant debauchery, a million miles from the piety of the latter’s brethren in Jerusalem. As they rode around Capri, the two fantasized about Tiberius’ death, but their charioteer was listening. When Agrippa had him arrested for stealing, the charioteer snitched to the emperor. Agrippa was thrown into jail and bound in chains but, protected by his friend Caligula, he was allowed to bathe, receive friends and relish his favourite dishes.
    When Tiberius finally died in March 37, Caligula, having murdered young Gemellus, succeeded as emperor. He at once released his friend, presented him with gold fetters to commemorate his time in real shackles and promoted him to king, giving him Philip’s northern tetrarchy. Quite a reversal of fortune. Simultaneously Agrippa’s sister Herodias and Jesus’ hated ‘fox’, Antipas, travelled to Rome to undo this decision and win their own kingdom. But A grippa framed them, alleging that they were planning a rebellion. Caligula deposed Antipas, the killer of John the Baptist – who later died in Lyons – and gave all his lands to Herod Agrippa.
    The new king scarcely visited his kingdom, preferring to stay close to Caligula whose homicidal eccentricities rapidly turned him from Rome’s favourite to its oppressor. Lacking the military kudos of his predecessors, Caligula tried to bolster his prestige by ordering his own image to be worshipped across the empire – and in the Holy of Holies of the Temple. Jerusalem was defiant; the Jews prepared to rebel, with delegations telling the Governor of Syria that ‘he must first sacrifice the entire Jewish nation’ before they would tolerate such a sacrilege. Ethnic fighting broke out in Alexandria between Greeks and Jews. When the two parties sent delegations to Caligula, the Greeks claimed that the Jews were the only people who would not worship Caligula’s statue.
    Fortunately, King Agrippa was still in Rome, ever more intimate with the increasingly erratic Caligula. When the emperor launched an expedition to Gaul, the Jewish king was one of his entourage. But, instead of fighting, Caligula declared victory over the sea, collecting seashells for his Triumph.
    Caligula ordered Petronius, the Governor of Syria, to enforce his orders and crush Jerusalem. Jewish delegations, led by Herodian princes, begged Petronius to change his mind. Petronius hesitated, knowing that it was war to proceed and death to refuse. But King Herod Agrippa, theprodigal time-server, suddenly showed himself to be the surprising champion of the Jews, writing courageously to Caligula in one of the most astonishing letters written on behalf of Jerusalem:
     
I, as you know, am by birth a Jew and my native city is Jerusalem in which is situated the sacred shrine of the most high God. This Temple, my Lord Gaius, has never from the first admitted any figure wrought by men’s hands, because it is the sanctuary of the true God. Your grandfather [Marcus] Agrippa