our downfall. How can it be otherwise, given they await, if their prophets are to be believed, a prince of their bloodline who will rule the world? We shall never overcome this people. They need to be obliterated. We need to raze Jerusalem to the ground. Perhaps, old as I am, it will be given to me to see the day when its walls will fall, when flames will devour its houses, when its inhabitants will be struck down by the sword and salt will be strewn where the Temple once stood. And on that day I shall at last be justified." Lamia endeavoured to put the conversation back on a more even keel. "Pontius," he said, "I can easily explain to you both your old resentments and your sinister premonitions. Certainly, what you knew of the character of Jews did them no favours. But I, who was curious about Jerusalem and mingled with the people, was able to discover in these men hidden virtues, which were kept concealed from you. I knew Jews full of gentleness, whose simple habits and faithful hearts reminded me of what our poets have to say about the old man of Ebalia. And your yourself, Pontius, saw beaten to death by the rods of legionaries simple men, who, without even saying their name, died for a cause they thought just. Such men do not deserve our contempt. I talk like this because it is fitting to keep measure and balance in all things. But I'll admit I never felt much sympathy for Jewish men. Jewish women, on the other hand, I liked a lot. I was young then, and Syrian women played havoc with my senses. Their red lips, their damp eyes, and their long gazes shining in the shade, struck me to the marrow of my bones. Made up and painted, and smelling of nard and myrrh, steeped in spices, their flesh is rare and delightful." Pontius listened to these praises impatiently: "I wasn't a man to fall into the honey traps set by Jewesses," he said, "and since you lead me to say it, Lamia, I never approved of your lack of self-restraint. If I didn't emphasize enough to you in days gone by that I held you to be very much at fault for having seduced, back in Rome, the wife of a consul, I think it was because you were then paying dearly for that crime. Marriage is a sacred institution for patricians, one that Rome counts on. As for slaves or foreign women, the relations you could strike up with them would count for little were it not that your body gets used to in them a shameful softness. You sacrificed too freely to the goddess of crossroads, I must say, and what I find most to blame in you, Lamia, is that you did not marry legitimately and give children to Rome as every good citizen should do." But the man exiled by Tiberius was no longer listening to the old magistrate. Having emptied his cup of its vinum Falernum, he was smiling at some invisible picture. After a moment of silence, he continued in a very low voice that gradually grew louder: