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house, Paulus
joined one of the crews assigned to the emperor’s ambitious
building project—a new aqueduct. He had seen the drawings; it would
march majestically from the Caelian Hill to its source of water,
far outside the city. The groundwork had been done, winding among
the mansions on the hill and stretching northeast from the center
of town. The pillars supporting the arches and channels of the
aqueduct would rise to a certain level, then other phases of its
construction would begin. It would probably take years to
finish.
    As he arrived, hundreds of hired laborers and
slaves congregated around an area surrounded by great piles of
earth and clay. Large wagons, some full of sand and others of wood
sat ready to be dumped, and huge stone blocks waited to be lifted
into place.
    He’d been using one of his old family names,
Antonius, when he was among other people; it was, as a matter of
fact, part of his full name, since it wasn’t unusual for Romans to
have five or six. He didn’t like using what appeared to be
subterfuge, but didn’t seem to have a choice; his own name was too
well known, and every day the circle of people with whom he came
into contact grew wider. He was dressed in a plain brown tunic
belted at the waist—no differently than anyone else, but as usual
everyone noticed his approach—his height, his looks, an old air of
command he could never seem to lose, always caught the attention of
others nearby. It was assumed he was a freed slave, for why else
would he be here, performing manual labor with commoners and other
slaves?
    Paulus listened to the foreman giving orders
and set to work shoveling a pile of sand into carts. He glanced
over at the man nearest him, who was mixing buckets of mortar.
“Good morning, Secundus.”
    The man, with dark hair receding from his
forehead, paused to look over his shoulder. “Antonius.”
    “I was wondering—have you thought over what I
told you about the Nazarene?”
    “Thought it over,” said the man. “Hard to
believe.”
    “Hard not to,” Paulus answered, “all things
considered.”
    Others were listening but Paulus didn’t mind.
It wasn’t the same here as it was in Jerusalem—yet. The religious
and political rulers in Jerusalem had put Jesus to death, and now
they sought to imprison and sometimes even kill anyone who had the
audacity to confess their belief in him, or attempt to tell others
about him. They had crucified Jesus after a travesty of a trial;
they had explained away the fact that his body had disappeared from
its tomb the third day after his burial by saying those guarding
the tomb had fallen asleep and his disciples had stolen the body.
They had denied any possibility of a resurrection, and anyone who
called him “God” was guilty of blasphemy.
    Rome, on the other hand, had always been
tolerant of other religions…as long as they didn’t interfere with
Rome’s. There were gods and goddesses too numerous to count, so
what was one more? But the time was coming…Paulus knew that as soon
as there were enough believers in Rome, and it became known that
they refused to worship other gods, there would be trouble. Though
Augustus and Tiberius had allowed themselves to be worshiped,
Caligula was the first emperor to pronounce himself a god; he had
built a temple and erected a statue of himself within it, which he
ordered to be dressed daily in duplication of whatever he chose to
wear that morning. And he’d had the heads knocked off the statues
of other gods and replaced them with replicas of his own head. What
would he do, when believers in Jesus refused to worship him?
Paulus didn’t want to think about it.
    “You there—Antonius.” The foreman approached
them briskly.
    “Yes, sir?” Paulus looked at the man who had
hired him.
    “The contractor wants to see you as soon as
he arrives, probably about mid-morning.”
    “What about?”
    “How should I know? Get to work and stop
talking so much. Saw you talking half the day