Solar Wind. Book one - страница 30

The woman, meanwhile, was already dressed, and now she quickly and deftly helped to dress Marcus. She took his money and looked affectionately into his eyes.

“Come to me again, my boy. I'm Demetra from the fifth district of Hill Caelian. Remember that?”

Emperor Hadrian spent the whole spring and summer in the East, mostly in Athens.

Galatia and Cilicia, Egypt and Judea. He didn't like Asia very much. Screaming, self-serving, impudent peoples, people in whom it was difficult to find the inherent Hellenic susceptibility to the sublime and graceful, irritated Caesar.

Being in the Arabian sands or mountains of Cappadocia, in the sun-dried city of Alexandria, among the olive groves of Phoenicia, he often turned his gaze towards Greece, where the clouds flowing through the blue sky. There, above the top of Olympus, where the majestic gods lived, these clouds were showered with warm rain, mitigating the harshness of the celestials. There was ready to be shed and his heart, the heart of the Emperor of Rome, if he was on the ancient land of Hellas.

But circumstances prevented the reunion of Hadrian's soul with the divine and unique Greek aura. All the fault was Judea, unruly and persistent in their delusions, which from the point of view of Rome were seen as barbaric and demanding eradication.

It all started two, maybe three years ago. In his quest to impose Greek culture on the Jews, Hadrian may have gone too far. He passed a law banning castration, unwittingly affecting Jews who were no longer allowed to circumcise. Unfortunately, this was one of the most important rites of their religion.

Then he, Hadrian, decided to rename Jerusalem, the holiest city for every Jew, to Aelia Capitolina, because it seemed that its importance after the defeat of the Titus rebellion in these lands significantly decreased. The city, as it seemed to Hadrian, had already lost the original importance of the religious center of all Judea and on the Temple Mount he intended to build the sanctuary of Jupiter Capitol.

The members of Hadrian's council also did not object to such measures, neither the prefect of Rome Regin, nor the prefect of the Pretoria Turbo, nor the immediate entourage of the emperor, which included the famous lawyers Publius Celsus, Salvius Julianus, Neracius Priscus. Even his secretary, Avidius Heliodorus, a native of Syria, who was of close origin to the peoples of Asia and he found no arguments against. Maybe he lied since the Syrians have always acted as antagonists of the Jews.

Therefore, having received approval from all sides, on the wave of fame and success of his brilliant reign, Hadrian did not think about the consequences.

But how can one predict what comes to the minds of fanatics of faith? After all, the divine Titus almost sixty years ago seemed to have destroyed the sprouts of resistance forever. However, the deafly hidden and dangerous discontent lurking in the bowels of the people of Judea had to sooner or later break out, like lava from Vesuvius.

The Jews were just waiting for their messiah, predicted in the Old Testament, and such a messiah appeared. Hadrian was informed that his name was Varkoheba,43 which meant “Son of the Star,” and Varkoheba called himself the prince of Israel. However, the governor of Tineius Rufus reported that the messiah has another nickname—Ben-Koziwa, the son of lies. But there was little trust in Rufus.