For
the impudence of the Jew would I fill his Temple with the gods of Rome
and make of his holy place a dancing spot for virgins that be neither
virgins nor veiled. The dogs!"

"Hath thy memory become shortened that thou dost not see back a space
of months? Didst thou not try moving Caesarea to Jerusalem and putting
thine image in the Temple? And did not these same dogs spread their
necks at thy feet and court the sword rather than have their Temple
desecrated? Yet more blood would have flown than that of the six
thousand thou slew hadst thou not been made to remember that Pilate is
not Caesar. It is not right, my Lord, to do evil, nay not to the neck
of a dog."

"Whether the hand is that of Pilate or of Caesar, the sword of Rome
determines what is right."

"Not so, my Lord Pilate. Might is not right unless it be _right_. In
the jungle where hunters for the arena seek wild beasts, pythons and
wolves and hyenas growl and scream, and the strong doth ever lick from
his jaws the blood of the weak. To Rome all the earth is a jungle
where Rome is the king lion, the fierce he-tiger, the unsatisfied
she-wolf. And from the jaws of this Beast, the blood of nations drips
and the groans of mangled slaves fall ever on the ear. Ever in my
heart have I felt this is not right. Now hath arisen among the Jews,
whose blood thou delightest to spill, one whose teaching I have felt
before I ever heard of him. This one delighteth not in gleaming steel,
nor screams of agony, nor running blood."

"Ho! Claudia! Where is the Jew whose heart taketh not delight in
flashing steel, dying screams and running blood? Thinkest thou there
be such? Then should thou feast thine eyes on the Passover sacrifice.
Here are ten thousand priests with whetted blades which they do plunge
in bleating throats until two hundred thousand lambs are slaughtered
before the eyes of their great god Jehovah. Beside such slaughter as
this that of the arena is but child's play."

"I mark thy words. The Jew is bloody and hath a bloody god. Yet from
among them ariseth one who doth preach a new Kingdom and a god that
delighteth not in the shedding of blood."

"Where getteth thou thy knowledge?"

"From the eunuch thou gavest me, my Lord Pilate."

"Ho! ho!" and Pilate threw up his hands and shouted with laughter.
"From a slave the wife of Pontius Pilate doth get learning? Ho! ho!
Claudia wouldst be a disciple of a eunuch whose back bears marks of the