(this story happens in the month following the debate of Hillel and Shammai)
Herod sails Rhodes to meet with Octavian, the newly coronated Caesar Augustus, ready to supplicate himself to Augustus's feet and, having collaborated with Augustus's Enemy, Anthony, beg for Octavian's clemency to spare the lives of Herod and his court.
As the ship approaches the ruins of Rhodes's famous Colossus, two sailors talk, one Roman the other Judean:
"When sailors sailed under it, they must have peered up. Did they... ,,, get a view of anything underneath?" "There's no phallus among the ruins if that's what you're implying." "How could there not be?!" "Well it's just not there." "It just seems unlikely to go to all that trouble to scare the bejeesus out of visitors by sailing under a statue a hundred meters tall and not give it a sch.." "..I don't know what to tell you." "Maybe you Romans should... y'know... look harder." "Are you saying the fucking Colossus of Rhodes had a small..." "I'm not saying it was small, though it had to be small enough that somebody could make it disappear without noticing." "You're fucking pazzo." "Look, all I'm saying is that something must have happened, and I bet I know what did even..." "Whatdya' think?" "I think some Jewish bronze merchant a hundred years ago said getta load'a that schvantz, and sold it to a Roman senator." "...Get the fuck outa here!" "I really do!" "You think some Yid had the balls to steal a gigantic bronze phallus from the most watched site in the world?" "I think Rome helped!" "You think the penis of the Colossus of Rhodes is in Rome?!" "I think it's standing straight up on top of the fucking Pantheon is what I think."
Only to find when he pulls into the harbor that there are carved statues in the likeness of Herod and Antipater right next to the feet of the old Colossus. Herod has no idea what this means.
Herod embarks from the ship. His only welcome? A dozen naked slave girls, who paint his face red, strip him of his clothes so that they can place purple toga on him, then place a laurel wreath atop his head. Herod is put on a chariot and pulled into a Roman-style triumph through the streets of Rhodes. The charioteer continually calls out 'Hail Herod! Rome's protector in the East! Hail Herod! Vanquisher of the Hasmoneans! Hail Herod! Ensnarer of Cleopatra! Hail Herod! Rebuilder of Jerusalem!" Behind him comes an open caravan showcasing an armory's worth of weapons - the short gladius, the long spatha, the tiny pugio, the enormous hasta, the aerodynamic pilum, the flying plumbata - a hundred of them each at least, and a dozen each at least in all matter of catapult: the onager, the ballista, the scorpio; and a thousand dolabras - the tool which every Roman soldier used for digging, along with a thousand helmets and shields. Then came open chests of gold and silver in currency coin and bullion: Aureus, Quinarius Aureus, Denarius, Quinarius, Sesterius, Dupondius, As, Semis, and Quadrans. Then further chests containing giant jewels of pearl, jade, malachite, amethyst, carnelian, topaz, chalcedony, obsidian, olivine, and lapis lazulli. Behind the jewels are further statues and paintings and tapestries: of Herod, Antipater, Mairiam, and all the Hasmonean protectors, and of all the prophets of the Bible.
Six hours later, at the end of the parade, stood Flavius Jacobus, at the foot of Rhodes's Temple of Jupiter, there to bid his old friend into the temple.
"Well, the Temple of Jupiter here is not much of a temple but it'll do for now. Rome and Rhodes bids welcome to its Protector in the East. I hope this trip is turning out as eventfully as you hoped?"
And on the center wall of the Temple, sitting upon Divine Jupiter's lap was Caesar Augustus.
"Well, I don't know if I hoped for such events but..."
"...Such events you now have. We have named you Rome's Protector in the East, and we trust that you will act to Rome's benefit just as you've acted to Judea's. Do you notice all the finery behind you in your triumph?"
"I couldn't help but.."
"..It's yours of course."
"Isn't some slave supposed to shout in my ear to remember that I'm mortal?"
"You're from Judea, nobody forgets there."
"So this is a triumph?"
"It's very much a triumph. Yours and mine."
"Didn't you have a triumph of your own in Rome?"
"Come with me King, let's talk among the ruins."
(Caesar and Herod go to beach of Rhodes and talk among the Colossus's many bronze ruins)
"What ruler who wants to die of natural causes ever throws himself a triumph?"
"So this is..."
"This is my celebration as much as yours. When Divine Julius wanted to celebrate, it was to places like Rhodes he came. 'My boy, when Romans go north you work, when you go east and south, you play.'"
"Your father went to Rhodes?"
"He tried to go to Rhodes, then he was abducted by pirates, just like you were."
"I wasn't abducted by pirates."
"You weren't?"
"I was shipwrecked after Cleopatra sent me to Italy to pitch something straight to you and Anthony. I honestly thought I'd be dead - either Cleopatra wanted me thrown overboard, or have Anthony kill me, and if they didn't, I figured you would. But instead I was shipwrecked and fell into the belly of whale where I stayed for three days."
"You mean like your prophet Jonah?..."
"How do you know about Jonah?"
"A good leader reads..."
"I swear it happened."
"If you say it happened it did. You're a king and kings write their own histories. There are all sorts of things that happened to me which no one would believe."
"If you say so."
Augustus begins to croak and ribbit like a frog. Within forty seconds, three hundred and some frogs appear noisily atop the ruins of Rhodes's Colossus and bow to two of them, within thirty seconds the frogs leave.
"The Gods allow some people to do some very strange things. We great men, we're not made of the same stuff."
"In my country, I'm told there is only one god who grants such permissions."
"But I've heard you believe in two."
"How did you discover that?"
"A good leader also listens."
"I don't necessarily believe in two gods. I've only heard one."
"What god is that?"
"The 'other' God."
"The other god?"
"The God who appeared to me after the destruction of my true home country, Idumea, and told me to avenge my homeland against the Jewish people and Yahweh."
"So it's true!"
"What?"
"You hate your people!"
"And you love Romans?"
"I'm ambivalent about them."
"You fear them!"
"Yes, very much so."
"How much more reason have I to fear mine? They killed my family, they killed the family that birthed my family, they've been killing my family since the time of Lot and Ishmael."
"Well, the Romans did just kill my father, but no, we don't have your prodigal patrimony. Rome is a city of immigrants, and immigrants come to new places to forget their old hatreds."
"Hatred is history's oldest motivator. Let Roman history go on long enough there will be enough hatred to power the rest of Judea's history."
"Don't forget yourself Protector, you're still in the company of the only man in the world you can't rule."
"My apologies your majesty."
"Don't you dare call me that. I'm no king and no emperor, my title is 'Mr. Princeps', Rome's First Citizen."
"You really want me to call you that?"
"It's just ridiculous enough that people won't be in awe of me."
"Whatever you say Mr. Princeps."
"I must say, I'm more impressed than I expected to be."
"What did you expect?"
"A spoiled killer."
"Well, guilty as charged, that's what you got."
"We have spoiled killers everywhere in Rome, the spoiled killers kill each other and assume they can take their spoils without another spoiled killer coming to take theirs; but you're different Herod son of Antipater. I can't tell whether you're just a little spoiled or just a lot a killer, but men like you either build nations or destroy them."
"What charm of mine gave it away?"
"Don't you know? You among the people who are supposed to be so skilled in the arts of duplicity?"
"I'm not a Jew."
"Of course you are, all semites are partially Jews, and you rule over them all! If you were not the most gifted among a very gifted people you'd just be another Judean prince strangled in a prison."
"I still don't understand."
"Of course you do. You're gifted enough that I'm getting scared just talking to you."
"Oh?"
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