[Flavius] Josephus

aka Joseph ben Matthias (Yosef ben Matityahu)

Ιώσηπος

Born: AD 37 Died: AD c100 Ancestry: paternal line goes back to the priestly order of HP17 Jehoiarib (son of HP16 Joash, son of HP15 Azariah, son of HP14 Ahimaaz, son of HP13 Zadok, son of Ahitub of the line of HP6 Uzzi, then back to HP1 Aaron), 1st of the 24 orders of priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. Josephus a descendant of the HP? Jonathan (hmmm, perhaps HP53 Alexander Jannaeus M6 r103-76 BC, or HP36 Johanan, or HP49 Jonathan Apphus 'the Diplomat' M2 r160-43 BC) ... GFather: Josephus (he and noble wife related, both direct descendants of Simon Psellus) Father: Matthias Mother: Jewish noblewoman descended from the Hasmoneans Spouses: 1 Captured Jewish woman (she later left him, d70 AD in Siege of Jerusalem) 2 ? 3 Alexandrian Jewish woman (3 sons, later divorced) 4 Greek Jewish woman from Crete (2 sons) Children: - Flavius Hyrcanus (from 3rd wife, 2 other sons w/her d. in childhood) - Flavius Simonides Agrippa (w/4th wife) - Flavius Justus (") At right, pic of Josephus ===>>

Here's a Roman portrait bust said to be of Josephus

Titus Flavius Josephus (AD 37-c100) aka Joseph ben Matityahu (Biblical Hebrew: יוסף בן מתתיהו, Yosef ben Matityahu), was a scholar who witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem, a 1C Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer who was born in Jerusalem - then part of Roman Judea - to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed royal ancestry.

He initially fought against the Romans during the 1st Jewish-Roman War as the head of Jewish forces in Galilee, until surrendering in 67 to Roman forces led by (then-General, later RE9) Vespasian after the 6-week siege of Jotapata (Yodfat, near ?). Josephus then told Vespasian that the Jewish Messianic prophecies which had initiated the 1st Roman-Jewish War made reference to Vespasian becoming RE. This so pleased Vespasian that he decided to keep Josephus as a hostage and interpreter (i.e. liason w/Jews). After Vespasian did become RE9 in 69, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed the emperor's family name of Flavius.

Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship. He became an advisor and friend of Vespasian's son (later RE10) Titus, serving as his translator when Titus led the famous Siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, which resulted - when the Jewish rebels refused to surrender - in the city's destruction (cf famous depiction 'Destruction of Jerusalem' by Ercole de Roberti yr?) and the looting and destruction of Herod's [2nd] Temple.

Josephus wrote 'Jewish History', with special emphasis on the 1C AD and the 1st Jewish-Roman War, including the Siege of Masada, but the imperial patronage of his work has sometimes caused it to be characterized as pro-Roman propaganda (and he a traitor).

His most important works were 'The Jewish War' (c75) and 'Antiquities of the Jews' (c94). 'The Jewish War' recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation (66-70). 'Antiquities of the Jews' recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Roman audience. These works provide valuable insight into 1C Judaism and the background of Early Christianity. See also main wiki article 'Josephus on Jesus'.

Biography

The Galilee, site of Josephus'
governorship, in late antiquity

Josephus introduces himself in Greek as Iōsēpos (Ιώσηπος), son of Matthias, an ethnic Hebrew. He was the 2nd-born son of Matthias. His older full-blooded brother was also called Matthias. Their mother was an aristocratic woman who descended from the royal and formerly ruling Hasmonean dynasty (how?). Josephus’ paternal grandparents were Josephus and his wife - an unnamed Hebrew noblewoman, both distant relatives of each other and direct descendants of Simon Psellus. Josephus' family was wealthy. He descended through his father from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, which was the first of the 24 orders of priests in the Jerusalem Temple. Josephus was a descendant of the High Priest Jonathon, who may've been Alexander Jannaeus [Yanni], the High Priest [HP53] and Hasmonean ruler [M6] who governed Judea from 103-76 BC. Born and raised in Jerusalem, Josephus was educated alongside his brother.

He fought the Romans in the 1st Jewish-Roman War of 66-73 as a Jewish military leader in Galilee. Prior to this, in his early 20s, he traveled to negotiate with RE5 Nero for the release of several Jewish priests. Upon his return to Jerusalem, he was drafted as a commander of the Galilean forces. After the Jewish garrison of Yodfat fell under siege, the Romans invaded, killing thousands; the survivors committed suicide. According to Josephus, he was trapped in a cave with 40 of his companions in July 67. The Romans (commanded by Flavius Vespasian and his son Titus, both subsequently Roman emperors) asked the group to surrender, but they refused. Josephus suggested a method of collective suicide: they drew lots and killed each other, one by one, counting to every third person. The sole survivor of this process was Josephus (this method as a mathematical problem is referred to as the 'Josephus problem' or 'Roman Roulette'), who surrendered to the Roman forces and became a prisoner. In 69 Josephus was released. According to his account, he acted as a negotiator with the defenders during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70, in which his parents and 1st wife died.

It was while being confined at Yodfat that Josephus claimed to have experienced a divine revelation, that later led to his speech predicting Vespasian would become emperor. After the prediction came true, he was released by Vespasian, who considered his gift of prophecy to be divine. Josephus wrote that his revelation had taught him three things: that God, the creator of the Jewish people, had decided to 'punish' them, that 'fortune' had been given to the Romans, and that God had chosen him 'to announce the things that are to come'.

In 71, he went to Rome in the entourage of Titus, becoming a Roman citizen and client of the ruling Flavian dynasty (hence he is often referred to as Flavius Josephus - see below). In addition to Roman citizenship, he was granted accommodation [living quarters] in conquered Judaea and a decent, if not extravagant, pension. While in Rome and under Flavian patronage, Josephus wrote all of his known works. Although he uses 'Josephus', he appears to have taken the Roman praenomen [pre-name] Titus and nomen [name] Flavius from his patrons. This was standard practice for "new" Roman citizens.

Vespasian arranged for the widower Josephus to marry a captured Jewish woman, who ultimately left him. About 71, Josephus married an Alexandrian Jewish woman as his 3rd wife. They had three sons, of whom only Flavius Hyrcanus survived childhood. Josephus later divorced this 3rd wife. Around 75, he m. as his 4th wife, a Greek Jewish woman from Crete, who was a member of a distinguished family. They had a happy married life and 2 sons Flavius Justus and Flavius Simonides Agrippa.

Josephus's life story remains ambiguous. He was described by Harris (1985) as a law-observant Jew who [unlike many such] believed in the compatibility of Judaism and Graeco-Roman thought, commonly referred to as Hellenistic Judaism. Before the 19C, the scholar Nitsa Ben-Ari notes that his work was shunned [by Jews] like that of [Jewish] converts [to other religions], then banned as those of a traitor, whose work was not to be studied or translated into Hebrew. His critics were never satisfied as to why he failed to commit suicide in Galilee and, after his capture, accepted the patronage of Romans.

The historian E. Mary Smallwood wrote:

[Josephus] was conceited, not only about his own learning but also about the opinions held of him as commander both by the Galileans and by the Romans; he was guilty of shocking duplicity at Jotapata, saving himself by sacrifice of his companions; he was too naive to see how he stood condemned out of his own mouth for his conduct, and yet no words were too harsh when he was blackening his opponents; and after landing, however involuntarily, in the Roman camp, he turned his captivity to his own advantage, and benefitted for the rest of his days from his change of side.

Author Joseph Raymond calls Josephus 'the Jewish Benedict Arnold' for betraying his own troops at Jotapata.

Josephus scholarship

Romanticized engraving of Flavius Josephus
from William Whiston's translation of his works

The works of Josephus provide crucial information about the First Jewish-Roman War and also represent important literary source material for understanding the context of the Dead Sea Scrolls and late Temple Judaism.

Josephan scholarship in the 19C and early 20C became focused on Josephus' relationship to the sect of the Pharisees. It consistently portrayed him as a member of the sect, and as a traitor to the Jewish nation - a view which became known as the classical concept of Josephus. In the mid-20C a new generation of scholars challenged this view and formulated the modern concept of Josephus. They consider him a Pharisee, but restore his reputation in part as [Jewish] patriot and a historian of some standing. In his 1991 book, Steve Mason argued that Josephus was not a Pharisee but an orthodox Aristocrat-Priest who became part of the Temple Establishment as a matter of deference [duty], and not by willing association.

The works of Josephus include material about individuals, groups, customs, and geographical places. Some of these, such as the city of Seron, receive no mention in the surviving texts of any other ancient authority. His writings provide a significant, extra-Biblical account of the post-Exilic period of the Maccabees, the Hasmonean dynasty, and the rise of Herod the Great. He refers to the Sadducees, Jewish High Priests of the time, Pharisees and Essenes, the Herodian Temple, [Roman Governor of Syria] Quirinius' census and the Zealots, and to such figures as Pontius Pilate, Herod the Great, Agrippa I and Agrippa II, John the Baptist, James the brother of Jesus, and a centuries-long disputed reference to Jesus (for more see Josephus on Jesus). Josephus represents an important source for studies of immediate post-Temple Judaism and the context of early Christianity.

A careful reading of Josephus' writings and years of excavation allowed Ehud Netzer, an archaeologist from Hebrew University, to discover the location of Herod's Tomb, after a search of 35 years. It was above aqueducts and pools, at a flattened desert site, halfway up the hill to the Herodium [Fortress], 12 kilometers south of Jerusalem - as described in Josephus's writings.

Manuscripts, textual criticism and editions

Later editions of the Greek text include that of Benedikt Niese, who made a detailed examination of all the available manuscripts, mainly from France and Spain. Henry St. John Thackeray used Niese's version for the Loeb Classical Library edition widely used today. William Whiston, who created perhaps the most famous of the English translations of Josephus, claimed that certain works by Josephus had a similar style to the Epistles of St Paul (Saul).

The standard editio maior of the various Greek manuscripts is that of Benedictus Niese, published 1885-95. The text of Antiquities is damaged in some places. In the Life, Niese follows mainly manuscript P, but refers also to AMW and R. Henry St. John Thackeray for the Loeb Classical Library has a Greek text also mainly dependent on P. André Pelletier edited a new Greek text for his translation of Life. The ongoing Münsteraner Josephus-Ausgabe of Münster University will provide a new critical apparatus. There also exist late Old Slavonic translations of the Greek, but these contain a large number of Christian interpolations.

Works

The works of Josephus translated by Thomas Lodge (1602)

• (c. 75) War of the Jews, or The Jewish War, or Jewish Wars, or History of the Jewish War (commonly abbreviated JW, BJ or War)
• (date unknown) Josephus's Discourse to the Greeks concerning Hades (spurious; adaptation of "Against Plato, on the Cause of the Universe" by Hippolytus of Rome)
• (c. 94) Antiquities of the Jews, or Jewish Antiquities, or Antiquities of the Jews/Jewish Archeology (frequently abbreviated AJ, AotJ or Ant. or Antiq.)
• (c. 97) Flavius Josephus Against Apion, or Against Apion, or Contra Apionem, or Against the Greeks, on the antiquity of the Jewish people (usually abbreviated CA)
• (c. 99) The Life of Flavius Josephus, or Autobiography of Flavius Josephus (abbreviated Life or Vita)

The Jewish War

In the wake of the suppression of the Jewish revolt, Josephus would have witnessed the marches of Titus's triumphant legions leading their Jewish captives, and carrying treasures from the despoiled Temple in Jerusalem. It was against this background that Josephus wrote his War, claiming to be countering anti-Judean accounts. He disputes the claim that the Jews served a defeated God, and were naturally hostile to Roman civilization. Rather, he blames the Jewish War on what he calls 'unrepresentative and over-zealous fanatics' among the Jews, who led the masses away from their traditional aristocratic leaders (like himself), with disastrous results. Josephus also blames some of the Roman governors of Judea, representing them as atypically corrupt and incompetent administrators. According to Josephus, the traditional Jew was, should be, and can be a loyal and peace-loving citizen. Jews can, and historically have, accepted Rome's hegemony precisely because their faith declares that God himself gives empires their power.

Jewish Antiquities

He outlines Jewish history beginning with the creation, as passed down through Jewish historical tradition. Abraham [descendant of Shem] taught science to the Egyptians [his kinsmen, the Mizraim, son of Ham], who, in turn, taught the Greeks [Javan, son of Japheth]. Moses set up a senatorial priestly aristocracy, which, like that of Rome, resisted monarchy. The great figures of the Tanakh [OT] are presented as ideal philosopher-leaders. He includes an autobiographical appendix defending his conduct at the end of the war when he cooperated with the Roman forces.

Against Apion

The Last Ember

Daniel Levin

Riverhead Books (Penguin), 2009, 418pp (borrowed from CR via Dad)

1 The young lawyer Jonathan Marcus flies into Fiumicino Airport in Rome. Here's here to represent a client of his NYC firm Dulling and Pierce in an antiquities ownership case i.e. his client claims ownership but the Italian govt disputes it, claiming its been stolen (terrorists have made a large and profitable business in the black mkt for them). He's got a doctorate in classics. He's recently aced another case based on the fact that pagan statues of females e.g. Venus display larger voluptuous breasts than later tamer Christian ones.

2 Rome police cmdr Jacopo Profeta leads a team to an abandoned warehouse along the shipping docks of Civitavecchia in (near?) Rome, where they find ripped out pages of ancient Josephus manuscripts and ... the warehouse reeks of fermented olive oil, sewage and rust ... in the center of the room, an ancient marble column lay across the floor ... giving off a cloying woodsy scent of pine pitch and cinnamon ... sawn to reveal its hollow interior, containing the preserved corpse of a naked beautiful woman suspended in a yellow pool of herbal oils, her pearl-tone flesh as flexible and lithe as at the moment of her death ... in the viscous fluid, her open blue eyes and flushed cheeks preserving the colors of life, her mouth partly open, her hair rolled into 2 large curls resembling the scrolls of an Ionic column, a hairstyle popular among ancient Roman noblewomen. 4 long lines of sutures closed wounds on her torso from waist to breasts. Rome's embalming technique had used honeyed cinnamon, wood tar, and smoldered cedar oil, which Pliny the Elder called cedrium, to keep microbes at bay. A small circular tattoo of Latin and Greek encircled the navel in deep burgundy: 'Victory in the navel of the world'. Profeto noticed 1 no smallpox vaccine scar, 2 no dental work, and 3 no signs of footwear i.e. calloused feet, any sign of modernity ... none. [turns out to be the body of Berenice, 'the last princess of Jerusalem' (9) and Jewish concubine of General, later RE, Titus. She'd chosen death in the colosseum v. revealing the meaning of her tattoo]

3 On Jerusalem's Temple Mount, Sheikh Salah-ad-Din [SaD] leads a team of unauthorized thugs posing as UN restoration workers thru the dome's base and onto 'the rock' of Abraham. He's the gson of the Grand Mufti [Haj Amin al-Husseini] who allied w/the Nazis and fanatically sought to eradicate any artifacts of Jewish history (and also find the famed menorah of the Old Temple). Italian Prof. Gustavo Cianari is along to help (bribed and drawn by his fascination w/the history, he's the one who knew the woman was Berenice and that 'navel' referred to 'the rock'). SaD seeks the 'artifact for which Titus conquered all of Jerusalem [and Judea], but still failed to bring back to Rome' (9, i.e. the menorah). This failure is later referred to as 'Titus' mistake' [along w/trusting Josephus]. Cianari pointed to a hole in the S end of the rock, calling it 'the Navel of the World'. 'When the Romans breached the Temple in AD 70, the priest moved the artifact [menorah] thru that hole into a tunnel beneath the stone' (10). Tho Cianari thot the area beneath was inaccessible, SaD shocked him by rappelling 40' down thru the hole from above, thereby evading the laser motion detectors, entering the crypt below. The rest followed.

4 Jonathan checks in at his law office in Piazza Navona in Rome (scan map?). His boss is Bruce Tatton. The contested artifacts were 2 ancient marble fragments (fitting together, pic p13, each 3ft across) in a glass display case in the conference room. Jonathan saw immediately they were fragments of the Forma Urbis Romae i.e. 'the Form of the City of Rome', an enormous stone map of Rome carved in the late 2C AD that spanned >100ft in diameter. It once covered an entire building wall in the Roman Forum. Its lines seemed to portray a small part of the Colosseum. The map was shattered when the Goths sacked Rome in AD 455. The words 'Tropaeum Josepho Illumina' were carved roughly into the underside of the stone, meaning 'monument/trophy [of] Josephus revealed/brot to light'. It was broken off after the 'a' so it could mean 'illumina' reveal it [imperative] or 'illuminatum' revealed to (he later realizes its the former). But a monument to Josephus wasn't likely, Jonathan said, since he was viewed by most Jews as a murderous traitor [suck-up to Vespasian] (but many scholars think more just a political realist) [and, we'll learn later, he later betrayed Vespasian]. The opposition's rep was Dr Emili Travia, noted archaeologist and former colleague and lover (7yrs before) of Jonathan while they were grad students! Tatton says be ready for the case in 7hrs and leaves!

5 Profeta in the warehouse suddenly realizes the place is wired to explode and is heating up, so he orders everyone out, but quickly takes an impression of the corpse's fingerprints on the back of a Josephus manuscript page, also grabbing a lock of her free-floating hair. He barely makes it out before the place explodes.

6 Jonathan lingers in the conference room, pondering his predicament. As he heads for the door and turns off the main lights, he notices there's some light on the floor under the illuminated shadow of the 2 artifacts (case light still on from top, the fragments are laying flat on the bottom of the case apparently, about 6" thick). There was a message in Latin on the floor. He suddenly realized the 'illumina' was a command to illuminate the stone to see the message! The message was 'Error Titi' i.e. Titus's mistake. This was a 'steganographic' message i.e. referring to the ancient art of invisible writing. According the ancient historians, RE Titus supposedly said on his deathbed 'I have made 1 mistake'. Jonathan shares this insight w/Tatton's asst Mildren, but he has no interest. Some believed his mistake to be entering the Holy of Holies, punished by God by destruction of Pompeii soon after Titus ascension to the throne (city named for only other RE to enter HoHs, hmmm). The msg may've been left BY Josephus (but that may bolster Emili's case, Jonathan fears). Jonathan had earlier researched and developed the theory that Josephus had purposely become a Roman in order to become a SPY! Mildren says to ignore all this and 'this conversation never happened'. So Jonathan heads back to the hotel to draft a memo for Tatton (on his case against Emili), pondering his mistake 7ya of sneaking beneath an 18C Roman villa into the catacombs below, the sudden collapse of the tomb walls, watching an academy fellow (Gianpaolo ?, but another colleage at school had been [later Dr] Sharif Lebag = SaD) disappear in a gray cloud of earth. It was his fault and he was thrown out of the AAiR and his Rome Prize revoked, ruining his planned career on the Columbia faculty (he was blacklisted). He'd been relegated to a backroom job at Sotheby's til Tatton noticed him and threw him a bone for law work.

7 SaD had a small leather bk of the Mufti's research w/the Arabic word for 'a dwindling flame' or 'an ember' on the cover. He explains that, tho the Mufti had led the Waqf [the Muslim authority/trust that has managed the Temple Mount since 1187 AD], the imams 'have forsaken his research' (but SaD has made it his life's work to continue/complete it). The Mafti had used his close friendship w/Hitler to pillage archives across Nazi-occupied Europe in the 1930s (29) and was known for his [sick?] obsessive focus on 'eccentric archaeological theories'. This tunnel had been built as a drain for blood from the Temple alter, and had been used as a escape route by the HP in 70 AD (hmmm, Josephus? or HP83 Mathias III son of Theophilus or [last] HP84 Phannias son of Samuel). In the cave below the rock, SaD assumes there must be a hidden tunnel passage, so using Cianari's calculations and finding 'a seam in the stone' floor, he has his explosives expert silently blow a hole thru the floor w/a 'silent jackhammer' i.e. a pressurized helium piston. Its only sound was a quick 'phht'. A hole opened and a dank breeze blew up from the hollow space below. A flashlight revealed stone stairs descending to a platform, from which (they discovered once there) was 'a narrow stone bridge that seemed to hover over a vast black cavern' (30). It was an aquaduct. This place reminded SaD of the dark cinder-block basement in Beirut where, against his mother's wishes, his gfather [the Mufti] had translated (from ancient Greek to Arabic) and explained his collected research i.e. boxes of moldy parchments and notebook to the young boy. He said Titus had NOT conquered Jerusalem for political reasons, but for fear of a power stronger than himself in the Temple that his magicians had warned him he must defeat. The Mufti had muttered about 'Titus's mistake' as if it were also his own. SaD had moved w/his mom and gpa from Cairo to Damascus, Baghdad, then Beirut, trying to stay ahead of authorities chasing the Mufti after his conviction by a Yugoslav military tribunal for war crimes e.g. recruiting 20k Muslims to the SS. He was also pursued by Israeli agents. It had taken SaD a long time to realize that the research was seeking an artifact, 'something not even the Greek or Roman military could capture' i.e. the menorah w/lit flame symoblizing survival of the Jews i.e. protected by their God. The Mufti's (and now SaD's) life goal was to find and extinguish that flame! (and wipe out as much other Jewish history as possible).

8 The trial scene, as Jonathan must confront Emili. She claimed to have seen the 2 artifacts in question at an illegal Jerusalem dig in 2007 (2yrs before), under the Temple Mount where her partner ? was k. soon after. Al Waqf means 'the preserve' and is a religious land trust that has administered the Temple Mount since 1187 (35, i.e. Saladin's defeat of Richard the Lionheart, 46). She'd found mounds of rubble (illegally excavated from beneath the Mount) in the Kidron Valley at the foot of the Temple Mount containing 'shards of biblical-era pottery and shattered Crusader amulets'. She and Lebag had managed to gain access to a secret ancient street that ran beneath the modern spice market (where on map?) and from there get below the Mount. When they'd heard chaos erupt above (in the mktplace = 'souk'), she'd climbed back out, seen the shot shopkeeper who'd let them use the old hatch door, then been knocked unconscious. She woke up 1hr later in a RCC hospital just outside the Damascus Gate. She ran back to find Sharif, but all had been cleaned up and 'adjusted'. She found the hatch and made her way down stone steps to where they'd been, but now the room was empty (SaD's hi-tech equipment and manuscripts before). But she saw a small blood-stain and a small piece of Sharif's skull i.e. pushed out by a bullet.

9 The carabinieri (police) were HQ'd in a late-baroque bldg which had housed an RCC college in the early 18C. They called the corpse 'a Corinthian maiden', a reference to the ancient Roman practice of burying female prisoners inside columns, the flutes of which imitate the folds of their togas, and the Ionic capitals resembling their 1C hairstyles. Profeta says 'by the Renaissance, Josephus's histories were the most widely read texts in the Western world after the Bible' (42). Their suspect was obviously VERY interested in comparing different versions of Josephus' writings, so they must research him also. He's generally thot to be a 'sorcio' i.e. 'rat' or 'turncoat', assuming 'his swift rise from POW to Roman citizen and friend of Titus suggested a deal greased during his capture'. Also the mysterious circumstances around his capture i.e. all others w/him died, chosing suicide over capture by the Romans. We now learn that Profeta's 1st Lt Rufio, a Sicilian (like many others, his light skin and red curly hair owing to the Norman's 11C conquest of Sicily p44), is secretly abetting the bad guys i.e. taking money for allowing them to illegally dig under the Colosseum.

10 Back in the courtroom, Emili spots an old man in the balcony that we'll meet later (Orvieti). Tatton clinched his case by noting that Emili had only been below ground (in poor light) for 4 minutes before being shocked by the shot, so could NOT have closely examined the fragments and certainly could NOT say they were in fact the same as his clients'. He also implied she was angling for recognition at the UN mtgs in Rome the next day, and also (coup de grace) that she was seeking to weave a conspiracy theory to assuage her guilt over getting her friend Sharif and an innocent shopkeeper killed by illegally entering waqf territory (ouch).

11 When SaD et al reached the end of the aquaduct bridge, 'the ground widened to a tunnel lined w/ancient columns the size of redwood trees' (51). Their Assyrian design and rough, chipped trowel markings indicated their 1st Temple heritage i.e. 8C BC! Apparently they were also supports re-used by Herod for his 2nd Temple. Cianari knew these alone would be career-making finds (the only 1st Temple relic so far was an ivory pomegranate-shaped scepter top), and also that the Waqf had used the lack of evidence to challenge that there even WAS a biblical temple (51). Ahead was stone rubble left from the 715 BC Assyrian siege, leaving only a narrow passage. Many debated secret passageways and many doubted they existed, but now he was HERE, Cianari thot. Beyond the stones, the subterranean tunnel came to an abrupt end in a high dirt-packed wall, which Cianari said (consulting a parchment map) was formed when the tunnel collapsed in the earthquake of 1202, blocking entrance to the Royal Cavern, forgotten for 1kyrs. Josephus had described such a place, used as a quarry to the limestone used to built the Temple i.e. a round area ~1k ft in diameter and many stories tall. SaD's asst (Ahmed) used his pickax to carve at the dirt wall, and after a short time he broke thru to the (now) well-lit cavern, filled w/SaD's excavation equipment (bulldozers, scaffolding, floodlites ...). They were 100ft underground.

12 The hearing ends but Jonathan and Emili linger. He was sorry she'd been humiliated and wished he could undo that. She accused him of 'selling out' and asks 'what broke you?'. But he protests 'heroes are for myths ... this is reality'. But Emili doesn't buy it, saying this case IS special i.e. someone was willing to KILL for those fragments, then walks out. As he moved to leave too, he noticed the image of the fragments and the [highlighted?] location of the [only] Colosseum gate on them. The gate was on its southern rim of its oval shape and was called 'Porta Sanavivaria' i.e. the Gate of Life. This was for the gladiators, prisoners of war forced to fight in the arena for their lives. If killed, they'd be removed w/meat hooks thru the Porta Libertinensis, the Gate of Death, on the other side of the arena.

13 Soon after Emili leaves the courtroom, she's handed a note to head for 'Il Ghetto' i.e. the Jewish ghetto just across the river (Tiber). So she walks from the Palazzo Di Giustizia (Justice, where the court is) to The Great Synagogue. The Italian word 'geto' meant 'metal factory', and reflects the 15C RCC decision to confine Jews to the Venetian foundry district (57). From Venice the idea spread widely, and w/in 50yrs the Vatican (Pope Paul IV) confined all Roman Jews to '4 flood-ridden city blocks along the Tiber' (57). As Emili approached the Great Synagogue, she spotted the old man she'd seen; Mose Orvieti, holocaust survivor and long-time archivist at the Synagogue. He'd been a young [18yo] archivist during the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1943. Of 2091 Jews deported, he was 1 of 16 to return! He wanted to show her the books from which the torn manuscript pages had come. The library was in the cupola (in the belfry); 'the world's finest trove of medieval folio commentary on the OT' (60), even after the 1943 Nazi looting. The Mufti (from 1926-39) had come w/2 Nazi ofcrs. He used Gestapo forces to ransack archives thru-out occupied Europe, searching 'for manuscripts and artifacts relating to Jerusalem w/an obession that rivaled Himmler's search for Atlantis' (61). The Mufti had demanded the oldest Josephus manuscripts, then ripped out certain pages! He also wanted sketches of the Colosseum, but not finding what he wanted, and saying 'I will NOT make Titus's mistake'. Orvieti produced one and said 'I believe he was looking for this'. It was a 19C drawing from papal architect Giuseppe Valadier. He donated many items to the Synagogue instead of the Vatican. Why? Orvieti assumed 'he found something he wanted to keep from Napoleon, even from the RCC ... something important enough to bring the Mufti 2 centuries later' (pic p62 of the 1 unnumbered arch, of 80 total). Mose hadn't noticed that detail and had given up looking, since he'd been told that to solve it you had to believe ... in the splitting of the Red Sea, and he no longer did, he admitted sadly. Back at the UN, her boss Dr Jacqueline Olivier tries to comfort her on the court loss and advise her to move on (later we find out why), but this only stiffen's Emili's resolve to get to the bottom of why her friend Sharif died. Soon after JO left, Emili did too, taking the drawing along. If answers about the fragments were in the Colosseum, she'd try to find them.

14 2 discoveries by Profeta's team; 1 the last image on the PC w/a bullet hole thru it (in the warehouse) was of the Forma Urbis fragments, 2 a restoration nearby by partly funded by the al-Quds fund, a UNESCO-subsidized fund incorp'd in Morocco in 1998 to 'preserve the Islamic cultural heritage of Jerusalem [al-Quds]' (67). That same fund was also sponsoring a restoration near the Colosseum! i.e. along the NE gate of the stadium, along the Via del Colosseo i.e. of the gladatorial barracks, near the gate on the Forma Urbis, the ONLY unnumbered gate. Profeta sends 4 squad cars to surround the area as Rufio sweats.

15 Jonathan is bugged by Tatton's callous remark that 'mysteries of the ancient world do NOT concern us' i.e. ONLY the view of our clients, v. Emili's counter that Sharif knew the fragments were significant, giving his life for them (as they both thot). As Jonathan headed back to the Rome office, he realized he MUST investigate further into 'Titus's mistake'. He decides to head to the Colosseum [on foot] (as Emili and Profeta were doing). He believed the 'Error Titi' msg pointed to the gladiator's gate there. He came to the Victor Emanuel monument, from there seeing down into the Forum's ruins, 60' below modern street level. He hoped the bad weather would mean lesser crowds there. After passing the Arch of Septimus Severus and as he approached the Colosseum, his old friend Chandler Manning calls out his old nickname for Jonathan; 'Marcus Aurelius'. After a short social exchange (CM was busy hosting a tour group) CM hands him a business card, which said 'Roman Kaballah: Eternal Knowledge in the Eternal City' (71). CM was using 'commercial mysticism' to make a buck, but Jonathan recalled CM's 'remarkable ability to synthesize endless material spreading across centuries and recall details at a moment's notice'. Also a 'gift of gab' to regale any crowd, 'combining codices by Benedictine monks w/Egyptian astrology to produce a theory that the sphinx was REALLY a rep. of St Paul ... nonsense of course' but CM could make it sound convincing. He'd bot 'some dead occultist's library' and was milking it by giving 2 lectures a night! [to credulous suckers, he implies]

16 Rufio was nervous since he'd allowed SaD et al access to the area around the Colosseum [for 20k euros], but he now found out there'd been cameras. He was glad Profeta sent HIM to investigate the area. The area of the gladatorial barracks was mostly ignored since it was in the literal shadow of the stadium's E wall. Finding nothing, he again found a payphone to call in, saying nothing will be found and 'No further measures are necessary!' (76). He then returned to the barracks area, sorry to see Profeta and fellow ofcr Brandisi wandering among the ruins. When Profeta ordered a lock cut and explained an underground (and under the road) passage led from the barracks area to the Colosseum, Rufio knew his problems were just beginning.

17 Jonathan pretended to be a tourist but made his way to the unnumbered arch. He recalled that earthquakes in 442 and 508 had damaged the structure, but that it had been converted into a fortress in 1349. It contained 6 acres and 80 arches per level. He 'groaned every time Russell Crowe called it the 'Colosseum'' (79) since that name was only imagined 100s of yrs later; in the 1C it was known as the Flavian amphitheater. There was a thin rusted chain across the entry, and areas below weren't excavated til the 19C, proving Emili's favorite proverb; Quae amissa salva i.e. Lost things are safe. He made his way to a hallway 15 ft below street level and it was cold and clammy w/sour air. The walls were thick w/moss and purple roots and algae; much of the plant life was indigenous to Africa and Asia Minor! In antiquity seeds had fallen off lions and tigers and grown. He could see crude excavation marks on the walls. Suddenly he saw another flashlight beam ahead, so he quickly moved away from it, hiding under a low ceiling. But as the light came closer he grew desperate and accidently turned on his audio headset voice. As the light found him he bolted, banging his head on a low ceiling. Turns out its Emili!

18 Back under the Temple Mount, Cianari is horrified to see the scale of the destruction in Solomon's Hall. Their tunnel opening was 6 stories from the cavern's floor, and heavy construction equipment was systematically destroying the interior and all of its priceless contents. Looking up, he could see that the 'ceiling was as jagged as natural bedrock, presumably the underside of the Temple Mount's natural contours. He knew that 100ft above them ... was the Western Wall' (82). He'd heard rumors of illegal excavations down here, but never imagined anything on this scale. He was furious w/SaD and said so. Asking why he'd been brot along, SaD explains they need to find where the tunnel continued on the other side of the cavern. They were lowered to the floor by a motorized scaffold. SaD showed him a Crusader-era map showing 'the ruins of an arched Roman aquaduct that once spanned the cavern walls' (83). The professor was shocked that any such map existed, but SaD would say nothing about where he got it (in the Assyrian wing of the Baghdad Museum, retrieved by SaD in the 2003 chaos of post-invasion Iraq, killing his American soldier escort on the spot). 'Why should I help you [destroy this]?' said the prof. SaD responds, essentially, 'if you don't we'll just keep coarse-digging as before.

19 Profeta shoots the lock off and they enter, immediately finding SaD's sophisticated gear. Profeta could see signs of both careful and shoddy methods i.e. Jekyl and Hyde digging! Rufio was sweating profusely now, realizing they could be blown up at any time. After walking a bit (and climing a fence), they heard noises ahead and drew their guns.

20 Jonathan tells Emili of the 'Error Titi' msg, explaining that's why he's here. He tried to convince her to leave now and report the damage to the authorities, but no-go. When she said 'good luck' and moved away, he decided to follow/join her. She joked that his expensive shoes will be ruined.

21 They followed the corridor, snaking deeper underground. They arrived at a chamber quarried out of solid rock, w/ancient graffiti etched on the walls in different scripts; Syriac, Aramaic, Greek, Latin. This must be where prisoners/slaves waited before combat in the arena, 'the death row of ancient Rome' (90). Names were there; Aliterius Actoris [the Actor, mentioned repeatedly in Josephus, a favorite performer of Nero who used his celebrity for political influence], Clemens (a consul executed for treason), Epaphroditus (publisher of politically edgy works, also executed in the last days of Titus' reign), Beronike (Berenice, dau of the last king of Jerusalem who became RE Titus' mistress, may've been executed here). Hmmm, all look contemporaneous and written in same script. It finally hit him, they were all suspected spies in Titus' palace. As they pondered, he saw another name; Joseph ben Matthias aka [Flavius] Josephus. They all had HIM in common too. He took the latter Romanized name after becoming a Roman citizen. All knew and worked w/him, helping him in various ways. Most scholars had decided Josephus betrayed the Jews but remained loyal to Rome, but Jonathan's thesis was the opposite, bucking 500yrs of Josephus scholarship. The word Josephus used to describe himself meant both 'diplomat' and 'spy'. Here's his thesis:

Tho Josephus is known as the greatest traitor of the ancient world, it was all a front, an intel op so successful, scholars are still duped! He ran a spy network inside Rome after Jerusalem's fall, for which the role of sycophantic court historian was the perfect cover. Then why was he captured by the Roman army in the Galilee? He ARRANGED it! It took years to arrange. He'd warned all that the Temple would have no chance of survival, then once Jerusalem declared war, he suddenly volunteered to cmd troops in N Israel (Galilee) directly in the path of General Vespasian's army (heading S), tho he'd had zero military experience. His goal was to be taken prisoner BEFORE the Romans reached Jerusalem. But it didn't go quite as planned; once he arrived in Galilee, he convinced the local ldrs to authorize locals to plunder the Roman governor's summer home for supplies, believing it would bait Vespasian's troops to come to them. He told them to await his signal, giving himself time to ride out far enough in front of his troops so he'd be surrounded by the Romans alone. But the locals were greedy and couldn't wait. Josephus panicked and ordered all looting to stop immediately, and also tried to prevent news of it from reaching Vespasian. But it was too late; the Roman army came down on them, surrounding Josephus AND his men. In the popular story, his men chose death over capture by Romans, and one by one did so (drawing straws to see who was next), Josephus somehow managing to be the last man alive, then turning himself over to the Romans (chilling most historians). He was imprisoned but soon became a personal translator to Vespasian and his son Titus. Once he'd gained their trust, that's when his REAL mission started. He knew the Temple would be destroyed, but now he'd know exactly when (and could arranged to BE there). He know Titus was obsessed w/destroying any version of the past inconsistent w/his own, so Josephus had to secretly communicate a truth via a flattering acct of the RE (and also protect the menorah). So FJ may've Jerusalem's most successful operative til the Mossad! (93-6)

So apparently Titus discovered the plan and had them all killed (in the arena), but by that time J had already penned countless pages of history 'lionizing the emperor', so Titus could never publicize FJ's betrayal w/o calling into question the truth of his historical accts. FJ turned Titus' obsession w/history against him. But then the question is, what was left to save? i.e. Jerusalem and Temple were destroyed. Hmmm. As they pondered that, Jonathan and Emili saw another very recently excavated carving, of a tree w/7 branches, partially dissolved by acids (by SaD et al). It was 2 lines, the Hebrew 'Kodosh Arbor Ohr' (a sacred tree of light), and below in Latin 'Domus Aurea' (golden house), as in Nero's Golden Palace in Rome. It was HUGE and also resented by the Roman population for its excesses, forcing later REs to build over it w/in 5yrs of Nero's death, inadvertently preserving it til its rediscovery in the Renaissance (98). There were carved owls around the lower line, since owls symbolized protection i.e. wisdom in seeing danger from afar. Just after Emili snapped a pic, they realized a steam pipe had broken and sewer methane was mixing w/it, meaning an explosion was imminent; they had to get out NOW!

22 Meanwhile Profeta's party had come to a 3-way split and separated. Rufio took the one leading toward Jonathan and Emili (of course). When he saw the flashlight strobe he took out his gun, planning to shoot to kill. He told them to 'freeze' by they ducked into a niche. Emili got away, leaving Jonathan to confront Rufio. But thinking Jonathan was SaD (or an asst) he angrily yelled 'none of this was part of our deal', thus revealing his complicity! Then Rufio roughed him up. Jonathan managed to bolt away, running wildly til he emerged on scaffolding in the center of the arena. Then Rufio grabbed his ankle, but just then came the explosion! Rufio fell away and Jonathan saw Emili.

23 Profeta is saying Rufio was found inside the Colosseum, thankful he's alive (they thot they'd lost him). A bruised Rufio describes Jonathan. The Colosseum had been closed 1/2 hour and firemen crawled over the scene getting tourists away. They see Emili on a surveillance tape entering the unnumbered gate, so they head in too for a look.

24 As they walked the streets of Rome (ducking into pubs), Jonathan wanted to report to the American embassy, but Emili says no (they'd notify corrupt Italian authorities, and how could this situation be explained w/o sounding crazy, and Jonathan's cred is damaged anyway). When Jonathan mentions that Rufio had used SaD's name, Emili stops short. She knows of SaD, he's been tracked for 2yrs and been connected w/illegal excavations in Jerusalem, Istanbul and Calabria (and Rome), but no pics or even voice samples! Very elusive. Emili knows that what SaD seeks has 'been sought for 100s of yrs' (109). How? She shows Jonathan the sketch Orvieti had given her of the unnumbered gate. It was drawn by Valadier in 1809; he'd likely seen the inscriptions, known they were very important, but NOT wanted the RCC or even [his boss] Napoleon to know of them. Emili thinks Jonathan's thesis was right and that Josephus had taken on 'a mission important enough to go undercover for a lifetime [and die for]'. Sharif had said 'history is written in fire, and to keep it aflame, we just need one ember' (and to kill it, dowse tLE). Since the drawings used imagery of early cults (e.g. Mithraism, which focused on animals, esp. bulls, NOT trees in 1C [trees later in Norse cults]), Emili needed 'an expert on early mysticism', and Jonathan of course thot immediately of Chandler Manning. If HE can't help, Jonathan says, he's giving up the chase and 'going back to my life [as a lawyer]'.

25 Back under the Temple Mount, Cianari watched horrified as SaD et al work 'to destroy any and all archaeology supporting Judeo-Christian history'. He considered going to the police, tho he knew of another expert who'd been killed for refusing to help further. They used a laser to project (extrapolate) the aquaduct across the cavern. When SaD moves a bulldozer to the spot, Cianari protests, calling the artifact 'sacred', at which SaD loses his cool and says 'I show you arch. evidence from 4 countries and 60yrs, and you respond w/a child's myth?!' (114). SaD then nodded at Ahmed who shot Cianari. 'Bury him in the walls', said SaD.

26 Jonathan and Emili arrive at Chandler's place at 10.5 Via dell'Orso. Signs offered Kaballah-related goods and quoted Zohar Chadash, Tikkunim II 93b; 'Some only want to ... see the garment of the Torah ... not what lies beneath' (116). There were also bks on magnetism, the philosopher's stone, numerology, the occult, gnosticism, neo-Platonism, alchemy, Nostradamus, ancient Egyptian rites, Rosicrucianism, Gematria and medieval mysticism (even Shimmush Tehilim, for the magical use of the Psalms! i.e. as incantations). He even had a 10C copy of the Zohar, brot to Italy in AD 917 from Babylonia ('if it hadn't been damaged by the Venetian flood of 1583 it'd be worth more than a Ferrari' 117). Basically anything 'esoterica'. He mentions the 1864 pyramid measurements and that their original height of 148.5 meters times 10b gives the distance between sun and earth (also in meters?). Hmmm. Jonathan jokes that acc. to Umberto Eco's measurements (is he into esoterica?) ... Emili then shows him her camera's pic of the inscription. When Jonathan mentioned the 'Titus's mistake' projection, Chandler's attitude turned very serious (even panicky), as tho he suddenly knew this was serious (we learn later he was working for SaD, and know he now knows Jonathan is getting very close).

27 Profeta and his men visit UN ICC (Intl Cntr for Conservation, w/in UNESCO) director Jacqueline Olivier in Rome. He tells her Emili was seen on a camera under the Colosseum just before the blast, and they're looking for her [body]. JO tells Profeta of the hearing this morning on the Forma Urbis fragments, showing him a newspaper, on which Profeta immediately notices that the fragments portray the same area of the Colosseum as that portrayed on the PC screen in the warehouse i.e. the unnumbered gate.

28 'Sacred Tree of Light', Chandler ponders. He says the inscription is a 'tsurat-ha-hidah' (Aramaic) or 'emblem riddle', popular in antiquity for 'messages intended only for those who could understand it'. Chandler remembered how the other students 'basked in ancient heroic poetry [while] Jonathan searched for ancient spies under every parchment'. Jonathan suggested 'Titus' mistake' may refer to one of the executed Romans named in the inscriptions, but Chandler thinks its more i.e. a reference to their motivation for espionage (i.e. the Menorah). Chandler sees that the apparently pagan image is really a veiled reference to the menorah. He also says monotheism has many references to tree e.g. Gilgamesh's sacred vine, the forbidden tree of Eden, a bush that doesn't burn, leaves that don't wither. He suggests the expulsion from Eden may represent 'our difficult departure from the easy idol worship of fertility cults and tree worship to a more difficult and abstract spirituality that we actually had to work at' (123). He says early monotheists adapted a tree into 'a lamp w/7 branches'. But he thinks it isn't just a symbol i.e. that the drawing refers to the actual artifact, 'the one fashioned by King Herod in 8' of solid gold that remained lit in the inner sanctum of the Temple ... I think one of those prisoners is trying to tell you where he put it' [Hebr. 'mishkan', Engl. 'tabernacle', from Latin tabernaculum' i.e. small sacred place, from which we also get 'tavern' :-) ] (hmmm, why would Chandler tell them this, since as we learn later he's competing w/them to find it 1st i.e. working for SaD).

29 Emili says 'you can't be serious'. She assumed it was melted down, since 'gold prices halved in Syria because of all the gold the Romans pillaged from the Temple in AD 70'. No, says Changler, OTHER gold vessels were melted down to finance the Colosseum, but says the menorah 'was more valuable [to Titus] as a symbol of conquest than as bullion. Vespasian even built a special structure in the forum to display it, where it remained for 400yrs to AD 455 when the Vandals sacked Rome and stole it, sending it to Carthage (their HQ) as a trophy. But 70yrs later in 515, Belisarius got even by leaving Carthage in ruins (e.g. salting the soil) and plundering the whole area (N Africa). The Menorah was brot back to Rome and carried thru the streets. Belisarius then takes it to Constantinople (the new capital) and presents it to RE Justinian, who however was superstitious, reasoning that every city that's had the sacred lamp has been left in ruins; Jerusalem, Rome, Carthage, so he arranges for it to be shipped to a Christian church in Jerusalem, where it stayed less than 50yrs. The Persians sacked Jerusalem in 614, but many texts say the Chr priests were able to smuggle the menorah back to Constantinople, where it apparently stayed til 1204 when the city was looted by [4th] Crusaders! They presumably took it back to Rome. 'So the RCCers have it?' says Emili. Well, you'd think so, but a 2002 diplomatic agreement between the RCC and Israel arrived at 'don't ask, don't tell'. Chandler: its one of the few artifacts of the ancient world whose historical journey is even more interesting than the popular mythology around it. Then why would someone [SaD] be looking under the Colosseum for it, wonders Emili. Chandler says here it gets even more complicated; the menorah portrayed on the Arch of Titus is NOT the real menorah! Also, Josephus' detailed descriptions of the pillage of the Temple don't mention the menorah. So maybe the Romans stole a fake!? The arms of the real one were NOT curved, but straight and diagonal. So THAT was Titus's mistake (as well as the Vandals', the Byzantines', and the Crusaders') i.e. they were all fooled by a fake!

30 Profeta is still in the UN ofc and now reading a rpt of Dr Sharif Lebag's death in Jerusalem the previous year. The al-Quds fund (named after the Arabic name for Jerusalem) provides financial support for 'the administering Islamic trust known as the Waqf Authority to operate w/o funds from' (129) the UN, 'an arrangement that presents its own problems'. This is why the UN can't investigate persistent rumors of illegal digging beneath the Temple Mount. Lebag's body was never found, only a sample of skull tissue from the scene and, 2 weeks later in Gaza, a body burned beyond recognition. JO says she worked w/local authorities herself on DNA confirmation (aha). His next stop is Dulling and Pierce.

31 Emili: 'that's why SaD is digging here in Rome!'. Of the prisoners, only Josephus could've been on the scene of the Temple destruction [to do the deed of kidnapping the menorah]. Later he 'developed a network to hide it in Jerusalem' and from there, who knows where. Chandler reasons there must be another msg in the Domus Aurea, else why would the inscription mention it. They can get maps of it from the academy library. At that Jonathan's ready to quit the search i.e. 'I'm not a grad student anymore, and anyway I've already ruined one career 7yrs ago, and I don't want to ruin another'. Just then he gets a text msg to come to an urgent mtg at Tatton's ofc. Its now 11:30am on the same day as the court hearing! He'd accepted blame for Gianpaolo's death in order to protect Emili, but they'd forbidden him from talking w/her. This was Jonathan's Rubicon, said Chandler (they say 44 BC, v. 49 in my notes, hmmm) i.e. 'submit v. defy the law'. 'Godd luck' said Jonathan as he left.

32 As Jonathan enters the law bldg and heads for the mtg, he recalls how, like Hercules cleaning the Augean Stables [i.e. those of King Augeas], he's had to purge incriminating memos from 'the desktops, laptops, and mobile devices of executive clients who'd been indicted for every imaginable white-collar crime' (135). He recalls how Bruce Tatton rescued him from obscurity by offering him a job at the firm. At the mtg, it turns out that Profeta et al are on the way to talk w/them (yikes, that means Rufio too, who'd attacked Jonathan only 2hrs before!). Fortunately Rufio stayed by the car for now. Jonathan had thot they might be here to arrest him, but is relieved to discover they just have a few questions of the firm. He shows them the PC image of the Forma Urbis fragment, and Tatton does his best to play dumb i.e. 'this is a law firm, not a classic dept'. But when Profeta mentions Josephus, Jonathan pipes in involuntarily. When Profeta slid the slide over to him, Jonathan was shocked to see an extra line describing the moment the Romans broke into the sanctuary; 'one person ran in before them' i.e. Josephus himself rushing to kidnap/save the menorah! THAT's why SaD was looking at all copies, since this line was NOT in [any?] others. As he furiously translated and took notes, Tatton and Mildren grew upset that he was not joining them in feigning interest while obstructing Profeta (whom they feared was seeking evidence to impugn their client, all they cared about). Jonathan had never seen that line before, tho he'd also pored over many manuscripts looking for such a clue. Another line said 'During the Roman siege of the Temple, he escaped thru a hidden gate carrying an ember' (142). He was awed by the vastness of the conspiracy. Suddenly he snapped back to the current context, w/the others staring at him (he'd been muttering his thots). Tatton glared at Jonathan and insisted this was all just 'academic' (not of interest to lawyers), which Jonathan helpfully assented to. But just then Rufio walked in. He'd brot a file w/the pic of the body in fluid, which Profeta said IS evidence of a crime. Jonathan tried to keep his face low, but looked at the image, and (again, involuntarily) translated the tattoo 'Victory thru the Navel of the World ... it must be the Hidden Gate's location' (143 !?). He then subtly used his smartphone's camera function to snap his own pic of it, coughing to cover the shutter click. When Profeta mentioned explosions, Jonathan's nerves had reached their limit, and he excused himself, thinking 'I have to stop Emili'. As he walked past Rufio, the latter noticed his scarred knuckles. 'Paper cut' he responded! As he made his escape, someone was chasing him ... but its only Mildren, who says 'tell no one!' (i.e. about the hidden msg in the Forma Urbis tablets). He was finally outside and walking briskly.

33 Jonathan headed to the American Academy in Rome (where he'd studied 7yrs before). He never thot he'd go back there. Across the Tiber into the Trastavere, winding up the Janiculum Hill beneath a thick canopy of umbrella pines. Luckily, the gatekeeper Kossi recognized him and let him in. Jonathan wanted to visit the 'Church' i.e. the nickname for the vaulted library, and fortunately it was 1pm i.e. 'riposo' ('siesta'). The Academy had been (fnded 1894) sponsored by Carnegie, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt and was very fancy. It housed 30 of America's most talented scholars and artists to spend a year or 2 immersing themselves in the classical traditions Rome offered (148). Sharif had been a visiting fellow from the Egyptian Academy. Once Kossi let him into the library and left he called out for Emili (assuming she'd come here too). Then he saw a light in the Casa Rustica, a 17C farmhouse on the back of the grounds, obscure, nestled in the shadow of the Aurelian Wall, and always a popular spot for hidden gatherings (e.g. 1611 for Galileo's 1st telescope demo). Since the 1920s it had been used by the fellows as an archaeological research archive for digs thru-out Rome. He headed out there, seeing 2 sets of fresh footprints in the mud.

34 As Rufio returns to the cars and admires the lawyer's classy wheels (1964 Ferrari 250 LM) and pondering the unfairness of it all ('police risk their lives, lawyers profit from high-priced defenses'), Brandisi pulls up w/news of a sighting of Emili near the Academy. He's come to tell Profeta, but Rufio says no, let's not bother him right now, you wait here and I'll (Rufio) check it out myself (alone).

35 Sure enough, Jonathan found Emili and Chandler in the Casa. Chandler had just retrieved a 1689 folio of Josephus, so Jonathan found the new lines he'd just seen and showed them, outlining his theory. Emili realized that, if true, it would mean redemption for both Josephus AND Jonathan! She saw his passion for truth coming back. The 'ember' referred not just to the menorah but to its flame, 'the 7th flame, to be exact' said Chandler, on the menorah's westernmost branch. Emili didn't understand, so Chandler explains that Exodus and Leviticus are explicit in cmd-ing the priests 'to kindle the lamp continually', calling the flame 'an eternal decree for your generations'. The flame had burned continually since Moses had dedicated the original tabernacle just after the Exodus. 'The light was like a witness to Israel's covenant w/God, an undying flame transferred from Solomon's Temple, hidden during the Babylonian sack of the 6C [586 BC], passed on to Ezra's Temple in the 5C [exact date?], and so on. It was the symbol of the eternal promise [to] Abraham's descendants' (156). God made that covenant w/Abraham just after he'd been ready/willing to sacrifice Isaac. So the flame is aka 'Isaac's fire', and burned on the precise spot [1kyrs later] on the Temple Mount where that sacrifice had been offered i.e. on Mt Moriah. So why would other empires care about the flame? Emili asks. The Jewish success after the Exodus began to worry other powers in the region i.e. seeing their God deliver promised but highly unlikely outcomes for them. Especially their magicians, 'who'd heard of the perpetual fire and feared its significance. [So] no operation was too elaborate to try to extinguish it'. The Assyrians tried and failed in the 7C BC, the Babylonians in 586 BC, managing to capture the Ark but NOT the flame; it was kept alive in a hidden location even as the Persians invaded 50yrs later (157). So the Roman sack was the closest call yet, and [thus] the most celebrated. 400yrs after the Babylonians, the Greek empire [Seleucids] attacked Jerusalem. The 5 sons of Mattathias, a Temple priest, repelled the Greek invasion ... called 'the hammers' aka (Aramaic) 'maccabas' or Maccabees. They regained cntl of the Temple Mount, but only had enough [ritually purified] oil to keep the hidden flame alive for 1 day. Problem: preparing more takes 7 days! It had burned since Moses, so this was a crisis. Miraculously, that 1 day of oil burned for 8 nights, just long enough for more to be made. This was 'hanukkah', ancient Aramaic for [Temple] rededication. Chandler now adds that Titus was drawn to sack Jerusalem NOT primarily for the gold (he knew it had less than neighborning pagan provinces), not even for its 8 feet of solid gold. He was after its FIRE i.e. that flame threatened his own divinity. That's why he ran THROUGH THE FLAMES of the burning Temple and thrust his sword thru the sacred tapestries. Both Talmudic and Roman sources report that the tapestries miraculously began bleeding on the floor. Titus pointed to that and shouted 'this is the blood of your god'. Meanwhile, the authentic flame was being smuggled out (by Josephus). Even today, nearly all synagogues keep an electric flame 'lit' above the sanctuary's ark at all times, often providing a backup generator. Also RCC and Lutheran 'eternal' candles, Buddhist temple in Japan since 8C AD, not to mention JFK memorial at Arlington, or Hiroshima's Peace Park 'til all nukes are destroyed'. Think what it would mean to extinguish any of them. So Titus had to do it HIMSELF, and Josephus' priestly lineage made him ideal to preempt him, since only 'kohanim' were allowed to enter the inner sanctuary. So where is that gate?, says Emili. Jonathan showed them his pic of the corpse w/its tattoo. The others are shocked, and Chandler wonders if they've ID'd her, since 'she can't be more than 40yo'. Jonathan: she'd be flattered considering you're off by a couple thousand years!' (161).

36 We're back in Jerusalem as SaD hurries to a mtg w/the 'mutwali' (chief trustee) of the Waqf, knowing their support for his excavations has grown tenuous. They resented that he wore western clothes and disregarded Koranic rituals, but he intended 'to honor the Mufti w/more than empty words of prayer' (161). When the ldr says SaD has gone too far, he says he's just HOURS from complete i.e. 'where the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans failed, I will not!'. But the ldr says 'you have NOT found the path used by Josephus to escape w/the artifact'. SaD was taken aback by that Waqf knowledge of his efforts. They planned to bring 'sacred' water and make the Mount a Muslim holy site and demanded SaD stop his excavations. But he replies w/his gfather's saying that 'archaeology is politics'. The mutwali reminds SaD of the US Congress near passage of HR2566 to withhold $ from the Palestinian Authority unless projects beneath the Mount were halted (year?). The Mutwali also knows of Cianari's murder from a bloodstain on SaD's shirt ('you apparently have not only your gpa's passion but also his temper'). SaD says he'll now get his cousin Ramat Mansour to p/u where Cianari left off. The mutwali agrees to give him only until dawn!

37 Chandler can't believe a body could've been preserved that long, but Emili says another was found in E China in 2002 from 1C BC, a queen of the Han Dynasty, also in a fluid-filled coffin. Jonathan explains the tattoo, and when he says 'Navel of the World' Chandler stands up suddenly. He says Kabbalists in ancient Jerusalem knew much more than others about astronomy (hmmm, from Babylonian info or ?); to them the 6 branches of the menorah symbolized our solar system i.e. 6 planets orbitting a central fiery object. The central light was even called a 'shamash', using the same Hebrew letters as 'shemesh' meaning 'sun'. This 'Navel' meant the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Chandler remembers that even thru medieval times mapmakers portrayed the continents as cloverleafs (cf br-lhc cvr) and the Temple Mount at the center of the earth. The corpse's scars were likely claw marks from tigers; Titus used that method for 'traitors since he felt their calculated crime merited an executioner that stalked its prey' (168). Even her name is encoded in the Tatto i.e. 'phere' and 'nike', the Greek name Pherenike, which in the Macedonian dialect was written Bherenike (Berenice). So this was Titus's mistress and the last princess of Jerusalem. This may even have been a pseudonym (same for Aliterius, p169, i.e. Josephus conveying their part in his plot). But how did he get the menorah out? The prisoners would've needed to leave a map of 1C Jerusalem to show us. 'And I think I know where it is', said Emili.

38 Profeta is back in his ofc and Dr Stanoje Odalovic arrives from the coroner's ofc to tell Profeta that the body is indeed from the 1C AD! Also found was a non-human hair from a wound i.e. large spotted animal e.g. jaguar or leopard. Also sand crystals in her hair i.e. she was mauled to death in the sand [of the colosseum]. He also said Cianari had submitted a sample from the same woman's kneecap a few days before Profeta did. 'Cianari what are you into?' said Profeta.

39 Jonathan wonders how a 1C map could've survived, but Emili says its not on paper but a painting on a wall. But not in a currently public place, but down in the Domus Aurea, Nero's Golden Palace. 'By the time the slaves from Jerusalem were marched into Rome, the Domus Aurea was no longer Nero's gem-encrusted paradise. Titus had buried the palace and built public baths over it' (172, i.e. due to public outcry over its extravagance). Emili knew that in the 1500s the 1st explorers of the Domus Aurea had described an ancient mural 'of an unknown city w/turreted walls and large public courtyards'. She had been part of a 1999 restoration in the area (but hadn't seen the mural, only read about it). Some thot it was of Rome pre-64 AD, when the fire had leveled miles of warehouses and homes in the area that later became the space for the Colosseum and public baths. But Rome didn't have turrets til Aurelian's Wall of AD 270-80, Jonathan said. Right, says Emili, which is why recent scholars think the mural was of Jerusalem as it prepared for Rome's onslaught. Chandler had found some old maps of the palace, but it streched for 2 miles!? How to find the right area? Suddenly Emili remembered the owls on the drawing, and sure enough on the map was a 'Vault of Owls'! Chandler fetched a black bag w/50' of rope ladder and flashlites and said 'let's go!'. They knew that the brick well shafts in the municipal park on Oppian Hill led directly down into the palace. A modern museum had cleared 10% (of its 150 rooms) of the palace in a 20yr renovation, but by 2006 its doors had closed due to tourist CO2 damage of artwork. Emili traced the path they'd need to take, directly to the VoO, saying they needn't rope down since she had a friend who could get her (and them) onto a private tour. Jonathan wanted to call the police on his own, but feared it would endanger the others since both explosions had occurred just after they were notified i.e. an insider was tipping off SaD. Just then they heard a police siren outside the academy. They reasoned (wanted) Emili must've been seen by guards at the Vatican embassy across the street. Soon Jonathan saw Rufio approaching the rustic house. There was no way out topside, but Chandler was under the table pulling up a floor tile, where he knew there was a trapdoor into a Trajanic aquaduct, built in AD 129. It ran beneath the Aurelian Wall and had been used by Garibaldi's men as foxholes against papal forces. Jonathan saw Rufio was alone and had his gun out i.e. he didn't want witnesses and was going to shoot to kill (and erase his past mistakes). All 3 just managed to slip thru the trapdoor just as Rufio shot his way into the room. They heard Rufio say into his phone 'tell SaD they're gone' (178).

40 After making their way about 100ft along the downhill slope (i.e. toward the center of the city), they saw light thru a manhole cover, lifted it and were at a street outside the academy's gate. 2 policemen stood 20ft from Emili's motorcycle, so Chandler offered to create a distraction and let the other 2 head for the cycle. They'd meet at the Domus tour in 30 minutes. It worked!

41 Profeta was visiting Cianari's ofcs at La Sapienza (university, funded by Pope Boniface VIII's wine taxes starting 1303, this bldg from mid-17C). As a biblical archeaologist, Cianari had always been marginalized by skeptics in his dept. But no one had seen him in 2 weeks. 700 continuous years of professors had inhabited his book-filled office (182). He found a blownup pic of the warehouse corpse, but taken in another location (i.e. its original resting place in a grotto). Next a crumpled map w/2 circled locations, the Colosseum and a church basilica on the Oppian Hill 1/2 km away, marked w/handwritten 'SPIV' i.e. San Pietro in Vincoli i.e. St Peter in Chains, Rome's oldest reliquary church. 'Get the tourists out of that church' said Profeta.

42 Jonathan and Emili arrived at the Oppian Hill after a 'thrill ride' on the cycle, complete w/gliding down steps due to a blocked road. The panoramic view from the park was impressive, 'Rome rose out of a sea of brake lights from the late-afternoon traffic' (184). Only this morning they'd been in court! She hid her cycle in some ivy. Sure enough, Chandler came running up w/a 19C parchment map. The VoW was just off Nero's octagonal dining room (thru a corridor), which was on the tour. Chandler would create a diversion to allow them to slip away. Renaissance artists like Caravaggio and Raphael had left their names in black candle ash to trace their way back out. As they entered the dining room, Chandler piped in describing likely orgies ... becoming the center of attention which he did so well. Meanwhile Jonathan and Emili slipped away, suddenly holding hands.

Moses at SPIV

43 As Profeta's car climbed the Esquiline Hill he could see the Colosseum at the foot of its W slope, 'quite a view' (which is why Nero built there). At the end of Via Eudossiana (named for the early 5C Empress who'd traveled to Jerusalem) they reached SPIV (containing 'some of Christendom's most remarkable treasures, including the actual chains of St Peter). Rufio joined them, saying there'd been a 'false sighting' of Dr Travia! 2 yrs before there'd been a restoration of 'Moses' (ah, THAT church, its main attraction, by Michelangelo, it sits in the S transept as part of [Pope] Julius II's unfinished tomb). When the presiding priest admits he's been hearing/feeling something, thinking it was authorized renovations along the E wing, Profeta perks up. Beneath the floor near Moses lay Maccabee warriors, discovered in an 1876 restoration, all 7 bros moved there by Pope Pelagius in the 6C. Julius II was known as 'the warrior Pope', who tried to organize a 4th Crusade to look for reliquaries in Jerusalem. He was known for courage (or violence, depending on your POV, 191) and was a great admirer of the Maccabees as defenders of Jerusalem. Hmmm, Josephus was descended from them, said Profeta. Just then Profeta's men ran back and said there are NO renovations next door, so these are unauthorized ones by SaD. In the cellar area were 7 sarcophagi, and on the far wall fresh rubble under a crude opening leading to a massive tunnel stetching into the darkness. 'We're standing in Nero's palace' said Profeta. It was here long before the church was built.

44 Jonathan and Emili soon arrived at what looked like a 60ft-high cistern, but Jonathan said 'not a cistern' but 'the double-barrel vault of the palace's portico' which was now just below a metro station (they could hear rumbling trains, bright reds and blues of ancient frescos on the walls)! It was on the map so they knew they were headed in the right direction. Eew, the damp floor was alive w/worms. At a radial room were 7 passageways branching away. On one was painted the Joseph/Pharaoh story (7 fat/skinny cows), apparently by Jewish slaves, so they took that one. Now a note by Valadier from 1811, so he'd been here too. Then they arrive at the VoO, a large circular room w/high vaulted ceiling. Hmmm, a gleeming new aluminum scaffold, so recent excavations (196). Jonathan realized the map was on the floor, but vixible in perspective only from above, so scampered up the scaffolding for a view. It was a painting of Jerusalem. Unlike most portrayals Emili had seen, it was peaceful! Apparently while building Titus' baths just above, the Jewish slaves had 'spent months sneaking down here to work on this painting' (197). 'And I think I know why' said Jonathan, climbing down and looking closely (after wiping algae away) at the area depicting 'the Temple's inner courtyard surrounding the Holy of Holies'. 'This painting must show the path of Josephus' escape w/the menorah, thru a hidden gate'. He remembered the earlier admonition 'Tropaeum Illumina' i.e. 'Illuminate the monument', so he narrowed his beam in that area. Amazingly, 'a small row of red stones became luminescent beneath the thin layer of stucco', lighting a glowing path as he moved his flashlight. Emili thot rubies, but Jonathan knew it was pyrope. The slaves must've collected them from Nero's gem-studded walls and inlaid them here. But the path ended in an area where water damage had revealed the other gemstones, and now they were gone. 'Lost things are safe', said Emili again. Suddenly they heard running footsteps and soon 'stop, police'! Emili pulled Jonathan out of the beam shining on them into a side passage and led them up the 10 foot climb to a narrow ledge. Now what? When he heard a train rumble, Jonathan remembered the manhold cover above them in the station. The police had left to chase them, so they climbed back down and back up the scaffold, from which they'd try to jump onto the ladder suspended below the grate. But once 20ft up, a policeman returned; it was Rufio! They froze. But Rufio found a bottle of gasolene?, poured it onto the floor and ignited it. In the noise they rushed the rest of the way up to the ladder, Emili first. But Rufio heard them and looked up, seeing Jonathan trying to push open the manhole cover, so he rushed up after them. Jonathan managed to push it aside just enough to fit thru, but they heard a train approaching. As Rufio was 10 feet behind them, Jonathan pulled himself thru only to find he was ON the tracks as a train closed in; 'S**t' he said.

45 Profeta saw the smoke and ran toward it, finding Brandisi, who yelled that someone had set the fire. 'Go get extinguishers from the museum! [and] Where's Rufio?'. Brandisi had seen him climbing up, chasing a man. Profeta tried to call Rufio, but static. 'Stop all trains and call for backup at the Colosseo station!'.

46 Jonathan knew he couldn't wait for the train to pass, so he grabbed her hand and w/an adrenaline rush pulled her in a single motion thru the hole and off to the side, landing on top of her in a heap, just as the train whizzed by them, their metal siding touching the fabric of his suit. She saw the terror in his eyes and rubbed his back trying to calm him down. Once the train passed Emili found a light switch and they could see the distant lights of Colosseo station at tunnel's end, so they headed to it. Once there, they 'both relaxed in the anonymity' (203) of the crowds. But just before they reached the exit, a hand grabbed Jonathan's arm, then a gun in his stomach. 'So its YOU' said Rufio! Emili was ahead calling his name. Suddenly a commuter stepped between them and asked Rufio for directions, so Jonathan took the chance to bolt, following Emili's voice. They managed to jump aboard a train just as the doors were closing, as Rufio stuck his hand in the closing space. As he pushed them apart, Emili wheeled a fist into his face; he fell backard and they were gone.

47 Ramat Mansour stood in the doorway of his house atop Silwan, an Arab village on a dry white hillside in the shadow of the walls of the Temple Mount. He headed up a pathway that led past his small shop of ancient coins and pottery, continuing up the gravel slope of the Bab Huttah road to the Dome of the Rock. It'd been over a year since he'd excitedly took what he thot was an archeological job at the Waqf (he needed the $), but later found it was an unauthorized and immoral excavation/destruction. Unlike SaD, he'd been 'raised w/the Islamic virtue of respecting the remains of the 2 Temples that once stood on the Mount' (205). Now he'd been asked to return to the Waqf ofcs in E Jerusalem. Now they wanted him only to inspect, not excavate, and told him SaD wanted to speak w/him. 'Don't go' his wife said. But he needed the money they offered, since business was slow due to recent violence in Gaza. SaD from 6yo had been raised in their home and had been like bros (SaD had snuck into their basement to look at gpa's forbidden papers). They'd both been interested in archaeology, and both pursued graduate degrees, but tho they'd lost touch, Ramat knew that SaD had since become 'dangerously involved in the political aspects of archaeology' (207). On the Temple Mount he was escorted to SaD in the Islamic Museum. 'I won't assist your destruction, cousin' said Ramat. I only have a question for you, said SaD ... I've discovered the ancient tunnel in Josephus ... we must find where it continues [past the Royal Cavern] ... our expert is 'buried' w/work, I'm afraid, but you can help'. SaD recalled how he'd follow Ramat 'up streams from the Pool of Siloam to the legendary reservoirs beneath the Mount, hiking in the blackness for hours before lighting a candle to show him the Fountain Gate mentioned in Isaiah or the Serpent's Pool in Josephus' i.e. by 11yo he could reconstruct ancient Jerusalem better than almost anyone. Since Ramat was silent (no longer protesting) SaD asked how much he owed on his shop, promising to wipe the debt clean. Ramat's eyes closed, 'searching his own morality' (209). After a pause, Ramat said the reason SaD hadn't found it 'is because the aqueduct's direction is described in the one historical source you'd never read; the OT'.

48 Jonathan and Emili got off at the next station (Circus Maximus), slipping out a service exit. At first they were wary of every car, as Emili wondered why they weren't being followed. But Jonathan explained that Rufio didn't want them arrested, since he fears being exposed. He wants to kill him. Tho the Domus picture was now destroyed, Emili thinks Valadier may've sketched another drawing which he would've also given to the Great Synagogue, which after a short walk they were now standing in front of! When Jonathan expressed shock that an artist employed by the Pope would leave his work to the Jews and not even tell the RCC, Emili reminded him of Michelangelo who, after falling out w/Julius II, stopped all his work in Rome and returned to Florence, telling his asst 'sell all my belongings to the Jews' (212). Across the street from the Synagogue, a small 15C church had Hebrew and Latin inscriptions quoting Isaiah: 'you are a people that provoke Me to anger continually to my face' (hmmm, like R!? 212). Emili had called Orvieti and he met them at the door. Emili updated him on their progress so far, as he experienced 'aha' moments, since he'd been pondering these things his whole life. But he'd lost hope, assuming stories of a rescued menorah were just myths. When he heard about the Joseph depiction, he said 'Of course; Josephus was the Joseph of the Roman world' (215). Joseph's foresight was 'to store something BEFORE it was endangered' (216) and the same for Josephus!

49 Rufio had closed the Colosseo station and rushed to est. security perimeter around neighboring stations (not fast enough apparently). Putting 2 and 2 together, Rufio visited the Dulling and Pierce website and found the pic of Jonathan Marcus, atty. But he didn't show it to Profeta, who'd sent a security pic to Interpol. He intended to find Jonathan before they did. Profeta then rcv's a call from Cardinal Inocenti of the Curia, who wanted to discuss 'images from the raid that we sent to the Vatican Library' i.e. the Josephus manuscript pages.

50 Orvieti now reveals that another drawing of Jerusalem exists as 'a mural in the synagogue on the other side of the Portico di Ottavia'. Emili protests 'but there are no synagogues left in the Ghetto other than this one'. Its BENEATH the Ghetto, he says. 'This area of Rome along the Tiber was 20ft lower than today. In 1872 the pope raised the level of the Jewish Ghetto. The roofs of stores and houses became the support [w/steel/rock beams I hope?!] for a new foundation of streets and bldgs. [But] the older Ghetto was never demolished, just built over' (220). He retrieved a book w/a map of the old Ghetto as est. in 1516. You can still access the original streets, he said. How? From beneath the furnace room of THIS bldg! He led them down spiral stairs from the belfry to the subbasement, where past some old equipment he had Jonathan pull gently on the iron mesh of a heating grate at the base of a wall, allowing a damp breeze to exit the dark square hole. 'I can't go further' said Orvieti i.e. air too thin. The other 2 crawled thru, their flashlights illuminating 'the 19C iron pylons [ah!] that raised the streets to their modern height' (221). Then down a staircase, odor of coal dust and rat poop, hard to breathe. As they walked Emili spotted the portico, 'a double row of columns built by Augustus for his sis Octavia'. Not far away Emili spotted an image of the 10 cmdmts above a doorway, the old synagogue! Sure enough, inside was a huge painted image of Jerusalem on the wall, a replica of the one in the Domus Aurea. They stood pondering Valadier's foresight in secretly salvaging Josephus' legacy 'by reproducing this ancient painting' here in 1825! Jonathan stepped closer and noticed a faint red line at the center of the Temple Mount, continuing where the red gems had stopped at the Domus. He moved his hand along it, scraping off grey fungus w/his flashlight cap. 'That path goes thru the modern-day Muslim Quarter ... looks like the tunnel runs from the center of the Mount to Antonia Fortress' said Emili. Beneath the red line into the fortress, a small Latin citation read 'Cuniculus Ezekiae' then next line (Italian) 'Sotto Cannone Chiesa'. 'Hezekiah's Tunnel' and 'beneath a canonical church'. Emili realized he means he moved the menorah out of the Temple thru Hezekiah's [8C BC] Tunnel.

51 With a sense of urgency, Emili and Jonathan hurried back out. They shared what they found w/Orvieti, showing him photos. 'Hezekiah's Tunnel, of course!'. Orvieti pulled out a Bible and rvw'd the story, c700 BC, K Hezekiah decides to stop paying tribute to Assyria. Knowing the city would soon be surrounded, he orders a tunnel leading beneath the Temple Mount to Gihon Spring, located outside the city walls i.e. allowing a person to go there to access water w/o being seen. The S end of the tunnel (and the plaque) was discovered in the 19C by a boy bathing in an Arab village near the spring. 'But where the rest of the tunnel [N end] runs beneath the Mount is still a mystery' (224). But Josephus apparently knew. 'So how can we find it?' said Orvieti. Emili suggests using the Italian clue left by Valadier, but the problem is at least 20 churches now 'span the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem; Greek Orthodox, RCC, Franciscan, Armenian, all part of one Christian canon or another. But Jonathan notices that 'cannone' has 2 n's v. 1, meaning 'gun' v. 'tradition'. It doesn't make sense now, but in 1825? The Ottoman hold on Jerusalem then was precarious, and a gun may've then rested on a church pointed over the walls. Orvieti searched for maps. Emili then remembered the elaborate model of Jerusalem built for the 1873 World's fair and now in the Old City. It depicted EVERY DETAIL of 19C Jerusalem in beaten zinc. But how to get there? Emili knows the World Food Program is based here in Rome, and they send cargo planes each week to Ben Gurion w/food pkgs bound for Gaza. One leaves tonight and she's already scheduled to be aboard! Jonathan demanded to go, to keep her 'on track' and safe, and Emili gives him a BIG kiss! But she then realizes he needs a fake UN ID to get aboard that plane. She knows someone who can help.

52 Inside Vatican City, Profeta heads to the Vatican Library. 'The walls of ancient books were impossibly long' seeming to stretch to infinity (Wow, I want to visit)! Profeta found Inocenti there. Profeta had brot the image from the warehouse of the Josephus page, and Inocenti confirmed it had been ripped from a particular book back in 1809 by Napoleon's people. They weren't scholars but theives, looking for the solid gold menorah. Inocenti knew about the illegal excavations but could do nothing due to Waqf cntl. He showed Profeta pics of mounds of dirt containing priceless ruins dumped in the Kidron valley. Most in the Wafq didn't know the true extent of it, only a small group led by SaD. He's ruthless and WANTS to destroy info while finding the menorah. Profeta calls Brandisi and says 'get me Eilat Segev at the Israel Antiquities Authority immediately'.

53 On the outskirts of Rome Emili and Jonathan arrive on her cycle at a ramshackle postwar apt bldg. A sign on a door says 'Raoul Fradeli, Masterpieces, Portraiture'. Jonathan says the name sounds familier and, after a pause; 'please don't tell me he's a forger'. Emili says 'look at the bright side; you're about to have one of the best imitation UN passports in the world' (231). For 1000 euros he'd do it.

54 In E Jerusalem General Eilat Segev sat in her ofc at the IAA in the Rockefeller Museum, a 19C Byzantine-style bldg 'that looked etched from a solid piece of sandstone' (235). She'd fought in every war for Israel since 1967 but had been sidelined by a serious injury into her 1st love of archaeology. Profeta mentions SaD and she sends a fax of him (back turned) and 3 others. Amazingly no other pics exist after 5yrs of surveillance. He mentions the corpse found and Eilat immediate asks about the torso tattoo, so he tells her 'thru the navel of the world'. He realizes he's stumbled into 'waters deeper than I'd imagined' (239).

55 Jonathan and Emili are at Rome's Ciampino Airport, both keeping a low profile. This was a joint civ/mil airport so many soldiers hustled about, not helping Jonathan's frayed nerves. He followed her to the UN area as, fortunately, none of the security ofcrs even looked at them, intent on watching TV. 'Ciao Andre' she said to a UN administrator, 'can you walk us thru customs?' [we're in a hurry]. He laughed and said 'that's in 40 minutes, it'll be tight as usual, when will you ever learn'. He got them to the UN plane, a Russian-made Antonov AN-30 turboprop cargo plane; the engines were already revving. They took 2 single jump seats facing each other. They took off shortly after. He tells Emili that 7yrs before he'd seen murals of 1 an elderly bearded man in the arena, 2 dropping thru a trapdoor, 3 running thru an underground tunnel out of the arena. He believed that man was Josephus. A Suetonius quote said 'After a certain prisoner escaped the Colesseum, Titus wept bitterly' (142). Now they realized it wasn't just the betrayal, but also the theft of the authentic menorah. He remembered how Gianpaolo had arrived at the rope ladder 1st but told Jonathan to take Emili (slung over his back) up 1st since she needed help, but as he did the rest of the catacomb had collapsed. Jonathan had tried to haul Gianpaolo up, but couldn't since G clasped a paper w/Latin quote he written in his hand and would NOT let go. As he lost his grip on G, he'd never forget the sudden change in G's face from terror to tranquil, as he'd said 'Jon?' i.e. like he recognized someone he didn't expect or, more haunting, surprised that someone he'd trusted so completely could let this happen (ouch). Next thing he knew the police were telling him to get away from Emili's unconcious body. As he awoke he realized they were descending into Israel (Tel Aviv) just before dawn. Emili appeared from the cockpit and said 'landing in 10 minutes'. He handed his fake passport over and tried to look calm (but wasn't), but no problem. Just then an Arab man yelled 'Emili' and hailed them over to his old dusty Mercedes limo; Yusef Rashid w/UNESCO. He had 'TV' on his car to avoid being shot (UN didn't stop them anymore).

56 Blindfolded, Ramat was rushed to the Royal Cavern under the Temple Mount by SaD's men. The last time he'd been here a year before, only 10 feet of the RC had been uncovered, so he was horrified of the scale of the destruction (and again guilty about his small part in it). SaD pointed to the aquaduct 40ft up on the fall wall and the place where they'd thot it would continue, but the gash they'd made revealed only bedrock. Ramat looked closely at the floor, walking around a bit, and kneeling down, felt 'a slight curvature separated by 2 lips of carved stone a foot apart - a sluice' (250). A little further some discoloration of the rock (from water/blood flow). Also, the floor sloped slightly downward along that path i.e. from where the liquid fell from the aquaduct and was channeled to its exit from the RC. 'But there are no records of a Roman tunnel there [where the sluice left the RC]' SaD said. Hmmm, 'the Roman-era [Jewish] priests must've used a drainage system [left] from the 1st Temple, from the Assyrian age of the 8C BC' said Ramat. 'It there's a tunnel behind there, it was dug by the biblical king Hezekiah'. SaD told his men to drill thru the wall at that point, but Ramat could see from his eyes that he was desperate i.e. running out of time. After a short burst of the jackhammer, there was a small puff of air from the tunnel and even a thin stream of water trickling out! 'This is the aquaduct leading to the hidden gate ... Cousin, you've found it!' said SaD.

57 Jonathan and Emili rode by car from Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, climbing the whole way. There were still Roman markers indicating distance to 'Aelia Capitolina' i.e. Jerusalem. He and Emili had been in court less than 1 day before!? They drove thru the narrow (and naturally formed) 'mtn gate', one of the most famous military bottlenecks in history, 'assisting to defend Jerusalem by slowing down the Assyrians in the 8C BC, the Babylonians in the 6C BC, the Greeks in the 2C BC, the Romans in the 1C AD, the Crusaders in the 11C AD, the Ottomans in the 16C and the Jordanians in the 20C' (252). There were still skeletons of tanks and trucks testifying to Israeli defenses here from 1948. The IAA couldn't get them beneath the Mount, but they'd provide maps drawn by Chas WARREN and other British explorers from the late 19C. Rounding a turn a panoramic view of the Old City appeared, 'suspended over the Valley of Kidron' (252, approaching from SW, like pic above, w/'David's Tower' in view by the Jaffa Gate, Dormitian would be off to right. But Kidron is on E, Hinnom on S). They 'passed the whitewashed Monastery of the Dormitian' where the Last Supper was held (hmmm, SW Jerusalem). Their car now 'traced the circumference of the Old City's walls' (hmmm, driving around the S, the E, N and W edges). They saw the blocked-up Golden Gate (253, in 16C by Suleiman 'the Magnificent'). They made their final ascent 'along the narrow road above of the Valley of Kidron, the road's shoulder giving way to a 200ft drop, w/the dawn's morning mist giving the impression that the Old City's walls presided over the edge of the earth' (253, NW corner?), arriving at the Jaffa Gate. After a short walk they arrived at the museum, a 'dark stone fortress built like a castle and surrounded by a grass moat, w/turrets and battlements dating back centuries and looking like they could survive another medieval siege, complete w/slits for archers' (254). It was built as the 'Tower of Phasael' in Herodian times, but was used as a Roman temple to Jupiter in the 3C AD, an Umayyad fortress in the 7C, a Crusader camp in the 11C, SaD's stronghold in the 12C, a Turkish mosque in the 16C, and even a British social club in the 1920s. They climbed the stone steps to the citadel, crossing a thin wooden bridge over a 50ft deep moat. Tho it was before 6am, inside the museum waiting for them was Eilat Segev.

58 Rufio reports to Profeta's ofc as requested. He has a pic of Jonathan from the train station and Rufio IDs him as the man he was chasing, unhappy Profeta had ID'd him before Rufio could 'dispose' of him. Profeta shows Rufio the file on Jonathan's early arrest for sneaking onto the grounds of the 'abandoned 18C Villa Torlonia' (256). Then he tells Rufio that Cianari had been digging there recently too, and THAT's where they'd found the corpse, embalmed w/in a stone column. So whatever Jonathan had started 7yrs ago, someone else was now trying to finish. Profeta then assigns Rufio to bring Jonathan in, using 'whatever force is necessary' ... 'Yes, sir'.

59 Eilat took them 1st thru the courtyard and out onto the Old City wall, showing them the beautiful view now enjoyed by tourist families and remembering the men who died taking it from the Jordanians in 1967. She then took them back into the museum where in a large hall there were many models of ancient Jerusalem at various times in history i.e. Solomonic [1st Temple] 10-6C BC, 2nd Temple 6C BC - 1C AD, and others as well as many artifacts from Roman times, and 'a brass replica of Verrocchio's David, a gift by the city of Florence on the occasion of the Israeli recapture of the Old City from the Jordanians' (258). Eilat know of bulldozers and dumptrucks beneath the Mount via aerial (helicopter) infrared images. The Waqf had cntled the site for 800yrs, except for a few hours in 1967 when Israelis shot their way thru Zion Gate (can still see bullet holes) and took the Old City, including the Mount. But 'w/in days, the military ceded sovereignty of the Mount back to the Waqf' (259). Why? 'Some say Israeli pols of the time were wary of the Mount's religious poignancy i.e. wanted to prevent ideas of messianic redemption from disrupting the bldg of a practical, modern [secular Jewish] society' (259). Technically the King of Jordan cntls it, and at 1st the Waqf was given only mundane admin tasks, but after Arafat's attempt to turn the PLO into an 'alt govt', he encouraged some w/in the Waqf to 'wrest cntl from the Jordanians', who are clueless (along w/most Waqf people) of the level of excavations beneath the Mount. The Waqf is funded clandestinely via the Saudis and obscure corporate funds. When Emili mentioned the menorah, Eilat says they've [i.e. Mossad] researched it to death and now assume its gone. One of many myths had it buried in Carcassone (brot there by Goths after sacking Rome in AD 410, 45yrs before the more famous sack by Carthage 455), which was checked in 1979 [by Mossad, secretly auth. by Golda Meir]. Emili then said that to ID the 'canonical convent' on the mural, they needed to see the appropriate model, so Eilat led them to it (in a storage area). It was huge, all metallic and 30ft in each direction, weighing > a ton. It portrayed the city as it was in 1873. She said SaD's effort is focused on the NW corner, w/his trucks coming in/out at 'Bab el-Asbat' aka Lion's Gate [aka Sheep Gate, Stephen's Gate, on E side, entry from Kidron Valley, along N wall of Temple Mount, just E of center], hidden from view of any churches or synagogues of the Old City (hmmm, find). They dump their loads in the Kidron Valley (off NE corner, 100s of ft below walls) 'among this grove of olive trees' (261). She said their excavations had so hollowed out the S wall it was in danger of collapse. Jonathan walked around and suddenly noticed a cannon atop a steeple '6" from the Temple Mt on the model's scale [Old City roughly 1/2mi sq, so 30ft = 1/2mi (5180/2 = 2590ft), 1ft = 86ft, 1/2ft = 43ft, 1/86 scale]' of the Sisters of Zion Convent. Now seeing their plan, Eilat warned they couldn't protect them, nor even ack they'd assisted them.

60 SaD was exhilarated to find this part of the tunnel, sealed since the 1C AD! An earthquake in 363 AD had closed off most passageways beneath the Mount, protecting many of its vaults from 'mystics, medieval souvenir hunters, even Templars' (262). Ramat guiltily realized that, because of him, the 1st man to walk here since then was 'no better than Titus' i.e. a thug. The tunnel was thru bedrock, not limestone, so little detritus. There were Roman-era carvings. Further in, round a corner, was a wall of thick moss, behind which was a metallic door (Josephus: 'the hidden gate was a bronze gate') 3 meters high. SaD said 'this will require our largest blast ... place the spices under the ticket counter in the W Wall plaza by 8am ... the distraction must be simultaneous' (263).

61 In E Jerusalem, Jonathan and Emili followed Eilat thru the Arab souk (mkt) toward the Sisters of Zion Convent [the Arab quarter is in the NE, N of the Mount; Jewish SE, Armenian SW, Chr NW]. After delving deeper into the souk, they finally reached the [RCC] Convent, knocking on the heavy oak door. The RCC sect dated to the mid-19C. When they asked to speak w/the Abbess, she said nogo (come back during visitor's hours) til Eilat mentioned 'illegal excavation near your basement', possibly posing danger to the bldg. Now the woman let them in, explaining that tourists come from all over to view the 'lithostrotos' in the basement, 'said to be the original 1C stone [pavement] where Pontius Pilate held his infamous trial of Jesus' (265, and where etched Roman soldier games can be seen e.g. like tic-tac-toe). She said they'd been hearing noises for months e.g. high-pwred drills, large construction equipment. The land around the church belongs to the Waqf, so nothing could be done, but said the drilling was never louder than last night (so the tunnel SaD just discovered was CLOSE to their basement)!

62 Ahmed Hassan (SaD's explosives man) walked into the spice mkt (early next morning, we assume). At the last mkt stall, he pretends to inspect turmeric powder, but actually retrieves 3 tubes of red phosphorus mixed w/nitrocellulose, a weapons-grade explosive, equiv of 200# of TNT! He took the bag and 'moved thru the maze of Jerusalem's streets, past the Via Dolorosa, w/its rows of shuttered Chr souvenir shops, and down Bab el-Hadid til he reached a small shawarma stand in the heart of the Muslim Quarter. 'We've been waiting for those spices' said a man loudly, so Israeli security would hear. Ahmed slipped into the half-shuttered shop, removed the 3 tubes and opened a steel hatch in the shop floor, climbing down into a stone-cooled grotto containing skinned goat carcasses. He found the pastic bag w/clothes SaD had prepped for him, exchanging his madras w/the white, Western-style shirt, Jewish tzitzit 'woolen fringe', black pants and jacket and velvet scullcap and wide-brimmed hat i.e. impersonating an Orthodox Jew ['thin-bearded Sephardic yeshiva student']. He hid the vials in a Jewish 'siddur' prayer-book. Heading back up topside, he walked down Bab el-Quattan and was waved thru Israeli security to the Western Wall plaza [uh oh].

63 Following the nun, Jonathan and Emili went into the chapel, up and behind the altar, where a thin stell chain blocked a spiral staircase, then down into the basement. On the floor were the etched 'concentric boxes' of the Saturnalia games. 'These stones were the floor of a Roman prison inside Antonia Fortress, and the Romans were cruel captors, forcing their prisoners to play the 'Game of the King' i.e. they'd let Jewish captives be 'king for a day' or week and then crucify them. Just as they did to Jesus i.e. Crown of Thorns, etc. The boxes were 'filled w/various astrological and pagan symbols' (269). Some may've been done by Jesus himself! THAT's why such care is taken in preserving them and why so many visitors come. The stone floor led into a large Roman-era chamber held up by columns. The nun explained that 'these arches are the support for the entire city i.e. [modern] Jerusalem is literally a city built on stilts above vast valleys [hmmm, like in the old Jewish part of Rome]. There was so much debris from the Roman destruction in AD 70, they simply built a new city over the rubble' (269). She pointed to an enormous boulder. At the far end of the cavern the pavement ended w/a large body of water, and Jonathan's flashlight beam wasn't strong enough to illuminate the other side. The nun said it was part of an ancient moat that separated the fortress from the Mount. 'Do these waters lead to passages under the Mount?' said Emili. 'In the 1860s they did ... but in 1862 Chas WARREN accidentally floated in here w/a kerosene stick ... mistaken for a ghost ... so they ordered a wall built to close off the water tunnels ... but thru THAT arch is rumored to be one tunnel that still leads into the vaults beneath the Mount' (269, cool!). Inevitably, a small very old wooden 'boat' (more like a raft) was nearby, so Jonathan and Emili used it. As they pushed off and followed a current, they could see daylight from street-level thru grates above the VERY HIGH ceiling. Like at Disneyland, they went over a waterfall, splashing into the water at a lower level. Later the boat 'glided across an ancient aqueduct bridging an abyss' (271). On the other side it ran aground on the sandy floor of a narrow passageway. To the E was a massive canyon wall of rock, to the W the inside of Herod's massive retaining wall (on W side of Mount). They were behind the Wailing Wall, since the floor was littered w/dried out paper scrolls. As they proceeded they soon saw evidence of recent digging; tools etc. A plaque had been covered w/HCL acid to dissolve it. Emili took pics documenting the destruction there and elsewhere. They heard drilling ahead in the distance. They arrived at 'an ornate flight of ancient stairs carved out of the rock wall [leading up to what looked like a modern steel door]' and saw bright light seeping thru from the other side of that door (272, so they're NOT behind the bronze door that SaD is working on, but another one leading into the RC. Hmmm, who put it there, when and why?). So the RC must be behind it, reasioned Emili, that's where they're digging. Josephus had mentioned the famous RC and said it stretched 1000ft in diameter, nearly the width of the Mount. No-one had seen it since antiquity, except (says Emili) some British explorers in the 1880s who snuck in w/o Ottoman knowledge and claimed to have held Masonic mtgs there. Jonathan walked up to it 1st, and put his hand on the cold metal handle, turned the knob.

64 Ahmed waited in line for the last security check. He managed to make it thru due to laxities by those in charge, and he headed across the plaza toward the ticket booth for the Western Wall tunnel tour along the N wall of the plaza. At the booth, he carefully planted the explosives and timed them to go off at 8am. He walked back toward the Wall as instructed, in case anyone was watching and, after spending a few minutes at the wall feigning silent devotion, he walked out of the plaza.

65 Jonathan was amazed by the size of the RC and the destruction being wreaked w/in it. 'Its archaeological terrorism' said Emili. There were on a narrow aluminum walkway that circled high above the RC's floor (hmmm, so SaD installed the door?). They saw the opening that SaD had recently made which led to the bronze door, and shortly after 2 Arab men wearing UNESCO uniforms ran out of it. By their behavior e.g. pointing at their watches, hustling, Emili deduced that they'd just planted explosives that were about to blow.

66 Ramat removed his blindfold. He was alone, standing outside the Temple Mount in a Kidron Valley olve grove. He'd spent the last 2 hrs on his adventure, which seemed now like a bad dream. A carton at his feet held enough Saudi money to pay 2 years rent, not 1 as promised. But instead of happiness he felt shame, the money confirming the 'frightening importance' of what he'd done for them. From what SaD had said, he'd pieced together his plan to detonate 2 explosions at once, the decoy in the Western Wall plaza. As he started walking back toward his home at Silwan, the full horror of that plan hit him. He stopped and looked at his watch; 7:56am, 4 minutes! He ran back up the path and into the Moghrabi Gate (where?). 'What have I done!' he thot. W/adrenaline pumping, he sprinted across the plaza, yelling in Arabic 'there's a bomb'. Police yelled for him to 'Halt!'. He told the policeman that a bomb would go off in 2 minutes, pointing to the tourist gazebo. But the policeman didn't understand a word and called for a translator. 50ft above them SaD realized he had a big problem; 1 minute left, too much time! An asst pulled out a long black 7.62mm Dragunov sniper rifle w/digital optics. 'Cousin, you've done this to yourself' he thot. The sniper aimed at 'the birthmark on Ramat's neck' and fired. As the ofcr got the gist of Ramat's msg via sign language, suddenly Ramat crumpled. At 1st the ofcr tried to help, but then sprinted toward the gazebo telling all to flee. When he returned, Ramat told him to go (they were too close to the bomb), which he did. Then came the blast, which k. Ramat.

67 Emili and Jonathan moved along the narrow walkway, keeping their backs to the rock wall, at least 5 stories above the RC floor. As Emili was taking pics and Jonathan was telling her to stop, a guard w/an AK-47 at the other end of the walkway spotted them and began yelling in Arabic, pointing his gun at them. Jonathan put his hands up. Then came the blast, beginning w/a 'low, thunderous rumble' and growing. As the dust cloud spread (the fans from the blast tunnel pushing it up) they realized they'd soon be hidden from the guard, and Emili was talking of getting to the tunnel (just blasted) which (says Emili) 'if the painting in Rome was right, will lead us straight to the pool of Silwan outside the city walls, the same route Josephus took 2kya' (282). Once obscured from the guard, they both took a deep breath and took the stairs down to the RC floor. Once inside the tunnel they could breathe deeply, since the fans had pumped dust out and fresh air in. They ran past intricate Assyrian-era inscriptions, original 1st-Temple art. They saw the huge gate, now lodged diagonally between the walls, and realized that's why they blasted. More priestly carvings i.e. the 'kohanim' once used the corridor. They stayed quiet to avoid detection, but wondered if the menorah could be hidden here somewhere. They came to a round room about 20ft in diameter w/a vaulted ceiling, an underground sanctuary, likely used as such during 1st Temple, but later (2nd Temple) as a hidden vault. In the center of the room were 3 high steps leading to an empty platform, likely once the home of the menorah, and hidden here during the siege. Smoke stains were on the ceiling. A Latin inscription said 'from captive to mouth of Rome' followed by the name 'Joseph' in Hebrew (he didn't use 'Josephus' til after gaining Roman citizenship). So he went from prisoner to negotiator (spokesman) for Rome. But Jonathan thinks its also a code i.e. 'ostia' meaning not mouth (ostium) but Ostia, the ancient harbor of Rome! And the 'captive' was the menorah, which was sent there. Since only a priest could tend the flame in exile, Joseph had to go along.

68 Profeta et al head to 'the skeleton of Villa Torlonia' (287). 'Mussolini had commandeered the place as his private residence, and during the German occupation, SS ofcrs had taken up residence there in 1943', explaining why the city had let it fall into disrepair i.e. 'selective about which parts of its past to preserve'. 8 miles of catacombs were buried underneath; many areas outside Rome were 'giant cities of the dead'. Rufio wondered if they were wasting time there (hmmm), but then Brandisi IDs some recent excavation. Someone had applied acid to a very old marble tombstone to make it illegible (but they could still see 'Sepulcrus Berenice Regina'). Profeta recognized it from the pic in Cianari's ofc i.e. the column containing the corpse had been taken from this tomb; that explained the extravagant burial i.e. 'the last princess of Jerusalem'. But as Profeta took another step, he saw a bit of cigarette rolling paper [from Rufio], quietly putting it in his pocket.

69 Emili heard footsteps and soon they heard bullets hitting rock nearby. As they pondered how this tunnel confirmed the story of Hezekiah's tunnel, they suddenly heard running water! It was coming from the area below a nearby ledge, and their flashlight soon revealed white vines descending down to the water from above, 'the roots of the olive trees in the valley above, some >1kyrs old; the roots must've followed the descending water level over the centuries' (288). They saw an approaching flashlight beam, so decided to risk rappeling down the rock wall using the roots. Emili balked, but a bullet whizzing by convinced to both to do it NOW, so down they went. Just in time, they both managed to swing down under the ledge and get footing on the rocks, as their pursuers arrived at the ledge and shone the light onto the (fortunately) loud water below. The guards were yelling, assuming they'd picked the wrong tunnel, but just then the root snapped and the guard shone his light onto them falling into the chasm.

70 Just after the Temple Mount blast, SaD jumped into a car and began watching a live-feed from inside the tunnel's blast site. He knew the police were busy setting up perimeters around the Old City and his plan was to head to Ostia (port in Rome i.e. he'd also figured out the coded msg). He calls a woman [Emili's boss Jacqueline Olivier in Rome, we later learn] and tells her the menorah is at Ostia, and she arranges plane for him from Gaza (where he's heading). He knows he'll need maps of the 3-mile port area, which he plans to get from the Great Synagogue (i.e. steal from Orvieti).

71 Jonathan and Emili fell thru 20ft of black air before splashing into a thick bed of pond scum. After surfacing, they got to an edge and climbed onto 'a narrow rock bank at the far end of the cavern' (293, apparently too far away to be shot at?), as Emili knocked a stone into the water. As he thot what to do next, Jonathan noticed that where the stone had broken thru the scum, the water was radiant blue, as tho illuminated from beneath. Jonathan reached down and cleared more of the surface. Hmmm, 'there must be an opening under the water, allowing light to flood thru; we have to swim thru it' said Jonathan. Emili balked again, but a splash behind them revealed that the guards were lowering ropes to chase them, as Arabic voices clambered down. So on the count of 3, they both dove in and swam toward the light. As they approached, it got brighter. Near the floor of the pond they could see a rock hollow, 'a glowing circle just large enough to swim thru', which they did of course. Once on the other side, they were surrounded by high-tech underwater tube-lighting.

72 Meanwhile, a Baptist tour group from WV was 'staring at the peaceful subterranean pool before returning to their AC'd bus parked outside the Hezekiah Tunnel tour' (294). Suddenly those 2 splashed thru [non-peacefully!], wildly gasping for air.

73 SaD was driven to the border w/Gaza, accessing a tunnel via 'an abandoned roadside fruit stand' by the side of the road, 100m from the fences and came out 200m beyond the other side of the (multiple) fences. On the other side a plane would fly him to Rome. The tunnel was used mainly by arms smugglers. A car took him from the tunnel to the Gaza border w/Egypt, where he slipped thru a sawed opening in that electrified fence, seeing the Cessna Citation X (w/Egyptian military clearance) waiting for him, one of many from the Iranian sheikh's collection. SaD had chosen it since its 'the fastest civilian aircraft in the world' (296), also its 51k ft altitude made it invisible on most radars. 'less than 3hrs to Rome' said the pilot; the team has already begun in Ostia'.

74 Inside the Rockefeller Museum, Jonathan and Emili are now in Eilat's ofc, wearing jumpsuits as their clothes are drying in the basement. Eilat has brot a map of Ostia to study. She knew of the ancient port's 19C rediscovery under dozens of feet of mud and silt. In the early 70s the area had harbored PLO terrorists due to its proximity to the main airport (Fiumicino), but in Oct 73 Mossad agents had arrested 5 of them there. Just then Jonathan finds (Italian) 'Sinagoga Antica' on the map, which Eilat confirms is the oldest standing synagogue in the world outside Israel. A small neighboring structure was labelled 'Domus Fulminata' i.e. 'House of Divine Fire', which you'd normally assume was a pagan temple, except those always faced W and this one faced E (like churches and synagogues?). So maybe 'divine fire' has a coded meaning here i.e. 'a place of safekeeping for a sacred vessel of fire'.

75 Brandisi has discovered (per assignment from Profeta) that Director Olivier has used ofcl prep-work for the the UN mtgs (w/permission) at the Colosseum (N end) as cover for unauthorized access to the secret tunnels they'd visited at the S end. Also the name Orvieti penciled in 60ya on the back of a Josephus manuscript (hmmm, by the Grand Mufti?).

76 Eilat leads Jonathan and Emili thru customs at Ben Gurion Airport. The Italian police had issued 'arrest now' orders for both of them, so she was trying to get them safely back to Rome, by getting them onto an El Al flight (the police were checking flights LEAVING Rome, not arriving). She told them that once they land at Fiumicino 'you're on your own'. On the plane Jonathan remembers their 'fling' from 7ya i.e. their 1st excavation together 'along the S Italian coast' (302), where they found a buried pagan temple in an artichoke field (detected via strange growth patterns i.e. roots obstructed). They got help getting thru customs at Rome from Director Olivier, Emili's boss!

77 SaD is in a Lancia sedan w/Moroccan diplomatic plates approaching the Aurelian Wall which surrounded downtown Old Rome. His car passed the Wall and then drove along the Lungotevere dei Sangallo, stopping alongside the Ponte [bridge] Fabricio. SaD stepped out across the street from the Great Synagogue of Rome. He walked past the security and found the loosened sewer grate nearby that his people had prepared earlier. He'd just been informed that Orvieti was now there. From the drainage tunnel SaD entered the basement, noticing fresh footprints near the oil tank, then up the spiral staircase to the main floor, then belfry. Tho he'd never been here, he almost felt he had, so ID'd w/his gdad the GM's trip here 'more than 65ya in 1943' (also confronting Orvieti there). The GM et al had escaped the Nuremberg trials by moving to Baghdad. He found the old man studying at his desk, and when Orvieti looked up he thot he was dreaming (since he'd often had nightmares about the GM's last visit). He said to SaD 'why haven't you aged?'

78 SaD was sure Orvieti could be coerced into showing him the critical line in Josephus that would reveal where the menorah was. But Orveiti wasn't cooperating. But Sad said Orvieti had gotten new info more recently i.e. from JPII. Orvieti still didn't know what that meant, but he HAD been good friends w/JPII, who'd expressed deep sorrow about former RCC antisemitism. JPII's will had included 'a slip of paper w/1 line written on it', SaD knew. When Orvieti said 'tt the RCC' SaD pushed his Beretta into the old man's face. But just as he was about to fire (after 1-2-3), in bursts Brandisi below, so SaD says 'shhh' and backs away. Orvieti takes off up a ladder and when SaD tries to follow he gets a foot in his face! SaD fires 3 shots but misses. Orvieti makes it to the top, opens a window and climbs out onto a windy ledge. As Brandisi appears below, SaD pretends to be an asst offering to help find him. Meanwhile, Orveti climbs a bit lower and tries to kick in a glass pane to get back into the bldg (60' up)! It'd been 60yrs since he'd said a personal prayer, and he didn't now either, just kicked w/all his might, and on his last attempt bingo. At the crash, Brandisi looks up, but SaD grabs him from behind and slams his head against a railing, knocking him out. SaD pulls his trigger, but no bullets! He never expected to waste 7 on the old man. As he chg's clips in walks a security guard, so SaD quietlly slips out behind him and hurries out the same way he got in.

79 As Olivier escorts them thru customs, she 'spoke to Emili out of the corner of her wooden smile: 'Have you thot how you've endangered you career if you're wrong about this?'' Emili responds that 'a better question is what's endangered if I'm right'. All 3 got into a UN sedan and headed for Ostia. Once inside, Olivier dropped her polite mask and angrily said 'tell me what's going on!'. Emili tells her they've SEEN the Waqf's illegal excavations beneath the Mount and have proof (pics). Now Olivier was even more agitated, ostensibly about all the broken laws (but we soon know better). Emili hands her the camera disk (uh oh) and tells her about the Ostia hunch. Olivier has brot them 2 flashlights and a map of Ostia, but her condition is that they must call the police w/in the hour. They now drop Olivier off (where? at her Rome ofc?) and head to Ostia.

80 SaD is at Ostia pretending to be ldr of a road repair crew. He'd already removed a 3ft section of highway asphalt to get his equipment inside (the ancient ruin area, behind fences). An unlucky policement stops to check them out, having 'never seen street repairmen working in the rain' (314) or during 'riposo' i.e. extended lunch hour. SaD made quick work of him (shot).

81 Jonathan and Emili arrive at the 'shuttered ticket gazebo outside Ostia's' ruins (315). Behind them in the distance they could faintly see the (once waterfront) Renaissance fortress of Pope Julius II, abandoned in 1567, when the Tiber chg'd course in a flash flood. In ancient Rome the coast was here, but since then silt had pushed it another 4 miles. They jumped the fence. They heard a rustling in nearby bushes, but assumed it was an animal (uh oh). They headed down the main ancient road, taking a side street where the map said the synagogue was. At the end of a dirt path they found it, a ruin of half-stone walls (317). There was the unmistakable carved rendering of a 7-branched lamp. They saw a path leading out of the sanctuary to a small ruin of partial brick walls i.e. 'the House of Divine Fire'. It turned out to be a marble well, nearly buried in tall grass. Jonathan looked down the shaft and saw an inscription, wiping off the mud and reading it; a mix of Latin and Hebrew 'if I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand lose its cunning'.

82 Next Jonathan climbed down into it, using iron pegs forming a crude ladder. There was a stench of mildew and rot as he approached the knee-deep water below. On one wall was an arch into a tunnel w/a dry earth floor. Jonathan noticed no water staining in the tunnel i.e. there'd never been any water in it. Emili noticed it was Jerusalem stone, NOT from Rome. Faded frescoes lined the tunnel walls, depicting Josephus and his trip and even the menorah being unloaded at Ostia 'in the dead of night'. Assuming it was here, they followed the tunnel to a small, circular room w/a pedestal in the center w/3 steps. It waas just like the one they found beneath the Mount in Jerusalem, w/darkened ceiling and another inscription, this time in Greek, which read 'he retired it to the arch where the triumphal procession passed thru' (319). Then it hit him, Josephus must've hidden it WITHIN the Arch of Titus on the Roman Forum! So the pagan arch was secretly protecting what Titus had tried to destroy! Josephus would've relished the irony. The Romans used Jewish slaves to built many of their pagan monuments, so they could've hidden it. 'It was nearly 10yrs after the slaves came from Rome [Jerusalem?]. The arch was half constructed and the RE was close to uncovering the spy in the imperial court. Josephus needed a place no one would ever suspect' (320). As they headed back out into the well, they discovered the dead policeman's body face-up in the water. Emili got out 1st and Jonathan saw an arm grab her (uh oh). He rushed after her, but once out she was gone.

83 Brandisi awoke on a stretcher, being carried out of the Synagogue to an ambulance. Profeta was relieved he was alive and asked about the assailant, putting a 20-block radius on the description (of SaD). Back inside the synagogue, Proteta found a trail of blood where Orvieti had walked thru the archive, but he was gone by now. They marveled at his ability to do all that at 80yo!

84 Jonathan ran around screaming for Emili. Hearing sounds of struggle, he ran toward the ruins of an ancient warehouse. The sounds now came from the [ampi]theater next door, the acoustics making it impossible to detect their source. Then he spotted a woman standing in the mist, running to her. But it wasn't Emili, it was Olivier!? 'He'll kill you if you don't cooperate' she said. He didn't understand, but it slowly dawned on him that SHE was somehow involved and had betrayed he and Emili. She didn't know where they'd taken Emili and 'didn't think it would go this far' (325). She justified herself by the need to raise huge money from 'the 21 Arab nations' (which she said had a HUGE influence on the UN) to protect antiquities and to 'play the game' w/bad guys to limit damage from black mkt activities. She says just find what they want. But how will they know if I do? Oh, they'll know, she says, SaD knows more than you can imagine! What does that mean, Jonathan wonders? She walked down the stairs and stepped into an arch's darkness, and Jonathan 'knew better than to follow her'. He raced to a pay phone and called Chandler, telling him to meet him[self] in the Forum in 20 minutes, at the Arch of Titus. 'Its inside the arch' and he needed Chandler's help w/any lock. Then Chandler says there's someone at his door and ... [phone cuts out].

85 Orvieti's left leg is bleeding as he limps along the massive colonnade of St Peter's, moving toward the Vatican palace. Tho he had no appt, the guards at the palace let him in immediately, leading him thru wood-paneled doors and up a grand stairway into the papal apts. He was visiting Cardinal Francesco Inocenti, who said 'I've been expecting you, old friend' (328). Tho he'd never asked a favor before of his RCC friend, he was here to ask where the menorah was. Many had asked before, but the RCC had chosen to 'remain silent'. They HAD helped the Jews raise the last 3 pounds of gold demanded by the Nazis. When the Cardinal refused to answer, Orvieti said 'you have a fake ... and in the early 18C a church goldsmith, Luigi VALADIER, realized it' (331). He was found drowned, but not before telling his son Giuseppe, who 10yrs later worked w/Napoleon. Orvieti told the story of how Valadier preserved the info by creating the mural, and said Valadier entrusted a key part of his secret to the [RCC] Holy See (since Jews in Rome were prone to pillage), to be passed down from one papacy to the next. The Cardinal was indignant i.e. 'how do you know that?'. But Orvieti brushed that aside and said SaD is back to find it i.e. we have an emergency here, and SaD lacks only JPII's secret msg. After pacing, CFI said JPII's secret msg (for 'the rabbi of the Ghetto') was a quote from Deut. 6:7-9; 'teach these matters diligently to your children ... and you shall write them on your doorposts'. Ah, a 'mezuzah', said Orvieti, but which door? Thinking of places Valadier had restored, he arrived at the Arch of Titus, and asked CFI for drawings or photos of it. He went away and came back w/a 19C photo saying Valadier had restored it in 1821. On the photo Mose spotted the Latin inscription 'anno sacri principatus eivs XXIIII', noting the strange use of IIII v. IV. Ancient Romans avoided the IV since it was the 1st 2 letters of their god IVPITER, while early RCC Fathers made a point of using it often. But here Valadier uses the former respectful version. An oversight? No, thot Orvieti, thanking CFI for his help. As Mose got up to leave, CFI offered to help w/the leg wound, but Mose said no, you've done enough (and I'm in a hurry, he must've thot).

86 Jonathan arrived at the Forum, sneaking thru the N exit gate, adjacent to the Mamertine Prison [where Paul was held, rats, I was close but missed that]. Heading for the Arch of Titus, his leg muscles ached as he walked up the Via Sacra's incline toward the arch's higher elevation. Its single-arched opening of travertine would become a model for all later Roman triumphal arches. Its attic was over 12ft high, plenty of room for the menorah, he now saw. But he felt a sense of dread about Emili. Chandler hadn't arrived yet, so he closely examined the arch, esp. the relief of the menorah [pic]. Then Orvieti arrived, and vowed to help Jonathan find it, for Emili's sake. But Mose explained that no triumphal procession had ever passed thru THIS Arch of Titus, since it wasn't built til 10yrs after the conquest of Jerusalem! Ah, the ORIGINAL Arch of Titus, said Jonathan, remembering the Roman practice of building 2, one for the original march, and a fancier one later for future generations. But the original has been lost for 1kyrs, last recorded by an 8C monk [name?] who didn't even say where it was, only that 'its area had become a community for the descendants of the slaves of Titus' (337, hmmm, so the Ghetto). But then Orvieti said 'there's a msg up there', pointing to a Latin dedicatory inscription; 'a badge [insigne] of both religion and art ... has been preserved'. He suddenly realized 'insigne' meant the menorah. Orvieti told him about the 'doorpost' msg, and apparently this was it. But Orivieti figured there was also a hidden scroll. Orvieti guessed that the last 'I' of the odd 'IIII' was drawing attention to something, and sure enough, when Jonathan climbed up the scaffolding (which just barely allowed access to that area) he noticed the last 'I' was connected differently than the others i.e. there were HINGES along its right side! Voila, the door opened, revealing a 1-ft-tall compartment w/a tight scroll of thick vellum. Just then a guard walked by telling Mose it was closing time, but never looked up to see Jonathan [Mose left]! Once the guard was gone, Jonathan hurried down and they quickly left too (hmmm, so no Chandler).

87 Emili was blindfolded and seated in a folding chair. She'd been knocked out w/chemicals and her wrists and ankles were restrained. She heard Arabic being spoken and an earthy smell suggested she was underground. A man talked to her, and she said 'I know who you are; SaD' (341). She spat in his face. Now THAT's not in the UN capture manuel. 'You always were unpredictable' he said (hmmm, how did he know that, she thot). Then she heard Olivier's voice; 'do as he says, please'. 'What are you doing here?!'. 'I can help you, Emili. They're looking for the original Arch of Titus and think Jonathan might've told you where it is'. 'How could you do this?' said Emili. Then SaD said 'tell us or we'll kill her' as Emili saw the panic in her eyes (SaD behind Emili). After counting to 3, and Emili saying she and Jonathan had assumed it was the one in the Forum, SaD shot Olivier 2x, who collapsed onto the table. 'OK, she doesn't know' said SaD. He then struck Emili on the back of her head w/his gun, knocking her out.

88 Jonathan caught up w/Orvieti just outside the exit turnstiles, along the Via dei Fori Imperiali, and showed him the scroll. It was another architectural sketch of the colosseum (pic p344) w/a quotation from Josephus above it; '7 branches of light forge ... on the spot where the law of Rome executes those condemned ...'. Jonathan reasoned that it must refer to a spot w/in the arena where beams of sunlight meet ('forge') after shining thru 7 arches along the upper tiers. But by 1809, the W rim of the Colosseum had long since eroded, so Valadier had had to reconstruct W arches to allow the sunlight to illuminate the exact location on the arena floor that Josephus was describing. What's so important about that spot? A trapdoor, perhaps, Jonathan speculated? 7ya he'd seen an ancient fresco in a catacomb (just before it collapsed) of a man escaping the arena thru a trapdoor. Jonathan: 'Signore, I think that trapdoor opens to a tunnel leading to the 1st Arch of Titus' (345). Since Titus k. all the 'kohanim' or Jewish priests he could find (to stamp out the only ones who could keep the flame burning; he and his magicians feared the menorah's flame i.e. God's power), not many were left, but Josephus was one at that time (and Mose now). The sun 'had passed over the Palatine, but its yellow stream of light flowed down Via di San Gregorio, still catching the upper lip of the Colosseum' (346). Orvieti checked his watch, 3:15pm, 'the sun will set thru those arches in less than 20 minutes'.

89 That evening's UN ceremony was in the Colosseum, and dignitaries were already streaming into it. Jonathan and Mose walked on the Via dei Fori Imperiali, along the edge of the Piazza del Colosseo. Jonathan had been here the day before as a tourist, but how he was a fugitive! There were many policemen around for security and metal detectors, etc. How to get in? Jonathan headed to the catering/staging entrance along the E arches. There a gladatorial troupe hired for the event practiced their moves. He had an idea; finding an open trailer nearby, he found extra gladiator costumes and put one on (he was, after all, an expert fencer). As he walked in costume toward the troupe, an American 'southern belle' stopped him for a pic! That done, he hurried on, overhearing frantic staffers trying to locate Director Olivier to give the opening remarks. He stuffed his old clothes behind a rack of appetizers. As he approached the troupe, one said in Italian 'ah, you must be the replacement'. Bingo. Jonathan had only minutes til the sun's rays converged on the spot. Just then someone yelled 'to battle' and the troupe formed up and began marching in. Suddenly, choreographed battles began to swirl around him (once into the arena), kicking up dirt and making it hard to see. He ran to the place where the rays were converging, near the SE border. Finding the spot, he dragged his leg across the floor to mark it, noting the nearest arch was XVIII. But just then someone grabbed him from behind and threw him against the wall and fighting hard. He started protesting that he wasn't part of ... but then sensed something wasn't right; this man was REALLY fighting. On reflex, after being hit several times, Jonathan unleased his own expert skills, landing a sword butt in the man's gut and then smacking his head w/the flat, knocking his helmet off. 'Aurelius' wheezed Chandler!?

90 As Jonathan staggered back, he put the pieces together; Chandler had been steering [manipulating] him along, hoping to follow him to the menorah. As Jonathan confronted him, Chandler laughed at the irony i.e. Jonathan always said HE was the gullible one, 'chasing alternative histories and far-fetched tales of lost treasure, but now its YOU who bot it hook, line and sinker. You really think there's some lost relic of Jerusalem, Jon? But now I'm finally making some money for it [i.e. paid by SaD]' (352). He's a monster, says J, but Chandler says 'client' is the term he prefers, and for that kind of money he'd be happy to search for 'the GD sword of Excalibur'. Jonathan asked about Emili but Chandler just ranted about the 'golden boy' v. his own lowly librarian status i.e. J realized for the 1st time how much Ch hated him (and didn't care about Emili, just mocked J for 'Aww, wanting to be a hero'). They began sword fighting again. 'Its not her they need, its YOU' Chandler said. He said SaD arranged the whole thing, for J and E to come to Rome and meet, etc. SaD knew J had seen important info 7ya on the walls of Berenice's tomb (and SaD hadn't). When another gladiator grabbed J and Ch smacked him, J snapped. He kicked his sword back into his hand, swung it around breaking Ch's knee, then pushed him over the edge i.e. hanging over a 30-ft drop, then bolted out of the arena as the crowd roared, amazing at this 'choreographed' action.

91 J found his clothes and quickly chg'd into them. As planned, Orvieti was waiting and together they moved thru a radial corridor, weaving among the guests, toward arch 18. They needed to get to the labyrinth beneath the arena floor. They found it; 'Of course' said Mose, 18 in Hebrew is 'chai' i.e. 'endless mystical associations w/life and survival' (357). They ducked into its dark apse and moved down the stone stairwell to the maze. Once directly under arch XVIII, J's flashlight caught a half-height archway that resembled an abandoned mine shaft; 'this must be it' he said, an inscription read 'and Rabirius [one of the architects of the Colosseum] used the sky in his architecture', a quote from Martial, the ancient satirist (who loved to poke fun at Rome by sounding romantic, but w/a darker meaning; always about the darker side of Rome, p358), and contemp of Josephus. To get inside the tunnel, J dug out some dirt and pried an old wooden board loose. Mose said 'I'm going too' and had his small green oxygen tank if needed. It flowed slightly downhill from the Colosseum toward the Tiber. J figured out that was to 'slow down' water coming from the river used to fill the arena for naval battles. Before the arena was built (inaug 79 AD), a massive lake built by Nero was located at the same spot, and 'an elaborate system of aqueducts' put in. Occasional street grates let light into the tunnel. The tunnel opened to an underground street about 10ft below the modern one, supported by the 19C pylons 'between the Palatine and Capitoline hills' (360). And unlike the tight turns of the old Jewish Ghetto, this area was wide open, so that 'a ramble of half-brick walls sprawled into the darkness'. Jonathan found a large brown cornerstone of an ancient wall that read 'Vicus Jugaris' or 'Way of the Yoke' and realized THIS was the ancient path of triumphal processions, which would lead to the original Arch of Titus. They followed the street to its end, 'where they stood at the edge of a steep curved slope overlooking a huge semicircular basin that resembled a very deep, empty underground lake' (361), an ancient reservoir. At the far end of it stood a 70ft high retaining wall i.e. a dam. J figured this basin must've been used to accumulate water to flood the Colosseum. The wall was made w/enormous travertine blocks [i.e. ashlars, like Temple wall] fitted w/o mortar, a more Herodian than Roman technique. Of course, the Jewish slaves had built it. It looked alot like the Temple's W wall, except for the 7 free-standing arches supporting it as flying buttresses, forming 7 curved staircases which all converged on a small platform in the center, high above the basin floor. From that platform, a small door led into a dark corridor in the wall. The middle staircase had partly crumbled, suggesting that someone had fallen into the deep basin below. Orvieti said 'its a test', a 'notaricon', an ancient precaution. Probably only 1 of the 7 is strong enough to bear a person's weight, the others are hollow.

92 J slid down the steep basin slope, too steep for Orvieti. The slaves must've stolen away as much time as they could from their construction of the Colosseum to design these intricately arched staircases. He heard footsteps. 2 others were also there, at the rim of the basin, 1 walking upright and a 2nd 'moving more awkwardly'. As they stepped into light from a grate, he could see it was SaD and Emili, she w/hands tied behind back and gagged. He pointed a gun at her head and said 'remarkable work, Jonathan'. 'OK, just put the gun down' J said. 'You followed me to the Colosseum and then thru the tunnel to here' (363) so you know what I know, I'm of no more use to you. No so fast, SaD implied as he mocked J for his 'brilliant closing argument', then told of his elaborate plan to bring him back to Rome. He voice seemed strangely familiar. 'But how did you know' [of the collapse], J said. 'I was there. I did it to you. I sent you into exile, and now I've brot you back. I'd been looking in the catacombs for months. You'd gotten too close' said SaD, as J felt nauseous thinking of SaD staging the collapse. SaD said the mural J saw just before the collapse convinced 'even the most skeptical imams in the Waqf that' the menorah COULD be found, and said '... who cntls the past cntls the future ... history is written in fire, and once its extinguished, its gone' (364). At that moment, it hit J that this was Sharif (he always said that, as had his gdad the GM)!? And that he'd k. Gianpaolo. Then Sharif/SaD pointed his gun at Emili and said 'in ancient myth, Jon, who creates the hero [you]? The villain [me]' (365).

93 SaD says the look on Jonathan's face now (of betrayal) likely resembles that of Titus where he discovered Josephus' trick. 7ya SaD/Sharif had manned the pulley above the manhole which let the other 3 down into it. At the time J had thot it selfless of him i.e. like the designated driver. 'You can't win, you can't manipulate history' said J. Oh no? You lawyer do it all the time, SaD responded i.e. destroying or burying documentation contrary to your clients' cases. 'Strength is the author of history, Jon, not truth' (367, ouch). J said let E go and I'll help, but SaD just laughs, threatening to kill her unless J reveals which arch is safe (they're all 3 close together now, in the same beam of light from above, hmmm). When J doesn't know, SaD straigtens his arm to shoot, but just then Mose pipes in, sliding down the basin's side to them. 'I know which one' he said. Each was marked in Hebrew (on the 1st step) with a 'sefirah' or 'divine attribute thru which the world was created' (hmmm, from Khabbalah?). ? (1st, broken one), Gevurah (strength), Tipheret (splendor), Chesed (kindness), Malchut (majesty), Hod (glory) and the last had no inscription. Mose said 'that's the one' since its 'netzach' or eternity aka 'ne'er tamid' or 'enduring light' that Josephus sought to save. 'You're sure?' says J. 'Not at all' says Mose :-). Both of you go up NOW, says SaD. Orvieti went 1st, as J followed. There were creaks and snaps, but they made it to the platform. The massive ashlars were 20ft long! The small archway was bricked up w/smaller stones, which J yelled to SaD. Above it was carved in Hebrew 'dry land in the midst of the sea', Mose translated, 'a passage from Exodus'. Suddenly the platform ratcheted down 6" and stopped (i.e. by design), as a 2nd staircase collapsed, structural instability spread and the wall began to shake. 'The stairs were NOT the test, THIS is the test' yelled Mose. The ashlars buckled out and trickles of water appeared between them. 'We've gotta move' yelled J, but Mose said 'No, THIS is the only safe place [like at the Red Sea]'. The water flowed into the basin, and SaD prepared to shot, but Emili managed to get her bound hands around his neck. As he pushed backward they both went into the water. After a struggle he got free, and as he tried to shoot her, realized his gun was flooded and wouldn't work (hmmm, wet firing contact). At that moment J blindsided him, having run back down the stairs in the noise, knocking him out (at least his body was motionless and facedown in the water for now). Seeing red in the water, J rolled him over and saw a large jagged rock where his head had landed. He lifted him out and dropped his head AGAIN on that rock; 'that's for Gianpaolo'. Emili was kneeling in the now waist-deep water. Mose remained on the platform 50ft above them. Unable to remove her restraints, they both headed back up the last remaining staircase to him. They all moved close to the wall at Mose's request. At that point, the WHOLE wall shook and then shattered, except for the platform and its 'one intact piece of wall' (373), as sunlight streamed in revealing fish and huge logs of driftwood flowing past them into the basin. The stones blocking the archway crumbled and fell, revealing a dark corridor. 'It leads under the Tiber' Emili shouted, as they headed into it.

94 At Profeta's ofc, Brandisi shows a (7yo) pic of Emili and Sharif standing next to a rubble heap in Kidron Valley. 'That's him [SaD] w/o the beard' said Brandisi. Profeta was shocked, since DNA results had conformed Lebag's death ('the director had assured him' Aha). As the phones lit up, another ofcr walked in and said the Colosseum was flooding!? Also, a bank along the Tiber near the Piazza Bocca della Verita appears to have given way; city engrs say a water main has burst, but aren't ruling out an intentional act. 'Send 3 cars to investigate' ordered Profeta, and this photo to Interpol. 'Any word on the Villa Torlonia evidence?'. 'It'll take another hour' said Copia, as Rufio asked 'What evidence?'! 'We found some rolling paper' said Profeta. 'I'll be happy to p/u the lab results' said Rufio. 'I'm sure you would, but I'll do it myself' said Profeta, his expression giving Rufio an uneasy feeling.

95 'Where are we?' asked Emili. 'Must be the Cloaca Maxima [big drain]' said J, the sewer from republican Rome, likely dating to the 3C BC! It was probably forgotten by the time the Colosseum was built. 'Which is why the slaves could've used it to reach a part of the city no longer accessible even in THEIR day' said Mose. They waded thru the tunnel, w/water now waist deep. The water was rising w/the evening tide. 'If this is an ancient sewer, there must be an outlet to the Tiber somewhere along this passage' said J. The water was now chest-high! 'There!' J called out, seeing a square of white light flooding thru a barnacled steel grid above them. J rubbed Emili's plastic restraints against the grates til they snapped, and w/her arms free she poked her head up thru the bars, yelling that they were in the MIDDLE of the river, under an ancient bridge, the 'Ponte Rotto' (meaning 'broken bridge', c/o a map). Knowing its base floods w/the tide, J knew they had to get out fast. J saw a latch and used a piece of driftwood to pry it open w/great effort. Mose 1st, they said, but he was busy shining his flashlight into various other tunnels branching off from where they stood. 'I can't leave' he said. J told E to go NOW as he talked w/Mose. Mose knew which corrodor led to the menorah, the furthest left one, which bent back toward the Roman shore, beneath the Ghetto. 'You can go later, you won't survive if you don't leave NOW' said J. 'This is all I have [my last chance]. Now go' Mose said. As Mose turned away, J pulled himself out.

96 Mose floated thru the tunnel, only intermittantly touching bottom, carried by the current. As the tunnel's level rose, the water level lowered and the ceiling was dry; he was no longer beneath the Tiber. Hearing rushing water, he knew the tunnel's outlet was just ahead (also a terrible stench i.e. sewage and fermenting algae). At the outlet the water fell down a sharp rock slope, but he was able to climb down a series of outcroppings. He saved the air in his tank for when he REALLY needed it. When the floor was 20ft below, he noticed it was moving!? 'Eels' (eeuw, 379). As the pollution had gotten worse, 'only this durable water snake could survive'. They weren't dangerous except if there was any 'cooked flesh' [uh oh]. As his foot slipped, his oxygen tank fell into the gray silt below, followed by him as he fell onto the eels, which [luckily and yuckily] cushioned his fall. He found his tank and took a few draws. The eels were crawling all over him, but he pressed on while most wouldn't have. The steamy [acidic?] air stung his skin. Soon he recognized giant marble columns ahead, 'the Portico di Ottavia'; Josephus had said 'Vespasian and Titus proceeded thru the Octavian walks'. Its base stood at the lowest strata beneath the Jewish Ghetto. As a child he'd played among the capitals of these columns, which poked thru the cobbled streets 60ft above. He passed it and reached higher ground, not yet flooded. Arriving at bldgs and walking a bit, he saw 'narrow streets and the pink eyes of amphibious creatures that defied classification' (384), then around a corner at the dead end of an alleyway, stood the arch. It was half-buried in the stone embankment behind it. It had been abandoned only a decade after its construction to shore up the Tiber's banks, precisely why the slaves had seized the opportunity to use it. He waded beneath it in the rising water. The most prominent inscription was Hebrew 'it is a tree of life for those who grasp it'. As the water rose, he had to grab the edge to keep from being washed away. He banged, looking for a hollow place w/a door. 'Please' he yelled, his 1st prayer in 60yrs! When the water had lifted him to the arch's under ceiling, he found a carving of a marble branch, grabbed and pulled it as hard as he could (he'd almost given up, but then the code hit him). A large stone block moved, then plunged into the water, leaving a black square opening thru which he pulled himself. The attic was large, at least 20ft high. He collapsed onto the floor and rested. After he caught his breath, he shone his flashlight around, tho the water continued to rise outside, it didn't here (i.e. like an upside-down glass, it didn't fill). It was carved and hollowed from a single piece of stone to make it watertight. The room was lined w/20 ornate stone pillars and the ceiling dotted w/10 bands of copper for embroidered curtains; he recognized the biblical design at once i.e. 'the courtyard of the Temple'. He walked past the pillars and saw a carved rectangular doorway and a pile of wood pulp where the door had once stood. An inscription said 'no foreigner to pass here'. Suddenly a harsh light behind him, a man w/wetsuit, tank and mask!? 'Bloody jackpot' said Chandler.

97 J pulled himself up thru the grate and slammed it shut, limping onto the small overgrown island (~1k sq ft). He had to grab the bridge's plaster to keep from being swept away. He yelled for Emili, then scaled up the lone arch's broken travertine. As he neared the top, he heard a hacking cough, then saw Emili on her knees coughing up river water. At this point the double-lane highway of the modern Ponte Palatino was separated by only 40' of turbulent water, as vehicles sped by in both directions. The wind was howling. As he called for help, he noticed the grate was open again, turning around to see SaD/Sharif (what?!). He'd grabbed Emili and was holding her over the edge, 30' above the raging river, his face bloody.

98 Rufio was helping evacuate people from the Colosseum i.e. the UN mtg was still going on. The water level had reached the tourist deck and now spilled onto the sampietrino of the Piazza del Colosseo. His radio crackled and said '3 un-ID'd persons atop Ponte Rotto', 2 men and a woman. 'That's them' he thot, as he jogged down the Lungotevere along the river toward the Ponte Palatino. As senior ofcr there, he got a bullhorn from another policeman and walked out onto the middle of Palatine bridge, just 50' from the P Rotto. He plan was to make a single warning, then fire, per SOP. He'd say he mistook a branch for a firearm. But then J began to walk around. Rats.

99 J realized SaD wasn't just in Rome to find the menorah, but also to rub out 'the last vestiges of who you once were i.e. eradicating your own past' (387). SaD said he was like Josephus, a 'sleeper' agent w/a big mission. 'Which corridor did he take' said SaD, holding Emili out to drop her. 'I don't know' said J, as SaD then let go. J ran across toward SaD, but SaD p/u a plank of wood and swung, catching his gut, knocking J down. Emili had fallen into the water but grabbed roots along the bridge i.e. she was safe for now. So J landed a kick in SaD's gut, grabbing his throat as he lay near the edge. But then scenic lights blinded him, as SaD fought on. As J gained the upper hand after a tussle, the bullhorn blared 'lower your weapon ... on the ground' said Rufio, raising his gun. J yelled 'he's right here', but then, squinting into the wind, saw it was Rufio, watching him put the bullhorn down and raise his pistol. J quickly knelt down beside SaD and put his hands on his head. He heard the shot, not even close, as Rufio clutched his own shoulder, and an older bearded policeman ran toward him, w/help pinning and handcuffing him. Profeta (bearded man?) then p/u the bullhorn and yelled 'this is Cmdr Profeta. Sharif Lebag, you are under arrest!'. J saw 2 police boats beneath them, as ofcrs scrambled onto the bridge. But SaD had crept toward the edge, and saying 'history is unpredictable' rolled over and into the water below.

100 'Who are you?' said Mose to Chandler. As Chandler heads to the doorway, Mose warns him its dangerous to go in, but Chandler just laughs and jokes that 'melting down a few 100 # of solid gold' is hardlly destroying anything. He had a Josephus clipping in a plastic bag, w/priestly instructions! His flashlight showed that beyond the forbidden door was (i.e. thru the wall of the arch's attic) a long, rectangular chamber, after which another door, then a thin bridge to a 20-sq-ft platform surrounded by air on all other sides. In its center a raised stone altar w/5 steps, sloshing sounds of water below, and 'a square gold object glistening on the altar' (392). It was the breastplate of the HP containing the gemstones of the 12 tribes. Tho Mose warned him, Chandler laughed and walked across the bridge to the platform, yelling that there were dozens of holes in it. 'Vents' said Mose, to channel dangerous levels of methane gas. Chandler located the huge diamond and, after a struggle, ripped it out, as 'a grayish plume emanated from the hole in the breastplate, still anchored to the rock' (393). 'It's just steam' he laughed, but Mose knew 'that steam is heated the methane'. As Chandler examined the rock, leaving his mouthpiece to dangle, a sudden odor of burning filled the attic, and Mose noticed a small flame jumping at Chandler's feet. It was coming from his dangling oxygen mouthpiece, ignited by the heated methane at his feet. He grabbed and shook it, trying to put it out, but it sped up the hose and 'with a horrific screeching sound' blew up the pastic tube like a balloon. As Chandler tried to rip it off his back it burst into a fireball, as he grasped his neck where the oxygen valve was spraying fire onto his bare skin. As he struggled the tank blew, sending shrapnel into the back of his calves as blood spurted out and he tumbled into the [cooked-meat-loving] eel-infested waters below. There was a sound of thrashing and shrieks, the latter of which soon stopped. 'Consumed by fire' thot Mose as he fell against the wall. He edged back into the attic and out of the chamber to escape the smell of burned flesh. He knew the platform was a decoy, since that was beyond the W wall of the arch, NOT the [proper] E wall, which was closer to Jerusalem. He stumbled to the E side of the attic, noticing a hatch in the floor w/an inscription 'only purified priests past here'. The water in the hatch was pure blue, and there were stairs beneath it leading downward. He stepped in, walking down the stairs til he was nearly submerged. He recalled the Scripture 'and the priests shall immerse themselves to draw near the sanctuary' (395). He submerged, floating til he saw ahead a faint ray of light coming from ABOVE the water i.e. he'd moved underwater to an adjacent chamber. Crawling out, he saw its walls were stucco, painted w/1C scenes of pre-sack Jerusalem in rich colors. 3 walls were painted, but the 4th had an altar w/a small swatch of embroidered cloth. The light was coming from a pinhole in the ceiling. Hmmm, modern ground level was 40ft above him. Remembering the Cardinal's words 'open for me a pinhole of light and I will broaden it to a sanctuary' he put his hand to the place on the wall that the light shone upon, then gently knocked it w/his tank. The stucco crumbled easily, and as he pulled it away he saw the gleaming yellow metal behind it! It was perpendicular to the wall, so he was seeing it edgewise. He removed enough stucco to crawl thru, and saw the 8ft lamp of solid gold towering before him, and on the W-most branch he saw 'the dim red glow of a single ember burning in the darkness' (397). Looking closer, he saw the small flame, flickering inches from the rock wall where a small, square vent sprayed natural methane from an adjacent cistern of river silt and sewage, 'of course, a natural, undying source'. The flame hovered over the menorah's last golden cup, the one closest to the wall. On the steps he saw an ancient bowl of holy oil, and he poured it into the cup, seeing it catch fire. He moved to each branch, lighting them all. Oxygen deprivation was causing him to hallucinate that he was a young man again. He has a wonderful vision of reunion w/his family and friends as he dies and goes to heaven.

101 J and Emili sit outside the Great Synagogue, as ambulances and police cars mop up the scene. 'All this time it was HIM' she said. Profeta says he can't find either SaD or Mose, but he'll keep looking. Later they'd need to give depositions. As they discussed Mose, J got an idea, and they headed into the Synagogue. JPII had made a silent prayer up in front, by the ceremonial ark. Above was an Assyrian-Babylonian chandelier but it was NOT lit (unlike other synagogues, where it would symbolize 'the eternal light'). Hmmm, THIS synagogue had a different light, he says, recalling the 'pinhole of light' quote. The pope hadn't come to return anything, but to remind the rabbi of what the Jewish community had guarded for 2kyrs BENEATH this synagogue, w/o even knowing it (ah, so THAT's where the light came from). Emili looked down and saw a small inset piece of amber, a mini rep of the menorah. Since the lights were off (at J's request) they could see 'a faint spark playing in its yellow translucence' as tho emanating from a place below. So the 1st arch was 'directly beneath' us! Ah, Emili once again says 'Quae amissa salva' i.e. 'lost things are safe'.

102 Next morning, Tatton tells J (in frmr's ofc) that he's a celebrity, made the firm look like a bastion of goodwill! Mildren looked on jealously. Because you exposed the UN director, the Cultural Ministry wants to drop the charges. Your future w/us is bright. His flight back to NYC was 4hrs away, and he couldn't reach Emili. He said 'excuse me' and left. He headed to the Forum and finds here there. She'd seen him giving antiquities tours at the Met 7yrs before. He'd seen her too but was too embarrassed to ack. She says what they had before is lost (for now), but its safe.

103 3 days later, Chandler's remains washed up 1/2 mile down the Tiber. But the 'pathologist' was an [Mossad] agent whose mission was only to recover the Josephus clip in the plastic bag. Meanwhile, Profeta is pulling up to the bldg. When he learns someone beat him to the body, he runs to it, but too late, the agent gets away, and delivers his 'find' to, who else, Eilat Segev at a nearby cafe!

104 2 months later, J is again leading a Met tour of seniors from Phx, and there's Emili! After some banter about history just needing a small ember, they embrace and kiss as the crowd erupts into applause.

105 Meanwhile, in Piazza San Pietro, General Eilat has a secret mtg w/Cardinal Ungero Scipiono. She's sent many ltrs about the excavations, but he says 'my hands are tied' and the RCC has also installed many new security layers in Rome (over every manhole), as he says 'some things are meanth to stay buried' (411). As she leaves, he puts a tail on her, who soon loses her. Next we see that she and a group of Mossad agents are using Chandler's map to locate and move the menorah using an ordinary-looking fishing boat in the Tiber. She tells them to also retrieve Mose's body. The Swiss guards are getting closer, but they pull it off, even covering the flame w/a Lucite orb to keep it burning underwater! The story ends as Eilat says 'its time we brot both of you home'.