“How?”

Pilate stood and gestured for me to follow. He opened a door and I followed him out onto a balcony overlooking the parade grounds. There it is, there it is! I kept repeating to myself between my galloping heartbeats. The pavement, the place where Jesus had been tried and condemned by Pilate—the Gabbatha in Aramaic, the Lithostroton in Greek, the square of sadness for every Christian who has relived the agonies of Jesus for two thousand years! I blinked several times at the glare from stones polished by countless boots and horses’ hooves parading back and forth across fifty square yards of immortality.

The procurator pointed to a spot on the pavement almost directly below us. “Caiaphas and the others had brought their prisoner through the entranceway in the wall, passed between the alley of the two buildings to our left, and stood there, outside the hall. When they did not enter, I sent one of my soldiers to invite them in but they told him that they could not or they would be defiled in such a way that they would be unable to purify themselves in time to fulfill their Passover functions at sundown. Think of it! They were ready to take a man out and stone him to a bloody pulp, and yet they could not bring themselves to enter the place of a gentile, even their procurator. I was furious. If the three tribune inspectors had not been with me I am not certain what I would have done to vent my anger. As it was I ordered that my platform and curule chair be brought out and placed on the pavement, vowing to myself that Caiaphas would regret he had ever crawled out of bed that day.”

“How many had accompanied the prisoner here?”

“I have long had a policy that our pavement and Hall of Judgment are public areas on those days when I am holding court. All trials conducted before me are open to anyone who wishes to attend. It was still early, however, and so I would estimate that not more than fifty or so stood before the platform, including several worthless guards from the Temple, when I went out to them, accompanied by my own staff and the three tribunes from Antioch.”

“What was your first impression of the prisoner?”