Petronius and Longinus - what happens to deserting Romans?
The Court Martial of Petronius & Longinus - an Easter Play for 5 men.
By Myles Hildebrand 2012
Legate,
Leader of the Roman troops in Jerusalem
Optio:
They’ve got them ready, Legate.
Legate:
Who’s ready?
Optio:
The deserters. We can give them
a fair trial before they are given the fus-tuar-ium by cudgel within the hour.
(He shakes his stick happily.)
Legate: (rubs his head with stress and frustration)
I’ve had a bad week. (shuffles
papers) I’ve got riots, demonstrations,
the clergy are being a pain, someone vandalised their fancy curtain... I tell
you, I’m going to destroy that annoying temple one day... we had that big
thunderstorm on Friday, people keep feeling earthquakes, and I’ve even got
reports of ghosts walking around in the daytime and scaring their
relatives... Anyways... who deserted?
Optio:
A guard of soldiers - they were assigned to guard a rich guy’s tomb for
a week and deserted. It’s that Yosef
from Harimathea, you know, Ramatha, and he paid well, so I’m a little nervous
to tell him the guard deserted and the tomb got cleaned out.
Legate:
Wait, so HE wasn’t in the tomb?
Optio:
No, he paid for the body of some crazy street preacher to be put in his
tomb, otherwise we’d have just tossed him in the dump. Yeshua something or other?
Legate:
Didn’t The Big Boss Pilate…
(points his thumb upwards)
let him go on Friday?
Optio:
No, no, that’s Yeshua Barabbas, the bandit. Don’t worry, we got a plan to get that one
back. He’s already had one strike – we
can’t be seen as soft on crime.
Legate:
Yeshua, Miriam, Yosef... its always the same names with these
people. So what did we get that one, the
dead one, on?
Optio:
Inciting armed insurrection and blasphemy...
one of his guys flipped on him and we found him with a group and they had 2 long fishing knives... so it counted as short swords... so we could make the charge
stick. And some of the locals had it in
for him too, you know, their blasphemy thing they’re always on us about...
Legate:
Sigh. You’d think that people
with only one god would have few religious disputes. Well, they’ll like us when we win their
hearts and minds. In my command,
everyone gets a last statement. Bring
them in.
Optio leaves and re-enters with First Soldier and Second
Soldier , hands lightly bound with rope, and their captain, the Prefect,
Captain of the regiment, who holds a spear pointed at them. The Prefect seems to be enraged and eager for
the execution, the soldiers are sheepish around him, lean away, and look like
they’ve been beaten.
Legate:
Where are the others? A standard guard duty is 8 soldiers.
Prefect :
They died, resisting arrest.
Legate:
I thought they turned themselves in.
Prefect:
Hey, accidents happen. They went… crazy…
Legate: (raps the desk with his knuckle)
Let the court martial begin. You two are charged with the crimes of
desertion and dereliction of duty, which carries an automatic death penalty, as
you have failed in your oath to the corps. How do you plead?
Soldiers look at Prefect first who shakes his spear at them.
First and Second Soldier: (together)
“Uh, guilty Legate.”
Legate:
Can you give any account of your actions for the record?
The two soldiers look at each other and their
Prefect/Captain and recite in unison:
“We were set upon by a large number of armed
militia and we ran away in cowardice. We
are a disgrace to our unit and are ready to accept our punishment.”
They cast their eyes
downward. The Prefect smiles and nods.
The Legate gives them a doubtful glance.
Legate:
“I find your statement less than convincing.
Prefect/Captain says:
“Well, you heard them. We can have the
executions immediately. I will put myself
on half-rations as punishment for training such cowards. Thank you for your time, Tribune....”
Legate:
“Wait a minute.” (looks at the papers
before him on the desk)
“Petronius
Germanicus, you served with distinction in Gaul
where you even received the grass laurel for saving the 3rd legion.”
First Soldier:
“Aye, Legate.”
Legate:
“And Decanus Titus Longinus, a barbarian, but
you have served 19 years faithfully, only 6 years from full citizenship and
retirement, respected by all your men under your command in the guard, and you
spend your last day on earth lying to your legate?”
Second Soldier:
“Sorry Legate.”
Legate:
“You both have sworn the oath to Jupiter and
Disciplina to serve faithfully unto death, and I’ve seen you at the required
Mithran sacrifices... and honestly Titus... you sure can roast that sacrificial
bull deliciously...”
Second Soldier:
“Thank you, Legate.”
Legate:
“So, the facts are, you were posted as guard,
8 of you, to guard a new tomb, for a week...
(looks at Optio, who
nods)
“so what happened?”
First Soldier: (unconvincing as a boy lying about being
caught raiding the cookie jar)
“We ran away.”
Legate:
“From who?”
First Soldier:
“People.”
Second Soldier:
“Yeah, people... with swords....”
First Soldier:
“Lots of them.... big swords... dozens.... so we ran...”
Second Soldier:
“We ran back to our captain to report…”
Legate:
“Did you fight back?”
First Soldier (together) Second Soldier
“No Yes”
Legate:
“Well which is it?”
Second Soldier: (looks at Prefect)
“We’re not sure.”
Legate: (to Optio)
Optio, have you been to the site?
Optio:
Yes.
Legate:
What is there?
Optio:
Oh, nothing much, the remnants of their camp which I had brought back
here… open land, flowers, tomb with
bandages and oil bottles, and some women
and men... just hanging out.
Legate:
But no signs of struggle or bloodshed?
Optio:
No. No signs at all. Looks like
they just ran out and left everything.
Legate:
I thought you said the tomb was cleaned out.
Optio:
Well, the body is gone, but the linens and
other stuff is still there.
Legate:
So the grave-robbers only took the body,
took the time to strip it down, and left the valuable stuff behind. Those are the dumbest thieves I ever heard
of.
(to the 2
soldiers)
Look... you deserted your post, we
know it, you know it, and you know we’re going to kill you, but why not spend
your last hour in the truth? You swore
an oath once, and if you tell me the absolute truth, I swear I will end your
life quickly myself… (pats his sword)
Prelate:
But Legate…
Legate raises a stern finger of warning to the prelate.
Legate:
“I swear by Jupiter and the Emperor your death will be painless – but I
want the truth.”
First soldier:
“But I don’t think you can handle...”
Second soldier
“Don’t say anything...”
Legate:
“Ok, let’s go through the options: you got
really drunk, it’s boring on guard duty, I understand, and you all passed out,
and someone cleaned out the tomb...it’s ok, others can learn from your bad
example.... that’s it right?”
First Soldier:
“No.”
Legate:
“Ok, so this street preacher hung out with
low class women, so one of them comes out to...
bribe you...hey, I
understand... maybe the tomb owner changes his mind and asks you get the body
out of his tomb... but that was your mistake, because you still will be
executed for disobeying …”
First Soldier:
“I didn’t happen that way.”
Second Soldier:
“Shut up, Petronius.”
First Soldier:
“Look, I’m not entering Hades with this on my
head. When that preacher guy got
sentenced by Pilate, I was in the group that... softened him up for execution.”
Prelate:
“Standard practice sir.”
First Soldier:
“So, we put one of the imperial robes on him and beat him and…”
Legate:
“Wait a minute, you put the Imperial colour PURPLE on a criminal and
then beat him? What were you acting out?”
First Soldier:
“No, not the purple ones, we had a scarlet red imperial guard robe
handy, and I got some good licks in
(mimics hitting with a club)
“and he just kept looking at me....”
Optio: (waves his hand dismissively)
“Yes, yes, guilt and regret, a soldier’s life is hard.”
First Soldier:
“Well, we took him and the others out to Golgotha
and the crucifiers do their thing... and you wait... and it takes awhile for them to die... and
you wait...”
Second soldier:
“I’d just like to say I didn’t take anyone’s
clothes... I just think that’s plebian....”
First soldier:
“Well you stabbed him…”
Second Soldier:
“Hey, there’s a storm and the earth is doing
aftershocks and we’re breaking the legs so they choke faster ..”
Prelate:
“Standard procedure.”
Second Soldier:
“And the guy in the middle is already dead so
I stabbed him just to be sure.”
Legate (rubs his head as if has a headache)
“I’m sure these details are fascinating to
someone, but could we get on with it....”
First soldier
“So our guard gets ‘volunteered’ to be on
guard duty, for a week, watching over the dead guy in the rich tomb so no one
takes anything... and it’s not as good as the barracks but it’s like camping
and so days go by and nothing happens…”
Legate:
“Until someone comes with free wine and a lady and you got drugged
and...”
Second Soldier:
“Well, I was hoping for that to relieve the boredom… but then... um... the stone moved.”
Optio:
You moved the stone?
Second Soldier:
No.... took a couple of us to move it and the last thing we’d want to
do is get near a decomposing corpse in this forsaken desert... but, I don’t
know, the earth shook a bit and the
stone rolls away by itself…
First Soldier:
“It wasn’t by itself.”
Second Soldier:
“Shut up.”
First Soldier:
“I’m telling you... I saw a glowing person thing, pushing it.... with
one hand… and then it turned and looked at me... and it said, in a deep voice”
(say it like Swartzenegger)
“I just
vant to know one ting... which one of you hit heem?”
Second Soldier: (sighs, resigned to his fate, speaks sadly)
I just heard a loud... noise of some kind or other... and there was a
light in the cave, I swear a light… and I saw the shadow of the dead guy, all
wrapped up…. And then the shadow sat up… so I decided to... strategically retreat back to the barracks
and tell the Prelate. I figured the dead
guy didn’t need guarding anymore….
First Soldier:
I wasn’t looking in the cave…. But I really didn’t like my, or ‘our’
chances against the glowy guy, I mean it could be a herald of the gods, like
Hermes, and our contracts don’t say anything about fighting gods. So we all followed
our Decanus here back to base.
Everyone pauses in
silence.
Optio: (slowly)
“That’s…. the…. dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Prelate is making
crazy signs at his forehead.
Prelate:
“I tried so hard... I trained them well Legate…. I really did… there
was no sign of mental weakness in them before… and I tried to beat some sense
into them…”
Legate: (rubbing head as if he has the mother of all
headaches)
“I hate this week. I hate this country. I hate these ungrateful people.
(to Optio) Go get some more cudgels.”
(Optio leaves)
First Soldier:
“You promised a quick death.”
Legate:
“I owe nothing to a crazy person… or a foolish liar. I... I don’t understand why you would say you
retreated from a god in order to cover up your laziness and desertion. It won’t save you from execution. You could have died with the truth on your
lips, instead of insanity.”
Second Soldier:
It is the truth, Legate. I would
give anything for it not to be, but it is.
I would have fought a dozen men alone for my honor and for my Prelate
(looks at Prelate)
... but
some things are bigger than us. Someone
at the barracks said this street preacher said his kingdom was not of this
world...
First Soldier:
I’d vote yes on that.
Optio re-enters with a coin purse, jingling with coins
inside.
Optio:
We got a visit... from a friend.
Legate:
Well, this day is looking up. A
good beating and bribe sure lighten the mood.
Optio:
Our local friends with all the scrolls... yeah... there’s a story
running around that the crucified man came back from the dead and they would
really like us to say it was the disciples who attacked the guard and stole the
body and that’s why we can’t find it. They want us to say the guards escaped it
all.
Prelate:
But they didn’t escape – they’re right here.
Optio:
Well, they want people to say the body was stolen. They seem really freaked out about it. So we
can’t kill them.
Prelate:
But if they let the body be stolen, they
must die.
Legate: (*starts counting off on his fingers)
They want us to say that a bunch of losers who only had two sword-like
objects last week between them, who couldn’t rescue their buddy from arrest and
trial, who don’t have money to buy swords or mercenaries with, they couldn’t
get the crowd to release their buddy when they had the chance, that these
goofballs took on a Roman guard of 8 men, fully armed and armoured, on open
ground, and defeated them, and drove them off, with absolutely NO blood spilt
on the ground from either side, and yet, we didn’t punish the guards, with
death, which they deserve, because they want the guards to tell the cover story
of getting out-done by untrained fishermen?
Optio: (shakes his head)
No wonder the people don`t trust us.
The glory of Roman is at stake here.
Prelate:
If we go along with that cover
story, people will ALWAYS know something funny went on at that tomb.
First soldier:
It wasn`t funny at the time.
Prelate:
We could still kill these two. Put
their bodies in the garden and say the guy’s followers did it. Or the guy was
faking death, and he snuck up behind the soldiers and killed them when they
were dozing…
Optio:
Too many people are there now, and they saw the bloodless ground and
the empty tomb. We need witnesses to the stolen body story, which means we
can’t kill them…. Which would be standard procedure…. They`d have to not tell their stupid rolling
stone story again... (shakes his cudgel, then the coin bag at the
soldiers.)
Second Soldier:
I… I can live with that.
Legate:
You`ll do it somewhere else. You
will immediately leave the barracks, take your year’s pay from the paymaster,
you lose all your years of service, you will never be a citizen of Rome. We will not pursue you... but I would
encourage being elsewhere. You are now
an escaped coward….
Second:
Thank you Legate. (bows and
walks off)
Hey guys, guess what... I actually bravely retreated from fifty fierce
mercenaries....
Legate: (to First Soldier)
And as for you…
First Soldier: (he’s silent a moment then crosses his arms
in front of himself defiantly)
Glowy guy. Stone moved.
Legate: (rolls eyes)
Well, since I can`t kill you, I`m going to transfer you to Rome for school....
First Soldier:
“Oh good!”
Legate:
“Aye… gladiator school...”
Prelate leads First Soldier, groaning out loud. Optio hands Legate the coins. Optio smiles.
Optio:
First execution I ever attended where the condemned lived...
Legate: (shrugs)
“Or maybe the second? Don`t
worry, no one will be talking about this in a week or two... even the ghosts
will be forgotten... and all that “love
is stronger than hate” stuff never lasts....”
Both walk out.
END
posted by MylesH at 5:05 AM
4 comments
