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165
captivity
she undressed, which was not
prohibited between a married
couple on certain occasions.
But then, Judaea was not a
border castle for Jewry but
the body of the nation, and all
sorts of things were possible
there. In Rome, Jews could
marry their cousins, unlike the
Latini, because their numbers
were scant. In Judaea and
Galilee it counted as incest and
was forbidden. On the other
hand, a Roman widow was
under no obligation to marry
her dead husband’s brother,
which was still compulsory in
Palestine.
Uri’s father never spoke about
that half year of privation. The
story went around that the
whole exile was caused by
four vile, thieving Jews who,
by some means, were able
to win over Fulvia, wife of
Saturninus, the senator, and
to wheedle cash from her to
purchase costly carpets for
the Temple in Jerusalem. They
absconded with the money, of
course, and an incensed Fulvia
reported this to the emperor,
and Tiberius in turn flew into
a rage.
From other variations that Uri
heard, however, he suspected
it was only a pretext for
expelling the Jews from Rome,
on account of Germanicus.
Germanicus, the famous
general, was a nephew and
adopted son of the emperor’s,
but Tiberius took offense
at him and packed him off
to the Eastern provinces.
Germanicus had made the
mistake of setting off from
Syria to Alexandria, even
though Egypt was a no-go
area for all Romans of any
rank, seeing that Egypt, as
every street urchin in Rome
knew, was Rome’s bread