Topical: Hearings
SEN. FAVONIUS: The chair recognizes the Senator from Cisalpine Gaul.
SEN. QUINTIUS: Thank you. O Mighty Caesar, if I may, I'd like to continue
a bit further regarding your claim that you had no advance
warning about the events in Judaea.
EMP. TIBERIUS: If we must.
SEN. QUINTIUS: You say... let me review here... At no point was there any
reason to believe that a Messiah was going to appear among
the Jews following the routine execution of a dissident.
EMP. TIBERIUS: That is what I've said, yes. Many times. You own cotton
fields, do you not, Senator? Perhaps you should pluck it
from your ears.
SEN. QUINTIUS: Your sense of humor is truly a gift from the Gods, O Caesar.
But I have no cotton in my ears. I simply wish to be certain
of your words. So your claim is that at no point in the
months leading up to Jewish Passover in the year of the
Consulships of Servius Sulpicius Galba Caesar Augustus and
Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix were you given intelligence
information indicating that a Jewish Messiah might appear?
EMP. TIBERIUS: No specific intelligence that could be acted upon, no.
SEN. QUINTIUS: O Mighty Caesar, if I may, I'd like to broach the subject of
your Imperial Daily Briefing on the morning of Cinque
Augustus. Do you know the one?
EMP. TIBERIUS: I read many Daily Briefings. You must be more specific.
SEN. QUINTIUS: You read them yourself?
EMP. TIBERIUS: Of course not. I have a slave read them to me. Are we to
waste our limited mortality on these specifics?
SEN. QUINTIUS: I apologize, O Mighty Caesar. I have a copy of the Daily
Briefing in question here, provided for me by Consul Gaius
Cestius Gallus. The title of the Briefing for that day is
"Jewish Messiah Determined to Rise From Dead in Judaea."
(GENERAL NOISE AMONG SENATORS.)
SEN. FAVONIUS: Order, Senators.
SEN. QUINTIUS: Do you remember this Briefing?
EMP. TIBERIUS: It was... not... actionable data. It...
SEN. QUINTIUS: It says here... let me quote some bits... Um... "The
Messiah shall be struck down" ... "He shall come from the
most plain of the Jewish population" ... "Great shall be
his miracles and even death will not hold him." Are you
saying there was no way of knowing that...
EMP. TIBERIUS: I'm saying that if we'd known that killing THAT Jew on THAT
cross and then...
SEN. QUINTIUS: ...are you saying...
EMP. TIBERIUS: ...and then laying him in THAT grave would produce a... would
make some sort of...
(GENERAL NOISE AMONG SENATORS.)
SEN. FAVONIUS: Order, Senators. Senator Quintius, your time is up.
SEN. QUINTIUS: Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, O Mighty Caesar.
EMP. TIBERIUS: A blight on your fields and a pox on your children's flesh.
SEN. FAVONIUS: The chair recognizes the Senator from Dalmatia...
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For consideration: Nobody ever really sees it coming when it counts; maybe Cheney is Sejanus... if so, who's going to be Caligula?