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A FETTERED AMBASSADOR 405
CHAPTER XLVII
A FETTERED AMBASSADOR
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Kal -rots AojiroTs iraffi. Ep. S. Paul, ad Phil. i. 13.
THERE was one spot in Rome which was calm amid all
tumults, happy arnid all calamities, though
it was the last
place where any of the Roman world would have deemed it
possible for happiness to dwell. It was the narrow room.
which served as a prison to Paul of Tarsus.
As long as Burrus was Prsefect of the Praetorians the prisoner's
lot had been made as easy as the strictness of Roman
discipline allowed. He had been allowed to hire a lodging of
his own, and no hindrance was placed on the visits or kindly
offices of his friends. He was, indeed, compelled to submit to
the one intolerable condition of being fastened night and day
by a coupling-chain to the wrist of a Roman soldier; but
Julius and others had spoken to Burrus about him in such
warm terms that, as in the case of Agrippa I., care was taken
that he should be consigned to the charge of a kind centurion,
and that the Praetorians to whom in turn he was chained
should, as far as possible, be good-tempered and reasonable
men.
There was no service which the soldiers more hated than
this of guarding prisoners. Each soldier was for the time as
much a prisoner as the prisoner to whom he was chained.
To be chained to a Jew was regarded by most of the Praetorians
as an intolerable humiliation. If indeed the Jew happened
to be a handsome and cosmopolitan young prince like
Agrippa, the duty had its alleviations but at the
; present
time the soldiers had in charge some Jewish priests sent to
contact
Rome by Festus, who shuddered to be brought into
with them. To be chained to these haughty hierarchs, who
did not conceal their disdain for their gentile guards, was a