Tacitean Sidelights on The Master and Margarita STEPHANIE WEST

Bulgakov's use of Tacitus' Annals in The Master and Margarita repays attention. Tacit-us inspired his invention of Pilate's pre-Judaean career, the governor's physical courage being illustrated by flashbacks to the battle of Idistaviso (Ann. 2.16-18), while Tacitus' description of the operation of the law relating to maiestas (minuta) and of the proliferation of treason trials under Tiberius pervades Bulgakov's account of Pilate's confrontation with Jesus. The infallibly efficient chief of secret police, Afranius, has so much in common with the Praetorian Prefect Afranius Burrus, who plays a leading role in Tacitus' account of Nero's reign, that Bulgakov must have intended the reader to see a connection between these two ruthless pragmatists; here too we may suspect that he was inventing an earlier career for a well-known figure. The relevance of Tacitus' account of the Julio-Claudians to Stalin's regime is obvious enough.

this left cup is for Drusus f rom the r ight one p re t end to sip then dr ink only wa te r never lose sight of Tacitus take a wa lk in the ga rden and re turn w h e n the corpse has been r e m o v e d I ' ve dec ided to re turn to the e m p e r o r ' s court yes I hope that things will w o r k out s o m e h o w

Zbign iew Herber t , The return of the proconsul 1

T he Polish poet Zb ign iew Herbe r t was not the only East E u r o p e a n wr i te r to d iscern a s imilar i ty be t ween twent ie th-century total i tar ianism and the ear ly R o m a n em-

pire as v i ewed by Tacitus. 2 Systematic invest igat ion of this topic w o u l d call for a team; as a deuteros pious oppor tunis t ic forays m a y be reward ing . The fo l lowing essay is in tended mere ly to indicate a pa th likely to r epay fur ther explorat ion.

1.

2.

Without encouragement from Julie Curtis I would not have attempted this article; in its preparation I have profited greatly from the learning and acute observation of Barbara Levick, who had come independently to a similar view of Afranius, and from Mary MacRobert's shrewd comments on an earlier, rather different version. The editor's sugges- tions and criticism have done much to improve it; responsibility for its shortcomings remains my own. Selected Poems, translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Peter Dale Scott, Harmondsworth, 1968. The complete poem is quoted as an afterword by Vasily Rudich, Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation (London / New York, 1993), 244. On Tacitus in post-war Polish literature see S. Stabryla, Hellada i Roma w Polsce ludowej [Hellas and Rome in People's Poland ] (Krak6w, 1983), 166f., 176f., 278, 283f.

Stephanie West, Hertford College, Catte Street, Oxford OX1 3BW, United Kingdom.

International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 3, No. 4, Spring 1997, pp. 473-484.

474 International Journal of the Classical Tradition /Spring 1997

Mikhai l Bulgakov ' s masterpiece , his s t rangely haun t i ng nove l The Master and Margarita, has genera ted a daun t ing prol i ferat ion of secondary l i terature since its p u b - lication in 1966/67, more than a quar te r of a century after his death3; bu t it is clear f rom w h a t is avai lable in English that insufficient a t tent ion has been pa id to his use of Tacitus, the au thor w h o m his w i d o w p u t first in the trio of Latin wri ters wi th w h o m she k n e w h i m to be familiar. 4

The nove l ' s ma in storyline is a nar ra t ive of a visit to M o s c o w b y Satan, u n d e r the p s e u d o n y m Woland (one of his less celebrated titles). H e and his re t inue create d iver- sifted m a y h e m , bu t they can scarcely be said to represent conven t iona l evil forces, and Woland ' s role seems to be mode l l ed on that of Satan in Job, a d iv ine ly a p p o i n t e d inspector of h u m a n behaviour , s We are also po in ted in the di rect ion of Job b y the n a m e g iven to the mos t m e m o r a b l e of his com pany , Behemoth , a huge and va r ious ly accom- p l i shed tom-cat. 6 The activities of this cont ingent dur ing their Wecinesday- to-Satur-

3. It was first published in the journal Moskva in two instalments, in the issues for November 1966 and January 1967. A fuller text was given in the Posev edition (Frankfurt, 1969), comparison with which shows that some 20-25 percent was omitted in the Moskva publica- tion, though it is not clear how far these cuts were dictated by censorship rather than by more innocent editorial concerns such as the elimination of inconsistencies. A yet fuller text, edited by A. Saakyants, is given in M. Bulgakov, Romany, Moscow, 1973 (pp. 421-812). The most recent edition is that of L. Yanovskaya, published in 1989 by Dnipro Publishers in Kiev, in M. Bulgakov, Izbrannye proizvedeniya; this has been used for the 1990 Moscow edition, Sobranie sochinenii, t. 5. Since Bulgakov was occupied with the novel for more than a decade and was struggling to complete its revision during the last months of his life, it is not surprising that establishing a reliable text is problematic. See further Andrew Barratt, Between Two Worlds: A Critical Introduction to The Master and Margarita (Oxford, 1986), 39- 76. Two English translations appeared towards the end of 1967. That of Mirra Ginsburg, originally published by Grove Press in the USA, and republished in Britain as a Picador edition by Pan Books (London, 1989), was based on the text published in Moskva. Michael Glenny's translation, which appeared under the joint Harper and Row/Harvill-Collins im- press, was based on a fuller text, of uncertain provenance. We now have the Ardis translation by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor, with annotations and afterword by Ellendea Proffer (Dana Point, CA, 1995). I have used this version for my quotations, but it should not be difficult for those who use other translations to locate the passages con- cerned; I have also given page references to the 1973 and 1990 Moscow editions.

4. See further J.A.E. Curtis, Bulgakov's Last Decade (Cambridge, 1987), 24; she quotes from an unpublished letter: '"He valued Latin highly for its laconic concision, its rhythm and sono- rousness. He was fond of Lucian and had of course read Tacitus, Ovid and Cornelius Nepos. His favourite Greek dramatist was Sophocles."' (It is slightly disturbing that Lucian is here mentioned as if he were supposed to be a Latin author.)

5. Job 1.6-8: 'Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?' See further Laura D. Weeks, 'Hebraic antecedents in The Master and Margarita: Woland and company revisited', Slavic Review 43 (1984) 224-241, esp. 227-229; ead., The Master and Margarita: a critical companion (Evanston, IL, 1996), 64f. On the development of Satan's role from that of God's agent to that of His opponent see Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan (Harmondsworth, 1995).

6. Job 40.15: 'Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee.' The word (a so-called intensive

West 475

day visit p rov ide scope for satire on numerous aspects of Soviet life, Bulgakov 's main targets being the 'certainties' of the materialist wor ld-v iew and the increasing regi- menta t ion of artistic life, to which the e p o n y m o u s Master of the title (a wri ter w h o is never named, Margari ta 's lover) falls victim. Cross-cut with this satiric fantasy of con tempora ry Moscow is a highly idiosyncratic narrat ive set in Jerusalem and centred on Pilate's encounter with Jesus7; it is these chapters (2, 16, 25, 26) which concern us here. 8

Tacitus figures briefly in the novel ' s opening scene, a conversat ion about the historical reality of Jesus, in which Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, the edi tor of an impor tan t l i terary journal, a t tempts to enlighten a y o u n g poet, w h o has taken the name B e z dom ny ( 'Homeless ') . Bezdomny has composed a p o e m about Jesus which, though ext remely negative in its portrayal , quite failed to represent the p ro p e r view, that he never existed.

The edi tor was a well-read man and in his speech he m a d e very clever allusions to ancient historians such as the famous Philo of Alexandria , and the bril l iantly educated Flavius Josephus, nei ther of w h o m had said a w o rd about the existence of Jesus. With a display of solid erudi t ion, Mikhail Alexandrovich also informed the poet, in passing, that the passage in Book 15, Chapter 44, of Tacitus's famous Annals, where ment ion is m ad e of Jesus's execution, is nothing bu t a later, f raudulent interpolation. 9

We m a y see here an antithesis be tween pre- revolu t ionary and pos t - revolu t ionary cultural s tandards in the fact that to Bezdomny (later said to be twenty- three 1~ 'every- thing the edi tor said was a novel ty ' ; Berlioz, described as ' fortyish' , is of Bulgakov 's own generation. 11 But we are surely also meant to see that the edi tor 's 'solid erudi t ion '

7.

8.

9. 10. 11.

plural, literally 'beasts') has been taken into Russian with the meaning 'hippopotamus', its traditional interpretation, though the crocodile now enjoys stronger support (as in the New English Bible). Critics do not seem to have been much interested in investigating further resonances of Job in the novel, though we might find relevant Job's refusal to sacrifice his own integrity and use the conventional language of humiliation. The book also offers an interesting model for the contrasted styles of the Moscow and Jerusalem narratives; while the opening and closing narratives are in prose, the speeches display the parallelismus membrorum characteristic of Hebrew poetry. (The terms in which Bulgakov scholars express the difficulty of coming to a clear, unitary interpretation of The Master and Margarita can certainly be nicely paralleled from the exegesis of Job : 'The world has never been short of books, plays and scholarship with a view of what (most of) the book of Job is abou t . . . Its broad themes are clear, but a general view depends on which of the themes it isolates.' (R. Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible [London, 1991], 409; simi- larly O. Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: an Introduction (translated from third German edition, Einleitung in das Alte Testament [Tiibingen, 1964], by P. R. Ackroyd [Oxford, 1965], 456.) It is disappointing that Bulgakov is ignored in William Hamilton's examination of twenti- eth-century Jesus fictions, A Quest for the Post-Historical Jesus, London, 1993. I have found much of value in the monograph by H. Elbaum, Analiz iudeyskikh glav 'Mastera i Margarity" M. Bulgakova [Analysis of the Jewish chapters of 'The Master and Margarita" of M. Bulgakov] (Ann Arbor, 1981), but his approach is somewhat different from mine. Ch. 1, p. 5 Ardis translation; 425 (1973); 9 (1990) Ch. 6, p. 56.; 483; 67. On Bulgakov's inclination to identify himself as a guardian of older cultural values see Barratt, op. cit. (n. 3) 312, 327.

476 International Journal of the Classical Tradition /Spring 1997

is in fact ra ther flimsy. Philo, the outs tanding exponent of Alexandr ian-Jewish culture, can hard ly be classified as himself an ancient historian, though his tracts In Flaccurn and De legatione ad Gaium, in which he describes Jewish sufferings u n d e r Caligula, are a valuable source for the history of the period. It is s imply not t rue that Josephus says nothing about Jesus. Though the passage in which he refers to Jesus as the Messiah (Jewish Antiquities 18.63-64), the famous testimonium Flavianum, is mos t unl ikely to be complete ly authentic, a good case can be mad e for the view that a br ief reference has been elaborated by a Christian interpolator; certainly the passage is not so obvious ly bogus that we might think it characteristic of a sound scholar to d e e m it u n w o r t h y of ment ion, u Berlioz is clearly ra ther h igh-handed in his condemna t ion of Tacitus ' refer- ence to the crucifixion, which is certainly not flattering to Christian sensibilities; bu t he could have invoked some weighty support , 13 and i m p u g n m e n t of this f amous passage (the source of the term 'procura tor ' for Pilate's office 14) was once a co m m o n p lace of atheistic argument .

On this conversat ion there intrudes a myster ious foreign professor, a specialist in black magic, is who, after predict ing decapi tat ion for Berlioz before the evening is over, offers what he claims to be an eye-witness account of Pilate's in ter rogat ion and con- demna t ion of Jesus (ch. 2) bearing ' "no relation whatsoever" ' , as Berlioz observes, ' " to the gospel accounts" ' . 16 The almost immedia te fulf i lment of the visitor 's p redic t ion of Berlioz's ex t raordinary death lends credibili ty to his claims to knowledge b e y o n d the normal h u m a n range. 17

The myster ious foreign professor is WolandJ 8 The impor tance of the Jerusalem

12. See further Louis H. Feldman, Josephus and Modern Scholarship (1937-1980) (Berlin/New York, 1984), 673-725, esp. 679-703. Feldman's note on the passage in the Loeb edition of Josephus (ix [Cambridge, MA., 1965], 49) provides a very helpful brief guide to the contro- versy.

13. The debate continues: see further Werner Suerbaum, 'Spezialliteratur zu ann. xv 38-44', Aufstieg und Niedergang der R6mischen Welt (= ANRW) II 33.2, ed. W. Haase (Berlin/New York, 1990), 1394-1399.

14. An inscription from Caesarea, discovered in 1961, confirmed the conjecture that at this period the correct title was praefectus; the change to procurator came under Claudius: see further J.-P. L6monon, Pilate et le gouvernement de la Judde: textes et monuments (Paris, 1981), 43-58, id., 'Ponce Pilate: documents profanes, Nouveau Testament et traditions eccl6siales', ANRW II 26.1, ed. W. Haase (Berlin/New York, 1992), 748-752.

15. Both Ginsburg and Glenny obscure the scholarly purpose for which Woland claims he has been summoned to Moscow by the State Library; the author whose hand he alone can decipher is Gerbert of Aurillac, later Pope Silvester II, not Herbert; Glenny makes matters worse by assigning Gerbert to the ninth century instead of the tenth. Gerbert's extraordi- nary learning inspired the story that he had made a pact with the Devil. The passages revealing Woland's true purpose (to see whether the Muscovites have changed inwardly [chs. 12 and 18]) are absent from Ginsburg's translation.

16. Ch. 3, p. 33; 459; 44. 'An utterly non-canonical and virtually non-Christian refocussing of the story' (Times Literary Supplement [= TLS] 7 December 1967, 1181).

17. An impressive inversion of the more familiar process whereby the prophet establishes his credibility by his insight into past events known to his interlocutors (as with Aeschylus" Cassandra [Agamemnon 1090 ff.] and Jesus in conversation with the Samaritan woman [John 4.17 f.]).

18. In view of Bulgakov's liking for Lucian (see above, n. 4) it is worth noting a certain similar- ity between the novel's opening and the intertwined dialogue of the Iuppiter Tragoedus,

West 477

nar ra t ive wi th in the Moscow f rame is thus f i rmly es tabl ished in the r eade r ' s m i n d b y the in t roduct ion of the second theme so ear ly in the novel , in c i rcumstances wh ich leave no d o u b t as to the supe rna tu ra l p o w e r s of its narra tor .

Bu lgakov ' s vers ion presents an honourab le bu t (moral ly) coward ly Pilate con- f ront ing a na ive ly idealistic Jesus, 19 who, in accordance wi th the defami l ia r iz ing tech- n ique 20 w h e r e b y Jerusa lem is r ende red Yershalaim, is des igna ted Yeshua Ha-Nots r i . He clearly d r a w s on Tacitus for w h a t he tells us (ch. 2, cf. ch. 26) abou t the earl ier careers of Pilate and the bru ta l centur ion Mark RatkiUer. 21 The latter, as Pilate ex- pla ins to Yeshua, me t wi th his d isf igur ing injury at the bat t le of Id is taviso w h e n the e n e m y

where the Olympians listen in to, and comment on, a debate about their existence (the sceptic makes the better case). Further investigation of Bulgakov's debt to Lucian would probably be fruitful; see also G.W. Bowersock, Fiction as History: Nero to Julian (Berkeley / Los Angeles, 1994), 5 n. 7 (the book's epigraph is taken from the pasage in which Woland introduces the Jerusalem narrative in The Master and Margarita).

19. This characterization is immediately conveyed by his first words to Pilate, whom he ad- dresses as 'Good man' ('My good man' [Burgin-O'Connor] sounds more natural, but is slightly misleading); it is impressed on him without delay that the proper form of address to a provincial governor is Hegemon (Greek, though Aramaic is the language used when the trial starts), but this form of expression is deeply rooted in his philosophy. ' "Why do you keep using the words 'good people'? Do you call everyone that? .... Yes, everyone, " replied the prisoner. "There are no evil people in the world"' (p. 20; 29; 444). We might take this linguistic idiosyncrasy as an extension of the Greek use of such vocatives as agathe and chreste (both literally translated as 'good man'), on which see further Eleanor Dickie, Greek Forms of Address: From Herodotus to Lucian (Oxford, 1996), 107-145. As a result of itacism, chrestos and christos were hardly distinguished in pronunciation by the time of Jesus, and some confusion between the two is indicated by Suetonius' reference (Claud. 25) to Jewish disturbances at Rome stirred up by Chrestos. I wonder if Bulgakov intended to suggest that the distinctive idiom of his trilingual Yeshua had given rise to a kind of nickname which, in turn, was converted into a Messianic title. This conjecture may seem rather a long shot, and I offer it as a suggestion as to the way in which Bulgakov's mind may have worked without claiming that he expected similar thought-processes in his readers; but it would meet what seems an obvious difficulty in his reconstruction, that his Yeshua is clearly not to be re- garded as a charismatic leader, and this lack of anything that might be seen as Messianic quality is not easily reconciled with the development of a religious movement centred on the claim that Messianic prophecy was fulfilled in him.

20. Briefly discussed in Proffer's note on Sinedrion (pp. 339 f.). Her note (340) on Bulgakov's alternative to Barabbas, Bar-rabban, calls for correction: support for this form of the name may be adduced from the Gospel according to the Hebrews quoted by Jerome (on Matt. 27.16), where the name was interpreted as filius magistri eorum ('son of their teacher'); see further E. Sch/Jrer, History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, rev. and ed. G. Vermes, F. Millar, and M. Goodman (Edinburgh, 1973-87), i 385 n. 138. Bar-rabban is first mentioned (20) in company with Dismas (better Dysmas) and Gestas, names familiar from the Gospel of Nicodemus / Acts of Pilate (9; 10; 26), so that a further allusion to the New Testament Apocry- pha should not take us by surprise.

21. An unlikely sobriquet (the less said about Glenny's coinage muribellum the better). Elbaum, op. cit. (n. 8) 89 n. 34 compares Plautus' term of abuse muricidus (Epid. 333), itself rather puzzling (see Oxford Latin Dictionary s. v., Duckworth's note ad loc.), though the range of meanings suggested by its context in Plautus, 'faint-hearted, good-for-nothing', are not helpful here.

478 International Journal of the Classical Tradition /Spring 1997

'attacked him the way dogs attack bears. The Germans grabbed him by his neck, arms, and legs. An infantry maniple had been ambushed, and if the cavalry turma under my command had not broken through from the flank, then you, philosopher, would not have had to talk with Ratkiller. It hap- pened in the battle of Idistaviso, in the Valley of the Maidens.'22

For Pilate, it seems, that day provided the supreme test of his courage; as later he dreams of further conversation with the vagrant philosopher whom he has reluctantly condemned to death, he reflects that

'The present procurator of Judea, and former tribune of the legion, had not been a coward back then, in the Valley of the Maidens, when the furious Germans had almost hacked Ratkiller the Giant to pieces.'23

Tacitus (Ann. 2.16--18) is our only source for the battle of Idistaviso, 24 fought in 16 AD, in the course of the campaign by which Germanicus sought to extend Roman rule to the Elbe. It forms the culmination of a section of narrative immensely rich in colour and human interest, the commanders on both sides memorable and attractive figures. 2s

We know nothing of Pilate's career before he became Governor of Judaea26; his participation in Germanicus' campaign is as much Bulgakov's own invention as Mark Ratkiller himself. These reminiscences of service in the armies of the Rhine under an immensely popular commander encourage us to contrast the moral simplicities of conflict against the noble savages of the northern forests with the complexities of maintaining Roman rule in an ancient city simmering with religious fanaticism and futile nationalism. 27

Bulgakov thus evokes a Tacitean atmosphere for a narrative set in a period for which the relevant books of the Annals failed to survive; these echoes of the sober historian increase our confidence in Woland's strange account of events. Pilate's physi- cal courage is thus established; but Yeshua's arrest exposes him to a different kind of danger. Bulgakov gives substance to the Jewish argument against dismissing the accu- sation (John 19, 12): 'And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him; but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend." The implica- tions of being deemed not to be Caesar's friend emerge with ghastly clarity from

22. Ch. 2, p. 20; 444; 29. 23. Ch. 26, p. 272; 735; 310. 24. Tacitus offers no explanation for the toponym; Bulgakov's gloss, 'Valley of the Maidens,'

derives ultimately from Jacob Grimm's discussion of the form idisi (= nymphae) in his publi- cation of the Merseburg Charms (Abh. Akad. Berlin 1842, 5f.), though presumably he got this detail, like much else, from the Brockhaus-Efron Encyclopaedia : see Elbaum, op. cit. (n. 8) 87n. 11.

25. Cf. F.R.D. Goodyear, Tacitus (Oxford, 1970), 23: 'In describing the campaigns of Germanicus, Tacitus pulls out all the stops. There is accumulation of colourful and heightened expres- sion, under the influence of poetry, and the tone in general is romantic and heroic . . . . Tacitus seems more emotionally involved in warfare in Germany and Britain than elsewhere.'

26. See RE xx 1 (1950) col. 1322 f. s.v. Pilatus (E. Fascher); L6monon op. cit. (n. 14); Schfirer, op. cit. (n. 20), 383-387.

27. See also the excellent discussion by Elbaum, op. cit. (n. 8) 60, 79.

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Tacitus' account of Tiberius' reign, over which, it seems, the operation of the law relating to maiestas minuta, the diminution of the dignity of the Roman people, and by extension of its representatives, cast a pervasive and deeply destructive blight.

The theme is memorably introduced in Tacitus' narrative of 15 AD, the second year of Tiberius' reign (Ann. 1.72-.74.6) 28. Moving from individual to stereotype, Tacitus highlights the pernicious effects of the lack of any system of public prosecution; Tiberius' failure to curb malicious prosecutions greatly enhanced the dangers inherent in the vague formulation of the maiestas law (cf. Ann. 4.30).

Bulgakov's narrative does not labour the pervasive insecurity created by the pro- liferation of treason-trials catalogued by Tacitus, but his Tacitean allusions are clearly meant to evoke the accusandi frequens et paene publica rabies (the common and almost universal mania for bringing charges [of treason]) (Seneca, De beneficiis 3. 26.1) which to a contemporary witness characterized the period. The uncertain scope and opera- tion of the maiestas law and its potential for extension by interpretation were bound to produce effects out of all proportion to the numbers of those actually convicted under it. If we fail to take Bulgakov's hint, Pilate will appear more pusillanimous than was surely intended.

To the procurator, disturbed by the gravity of the charges which Yeshua had incurred by his misguided combination of idealism and naivet6 and tormented by severe migraine, 29 there comes a brief vision of the Emperor:

He seemed to see the prisoner's head float off somewhere, and another head appear in its place. On top of this bald head was a gold crown with widely-spaced points. On the forehead was a round sore, eating away at the skin and smeared with ointment. The mouth was sunken and toothless, with a capricious and protruding lower lip. 3~

Compare Tacitus' description of Tiberius in 26 (Ann. 4.57):

Erant qui crederent in senectute corporis quoque habitum pudori fuisse: quippe iUi praegracilis et incurva proceritas, nudus capillo vertex, ulcerosa facies ac plerumque medicaminibus interstincta. (Some believed that in old age his physical ap- pearance caused him shame. Abnormally thin and tall, bent and bald, he had a face pitted with ulcers and generally patched with plasters.) 31

28. See further F.R.D. Goodyear, The Annals of Tacitus ii: Annals 1. 55-81 and Annals 2 (Cam- bridge, 1981), 141-66, where further bibliography may be found.

29. Presumably Bulgakov introduced Pilate's migraine in order to make visual and auditory hallucinations plausible, not just to provide scope for demonstrating Yeshua's therapeutic gifts. The condition is described by Galen (De compositione medicarnentorum secundum locos ii c. 3 [387]; 12.591-3 Kiihn), whose recommended treatment inspires no more confidence than the prescriptions of the magical papyri (e.g. Papyri Graecae Magicae, ed. K. Preisendartz, i [Leipzig / Berlin, 1931l 7.199-202; H.D. Betz (ed.), The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation [Chicago / London, 1986, 19922 (repr. 1996)], 121).

30. Ch. 2, p. 21; 445; 30. 31. Lesley Milne (Mikhail Bulgakov: A Critical Biography [Cambridge, 1990], 234) is no doubt

right in suggesting that Bulgakov owed the idea of Pilate's vision to his reading of F.W. Farrar's Life of Christ (London, 1897), which evokes a similar response in Pilate when faced

480 International Journal of the Classical Tradition /Spring 1997

Bulgakov presents the threat of prosecut ion wi th equal vividness: "And some- thing strange had happened to his hear ing too--- t rumpets seemed to be sound ing softly and menacingly in the distance and a nasal voice was clearly heard , haught i ly intoning the words, "The law pertaining to insults to the sovereign . . . . -,32 "Exercendas leges esse" ( ' the laws must be enforced') , Tiberius ' reponse consultante Pompeio Macro praetore an iudicia maiestatis redderentur (when Pompeius Macer as prae tor asked h im whe ther cases of treason should be admit ted for trial) (Ann. 1.72), still echoes in the Procurator ' s memory ; Pilate expects no recognit ion of his efforts as a loyal adminis t ra- tor in a difficult area 33 if he seems to condone Yeshua's views about state author i ty , harmless as they might appear, since no date is indicated for the t ime ' " w h e n ne i ther the powe r of the Caesars, nor any other kind of p o w er will exist. Man will enter the k ingdom of t ruth and justice, where no such pow er will be necessary. ,,,34

The next chapter of the Jerusalem narrat ive (ch. 16: 'The Execution') relates the poe t Bezdomny ' s d ream about the inept a t tempts of Yeshua's sole, ra ther incompeten t disciple, the ex-tax-collector Levi Matvei, 3s to shorten his guru ' s sufferings. We re turn to a Tacitean wavelength with the most substantial section of the Jerusalem narra t ive (Ch. 25: 'How the Procurator tried to save Yehudah of Kerioth' ; Ch. 26: "The Burial '), where we find that we are now reading the Master 's novel, consigned by its au thor to the furnace bu t p roduced by Woland (from a pile of manuscr ip ts on which Behemoth, with a cat 's sure instinct for interesting li terary material, is sitting) with the conf ident assertion that ' "Manuscr ipts don ' t burn" ' . 36

A leading role in this section is p layed by Pilate's infallibly efficient chief of the secret service. He is briefly ment ioned in the first instalment of the Jerusalem narra- tive, where Pilate, after confirming the death sentence on Yeshua, has a brief conversa- tion 'in a darkened room, shut tered against the sun, meet ing wi th a m an whose face was half-covered by a hood, even though the sun's rays could not possibly have bo thered h im in that room. ,37 The same cowled man quiet ly supervises the crucifixion, until he has assured himself that all three victims are dead. N o w he reports to Pilate.

with this dilemma (607): 'He thought of Tiberius, the aged, gloomy Emperor, then hiding at Capreae his ulcerous features.' But Bulgakov surely intended the passage to be seen as an allusion to Tacitus.

32. Ch. 2; p. 21; 445 f.; 30. 33. The fact that he continued in office for a decade (26-36) implies that at Rome he was not

thought to be doing a bad job. The loss of Annals 7-10 may have deprived us of Tacitus' assessment of his governorship.

34. Ch. 2, p. 22; 447; 33. 35. Matthew in Matthew (9. 9), Levi in Mark (2. 14) and Luke (5. 27); the ex-tax-collector could

have had two names, but several other explanations have been advanced. When he is first introduced to us, he is apparently making a disastrously inaccurate record of Yeshua's words: '"There's someone who follows, follows me around everywhere, always writing on a goatskin parchment. And once I happened to see the parchment and was aghast. Abso- lutely nothing that was written there did I ever say."' (Ch. 2, p. 16; 439; 24). At this point we may be tempted to think of the tradition, reported by Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, writing between c. 120 and c. 138, that 'Matthew compiled the sayings (logia) in the Hebrew lan- guage and each one (of the gospel-writers) translated them as he could" (Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 3.39.15). But what we learn of the contents of Matvei's parchment in ch. 26 (p. 279; 744 f.; 319) is not to be found in the Gospels.

36. Ch. 24, p. 245; 703; 278 f. 37. Ch. 2, p. 29; 455; 39 f.

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We are offered a detailed description of this admirable officer as Pilate observes him at supper:

The man who had appeared before Pilate was middle-aged, with a very pleasant, round, well-groomed face with a fleshy nose. His hair was of indeterminate color. Now as it dried, it grew lighter. It would have been hard to guess the visitor's nationality. The main thing that defined his face was probably its good-natured expression, an expression belied, however, by his eyes, or, more precisely, not by the eyes themselves, but by the way the visitor looked at his interlocutor. Usually the visitor concealed his small eyes beneath their somewhat odd, puffy-looking lids. A benign slyness shone in the slits of his eyes when he did this. One had to suppose that the procurator's guest was a man inclined to humor. But the humor gleaming in the slits of his eyes would occasionally be banished, when the present guest of the procurator would open his eyelids wide and stare suddenly and directly at his interlocutor, as if he were trying to locate some imper- ceptible spot on his nose. This would last only for a moment, after which his eyelids would drop again, the slits would reappear, and they would shine again with the same good will and sly intelligence. 38

Having satisfied himself that the execution has passed off without disturbance Pilate gives orders for the immediate, secret interment of the three men crucified and then indicates, somewhat obliquely, a further, even more demanding, assignment for his subordinate. Judas of Kerioth, who had laid the information fatal to Yeshua, must be dealt with before the night is out, and the money paid for his act of betrayal returned to Kaifa the High Priest; all this must be done in such a manner that the assassination appears to be the work of Yeshua's 'secret friends'.

Discrepancies between the report given to Pilate and the earlier narrative suggest that we may be meant to understand that the secret service chief is manipulating the Procurator in accordance with an agenda of his own. Certainly Pilate so veils his wishes regarding Judas Iscariot that we must admire the acute intelligence with which his agent penetrates the veil of dissimulatio to discern what his superior actually wants done.

We do not learn the name of Pilate's subordinate until towards the end of this interview, 39 as Pilate seeks further information about Judas:

'Has he perhaps one particular passion?' 'It's hard to have precise knowledge of everyone in this vast city, Procura tor . . . 'Oh, no, no, Afranius! Don't underestimate your talents. '4~

English readers have not been well served with the transliteration of this name, and it is good to see that the new translation gets it right. Glenny's bizarre Arthanius

38. Ch. 25, p. 258; 718; 293 f. 39. Such delay in introducing the name stimulates our curiosity and greatly increases its effect

when it is at last given; on this device see Alistair Fowler, Kinds of Literature: an introduction to the theory of genres and modes (Oxford, 1982), 82.

40. Ch. 25, p. 262; 723; 298.

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( introduced at an earlier point in the conversation) is impenetrable. 41 Ginsburg offers the misleadingly Greek-looking Aphranius. 42 It is sad to observe that even critics who adopt the correct transliteration seem reluctant to adver t to its merits. Since it is gener- ally agreed not only that Bulgakov gave much thought to his characters" names, 43 but also that Afranius is a key figure in the Jerusalem narrative, 44 this indifference to the or thography of his name might be thought surprising.

Its associations deserve scrutiny. It is not so common that it wou ld be likely to occur at r andom to a writer s imply seeking Roman colour, 45 and it is fair to assume that Bulgakov's choice is significant. The Praetorian Prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus, cast for a leading role in Tacitus' account of Nero 's reign, is usual ly k n o w n by his cognomen; but at his first appearance Tacitus introduces him more formally, emphasis ing his mil i tary reputat ion and experience (Ann. 12.42), Burrum Afranium, egregiae milifaris famae 46 ('Burrus Afranius, of outs tanding mili tary distinction') (cf. 13.2 Afranius Burrus). Elbaum suggested that he was the prototype for Bulgakov's Afranius, 47 bu t d id not explore the point further; the persistent insouciance regarding the transliteration of this name indicates that his work tends to be overlooked. I think we are meant to identify the secret service chief as the future Praetorian Prefect, for five years after Claudius ' death Seneca's partner in controlling the y o u n g emperor and manag ing the empire (Ann. 13.2):

hi rectores imperatoriae iuventae et (rarum in societate potentiae) concordes, diversa arte ex aequo pollebant, Burrus militaribus curis et severitate morum, Seneca praeceptis eloquentiae et comitate honesta, iuvantes in vicem, quo facilius lubricam principis aetatem, si virtutem aspernaretur, voluptatibus concessis retinerent. (These men, as the young emperor 's advisors, in a ha rmony rare w h e n power is shared, with very different qualities, exercised equal influence. Burrus ' au- thority rested on his mili tary focus and his austere character, Seneca's on his guidance in public speaking and on his high-principled affability. They

41. It is adopted, without discussion, by Edward E. Ericson, The Apocalyptic Vision of Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" (Lewiston, N.Y., 1991), 76, 80-82.

42. Favoured by, inter alios, Barratt (op. cit. [n. 3], viii), who draws attention to, but does not explain, his preference for this form over simple transliteration as Afrany. David M. Bethea is evidently undecided: see The Shape of Apocalypse in Modern Russian Fiction (Princeton, 1989), 190 (Aphranius), 209 f., 217 (Afranius). Milne, op. cit. (n. 31), produces a further variation, Athranius.

43. See further Barratt, op. cit. (n. 3), 118-23. 44. See further R.W.F. Pope, 'Ambiguity and meaning in The Master and Margarita: The role of

Afranius', Slavic Review 36 (1977), 1-24. 45. The only entry under Afranius in the Brockhaus-Efron Encyclopaedia concerns the second-

century Bc comic poet. 46. A much discussed phrase. The Vasio inscription (Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae [= ILS] 1321)

recording the various stages of his career before he became praetorian prefect shows that he must have spent at least twenty-two years in administrative and (civilian) financial positions: see further M.T. Griffin, Seneca: a philosopher in politics (Oxford, 1976), 82 n. 5. On Tacitus' portrayal of Burrus (to whom he was more amicably disposed than might appear justified by the facts which he reports) see Sir Ronald Syme, Tacitus (Oxford, 1958), 314, 623; D. Gillis, 'The portrait of Afranius Burrus in Tacitus' Annals', Parola del Passato 18 (1963), 5-22.

47. Op. cit. (n. 8), 80.

West 483

co-operated in controlling the emperor's youthful waywardness, so that if he rejected virtue he might be restrained by means of permissible plea- sures.) 48

The use of the nomen instead of the more familiar cognomen would be thoroughly in keeping with Bulgakov's defamiliarizing treatment of well-known names in the Jerusa- lem narrative.

Bulgakov's Afranius has served for fifteen years in Judaea, beginning under Valerius Gratus, the commander of the royal infantry during Varus' governorship of Syria (Josephus, Jewish War 2.58); 49 his career would thus offer a suitable basis for the military distinction which Tacitus ascribes to Burrus. We notice also that promotion and transfer are in prospect for Afranius. s~ The cold-blooded eficiency with which, after a demanding day's work, he organizes Judas' assassination (ch. 26) 51 strikingly parallels the clear-headed and ruthless pragmatism, combined with a talent for impro- visation, by which Burrus brought to a successful conclusion Nero's bungled plot to destroy his mother (to whom Burrus had owed his position as Praetorian Prefect [Ann. 12.42, cf. 13.20]). There too a plan has to be formulated in haste and at night (Ann. 14.7); the episode must owe much to Tacitus' powers of imaginative reconstruction.

We should, however, face a possible objection to this identification. Burrus in 55 could be described by the now hostile Agrippina as trunca manu (Ann. 13.14). The description of Afranius quoted above indicates a convenient lack of any characteristic likely to impress itself on the memory of a casual observer; and indeed, a mutilated, or deformed, hand would appear to be a grave disadvantage in Afranius' job. Injury rather than deformity is obviously more consistent with a distinguished military ca- reer; if Bulgakov's Afranius is indeed destined to command the Praetorian Guard, we may suppose that a wound affecting his hand is yet to come.

But whether or not Pilate's subordinate is the future Praetorian Prefect (and it seems highly characteristic of the novel that this interesting identification should be suggested but not conclusively established), Bulgakov surely owed the name to Tacitus, and its associations add to the interest of his narrative. Certainly his Afranius has much more in common with his Tacitean namesake than his Yeshua has with Jesus of the Gospels. We may suspect that his presentation of the relationship between Afranius and Pilate owes something to that between Sejanus (another Praetorian Prefect) and Tiberius, as Tacitus portrays it.

Intertextuality is an essential element in The Master and Margarita. For the Jerusa- lem narrative discussion has tended to concentrate on Bulgakov's sources of informa- tion rather than on the literary resonances set in play. In his use of Tacitus he may have taken for granted in his readers a greater familiarity than was common by the time the novel was published.

It needed no peculiar insight to see a dreadful similarity between Stalin's regime

48. 49. 50. 51.

See also Ann. 13.6; 14.51; Cassius Dio 61.4. 2. Ch. 26, p. 273; 737; 312. Ch. 25, p. 261; 722; 297. Bulgakov thus resolves the problem created by the conflicting accounts of Judas' death given in Matthew (27.5) and (more sensationally) Acts (1.18). We may compare his approach (ch. 2 p. 19; 443; 28) to the perplexities of the Palm Sunday narrative (Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19.28ff.; for a succinct discussion see D. Nineham, The Gospel of Mark [London, 1968], 291--4).

484 International Journal of the Classical Tradition /Spring 1997

and Tacitus' chronicle of political paranoia and degradation under the Julio-Claudians. "Never lose sight of Tacitus', the maxim of Herbert 's returning proconsul, is of wide application. Tacitus' concern with the restriction of literary expression (Ann. 4.34-5, Dialogus de Oratoribus 2-352) must have given his work a peculiar appeal to a writer who suffered as Bulgakov did repeated frustration over the performance of his plays and the publication of his other work. The deserved acclaim enjoyed by his posthu- mously published masterpiece well exemplifies the soundness of Tacitus' comment on the ineffectiveness of official attempts to suppress the writings of Cremutius Cordus (Ann. 4.35):

Libros per aedilis cremandos censuere patres; set manserunt occultati et editi, quo magis socordiam eorum inridere libet qui praesenti potentia credunt extingui posse etiam sequentis aevi memoriam, nam contra punitis ingeniis gliscit auctoritas, neque aliud externi reges aut qui eadem saevitia usi sunt nisi dedecus sibi atque illis gloriam peperere, s3 (The senate resolved that his books should be burnt by the aediles; but they survived, concealed and later published. It is satis- fying to deride the stupidity of those who suppose that remembrance in a later age can be stifled by the present exercise of power. For, on the con- trary, when talent is repressed its influence increases, nor have foreign rulers and others who have imitated their brutality achieved anything ex- cept disgrace for themselves and renown for their victims.)

Was this passage the inspiration of Woland's confidence that '"Manuscripts don' t burn"'?

52. The relevance to a writer in pre-Gorbachevian Russia of the discussion of Maternus' Cato emerges very clearly from the observations of Vasily Rudich, op. cit. (n. 1), xxxi f.

53. Syme, op. cit. (n. 46), 517 saw here a warning to Hadrian.