How It All Started . . .

EARTHQUAKE STRIKES ITALIAN COAST

(AP) A moderate earthquake, measuring about 6.3 on the Richter scale, struck the coast of Italy last night, according to the Italian Geological Bureau.  The epicenter of the quake was approximately a mile off the coast of the scenic Isle of Capri, once a resort of Roman emperors, and now a popular tourist destination.  No tsunami warnings were issued, and only minor damage has been reported thus far.  No injuries have been reported.

 

April 12, 20XX - I heard this story on the news before Dad and I went fishing this morning, and thought nothing of it.  A minor quake on the other side of the ocean with no casualties.  It had nothing to do with me, right?  I had just spent a year excavating a site in the Biblical city of Ephesus that purported to be the tomb of the apostle John (I’ll save you reading a very dry site report and tell you right now it was 100 years too early to belong to any of Jesus’ apostles!) and had come home to spend some time with my parents before returning to Turkey to finish my work in the fall.

   We were fishing on Lake Hugo when the call came through from my old mentor and dissertation advisor, Dr. Luke Martens.  Doc Martens, as we all called him behind his back, was a world-class Biblical archeologist who had stunned us all the year before when he married Alicia Guthrie, a marine biology major about sixteen years younger than he was!  (I think the academic divergence was even more shocking to us archeology grad students than the age difference, to tell you the truth.)  He had suffered a broken leg in a ski accident and was in traction when he called me, explaining that he had just refused an opportunity to take part in a salvage dig on Capri, where the earthquake had uncovered some remarkable Roman era relics. He had taken the liberty of recommending me to the Italian Bureau of Antiquities as a substitute, if I was willing to leave immediately!

  I have always been fascinated with the Roman Republic and Empire, and he knew that.  The Isle of Capri was the site of extensive ruins dating to the time of Rome’s earliest emperors, and had been dug extensively in ancient and modern times.  But it sounded like all those other antiquarians had missed something – Martens couldn’t tell me exactly what all had been found, but he did know that at least one intact papyrus scroll written by the Emperor Tiberius himself had already been uncovered!  Well, with a teaser like that, I was as hooked as the catfish we had been catching.

  He texted me the number of Dr. Bernardo Guioccini, the Bureau’s Chief Archeologist, and I called the number from right in the middle of Lake Hugo.  The man’s English was passable, and he seemed relieved that I had called so quickly.  After a ten minute conversation, Dad and I were headed back to the boat ramp, and eight hours later, here I am on an airplane bound for Naples, Italy, after a layover in Rome.

   I had time to run up to my Dad’s library and grab my copy of Suetonius’ “Lives of the Twelve Emperors” before we headed out, and I have been reading about Tiberius as we make our way across the dark Atlantic.  He is not as well-known as his adoptive father Augustus or his vile nephew and heir, Caligula, but he was a major figure nonetheless – the second true Emperor of Rome, and the man who was in power during the public ministry and trial of Jesus Christ.  I wonder if the old Emperor, in the lonely splendor of the Villa Jovis on Capri, ever heard of the wonder-working carpenter from Nazareth?  Tiberius died in 37 AD, when Christianity was still in its infancy, so the answer is probably no.  But the prospect of seeing a letter in the hand of the man who ruled the Roman Empire when Christ walked the earth has me wide-eyed on this long flight, unable to shut my brain down long enough to get some rest.  Tomorrow, I will get to see the site for myself.

In the meantime, here is a photograph of the ruins of the Villa Jovis on Capri that I found online.