Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita (1997) -
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the moment. The legate told him that the Sebasteans had cordoned off the
square in front of the hippodrome, where the sentencing of the criminals was
to be announced to the people.
Then the procurator ordered the legate to detach two centuries from the
Roman cohort. One of them, under the command of Ratslayer, was to convoy the
criminals, the carts with the implements for the execution and the
executioners as they were transported to Bald Mountain,[24] and
on arrival was to join the upper cordon. The other was to be sent at once to
Bald Mountain and immediately start forming the cordon. For the same
purpose, that is, to guard the mountain, the procurator asked the legate to
send an auxiliary cavalry regiment -- the Syrian ala.
After the legate left the balcony, the procurator ordered the secretary
to summon to the palace the president of the Sanhedrin, two of its members,
and the head of the temple guard in Yershalaim, adding that he asked things
to be so arranged that before conferring with all these people, he could
speak with the president previously and alone.
The procurator's order was executed quickly and precisely, and the sun,
which in those days was scorching Yershalaim with an extraordinary
fierceness, had not yet had time to approach its highest point when, on the
upper terrace of the garden, by the two white marble lions that guarded the
stairs, a meeting took place between the procurator and the man fulfilling
the duties of president of the Sanhedrin, the high priest of the Jews,
Joseph Kaifa.[25]
It was quiet in the garden. But when he came out from under the
colonnade to the sun-drenched upper level of the garden with its palm trees
on monstrous elephant legs, from which there spread before the procurator
the whole of hateful Yershalaim, with its hanging bridges, fortresses, and,