People are either searching for new truths or frantically striving to nail down the old ones. This is a time of tremendous religious upheaval. Q: Do you think such a story-a novel of the 1st Century-has relevancy today?Ī: Very much so. All we know is that she was of the patrician class, the ambitious knight, Pontius Pilate, a social tier below her. Matthew would have referred to it in his gospel. If Claudia's connection to royalty was this close, St. Subsequent writers have embroidered on his conjecture but I find it highly unlikely. It was his plot device that she was the Emperor Augustus's illegitimate granddaughter. Frank Slaughter, a historical novelist of the 1950s, wrote briefly of Pontius Pilate's wife. Soon Claudia and I were on our own.Ī: Only that the name, Claudia, identifies her as a member of the Claudian dynasty-at that time the ruling family of Rome. But the woman herself eluded me.įor the first time, conventional biography felt constraining. Then, steeped in the history, art, philosophy, literature, architecture and mythology of the time, I visited the remains of Claudia's world in Rome, Turkey, Egypt and the Holy Land. First, six years in the classics department at Stanford studying the 1st Century worlds of Rome and Judaea. The project began in earnest in 1992.Ī: Pilate's Wife began that way. Years later, a Stanford class in Roman culture brought it together. Who was this seer with a dream so powerful that she sought to change the course of history? Well, we've all done that sometime! I was far more intrigued by a random reference to Pilate's visionary wife, Claudia. The gist of that Easter homily was Pontius Pilate "washing his hands" of a difficult situation.
A half remembered sermon I heard as a teenager continues to tug at my imagination. Why this sudden plunge into historical fiction?Ī: It really isn't so sudden.
Q: You've achieved creative and financial success as a biographer profiling a wide variety of subjects. Q & A With Antoinette May on Pilate's Wife Pilates Wife, an interview of Antoinette May Pilate's Wife, a Novel
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