“Don’t worry, I’m taking good care of your favorite girl.” Hadrian had no great interest in the comforts of his slaves, but nothing was too much for his dogs. He’d brought the whole pack with him to Germania, insisting there would be good hunting outside Moguntiacum, and they loped grinning and happy behind his big horse—all but the graying bitch who he insisted was too old to run the whole journey, and consequently rode in luxury with Sabina. Most men would have had her knocked on the head as soon as she couldn’t hunt, Sabina thought. But Hadrian stood tweaking fondly at the old dog’s ears as her tail thumped the furs, and every evening he brought her the choice bones from the evening’s meat. “I promise I’m looking after her,” Sabina reassured her husband. “Do you want breakfast? Looks like we’ve got a halt before the next river crossing.”

Outside the wagon, Sabina heard the cheerful bustle of their journeying party: the ox drovers swearing at their beasts; the young tribunes boasting and spurring their horses back and forth; the slaves dashing in search of food, cloaks, anything to keep their masters comfortable. The sky was gray and the road puddled, but their party of northbound officers, officials, and soldiers was cheerful and noisy. “Bread, honey, and grapes,” Sabina said as the slave entered and began laying the cups and plates. “Your usual.”

Hadrian’s breakfast had to be arranged just so—new-baked bread, the crust not too dark; grapes in a cluster (never a bowl); and just a thimble of honey. Exactly the same whether he was breakfasting at home in their house on the Palatine Hill, here on the road halfway between Rome and Moguntiacum, or anywhere in between. On the day he landed in Hades, Sabina thought with amusement, her husband would demand that Charon the Ferryman bring him his bread, his grapes, and his honey. Half the baggage on this lengthy northbound train of wagons and mules was Hadrian’s: the books he could not do without, the slaves essential for his comfort, the dogs and horses and bits of Greek sculpture… “And they say women pack too much!” Sabina teased him. “I was ready to leave with a trunk of clothes and a few books!”

“I may wish to see the world,” Hadrian said primly, “but not without my library.”