Gaia, a slave girl in the Norbanus house

Quintus, steward of the Norbanus house

*TITUS Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus, patrician

Ennia, his housekeeper

*Celsus, a consul

*Palma, a consul

*Gaius Avidius Nigrinus, a governor of Dacia

ROMAN SOLDIERS AND THEIR FAMILIES

Vercingetorix, called VIX, bodyguard, legionary, and former gladiator

*SIMON ben Cosiba, legionary

MIRAH, his niece

Dinah and Chaya, her daughters

Boil, legionary

Julius, legionary

Philip, legionary

*Lusius Quietus, Berber cavalry commander

ROMAN CITIZENS AND SUBJECTS

DEMETRA, a bakehouse cook in Moguntiacum

*ANTINOUS, her son

*Decebalus, King of Dacia, rebel against Rome

Bassus, under-secretary to Empress Plotina

*Phaedimus, Imperial freedman

* denotes real historical figure

Mistress of Rome

Turn the page for an excerpt from

MISTRESS OF ROME

Available in paperback
from Berkley Books

THEA

Rome, September A. D. 81

I opened my wrist with one firm stroke of the knife, watching with interest as the blood leaped out of the vein. My wrists were latticed with knife scars, but I still found the sight of my own blood fascinating. There was always the element of danger: After so many years, would I finally get careless and cut too deep? Would this be the day I watched my young life stream away into the blue pottery bowl with the nice frieze of nymphs on the side? The thought much brightened a life of minimum excitement.

But this time it was not to be. The first leap of blood slowed to a trickle, and I settled back against the mosaic pillar in the atrium, blue bowl in my lap. Soon a pleasant haze would descend over my eyes and the world would take on an agreeably distant hue. I needed that haze today. I would be accompanying my new mistress to the Colosseum, to see the gladiatorial games for the accession of the new Emperor. And from what I’d heard about the games…

“Thea!”

My mistress’s voice. I muttered something rude in a combination of Greek, Hebrew, and gutter Latin, none of which she understood.

The blue bowl held a shallow cup of my blood. I wrapped my wrist in a strip of linen, tying off the knot with my teeth, then emptied the bowl into the atrium fountain. I took care not to drip on my brown wool tunic. My mistress’s eagle eyes would spot a bloodstain in half a second, and I would not care to explain to her exactly why, once or twice a month, I took a blue bowl with a nice frieze of nymphs on the side and filled it with my own blood. However, fairly speaking, there was very little that I would care to tell my mistress at all. She hadn’t owned me long, but I already knew that.

“Thea!”