In Rome, standing naked on a plinth in the slave market could be a gruesome experience, but there were degrees of indignity. Amaranta, who was attractive, and Olympe, who would undoubtedly be advertised as an exotic virgin, must feel trepidation, but the rest were house-trained, well-kept, healthy specimens, and Chrysodorus was educated. A decent trader would emphasise their qualities. He would treat them well, make them look smart and obedient, so they appealed to discerning buyers who wanted useful assets. For most of those slaves, the chance of ending up in a worse home was balanced equally by that of ending up somewhere better.

‘No more uncertain and dangerous than getting yourself married!’ as Galla put it. We were all rather silly by that point.

Not too silly for me to wonder, ‘Did the killer of Aviola and Mucia then kill Nicostratus? The story goes he was attacked first, by the robbers as they burst in. That depends on robbers being here, and on them committing the murders. Suppose this: suppose everything was, as the vigilis Titianus always said, an inside job. The stranglings came first. Then came the plank attack on the porter. Perhaps the killer tried to leave and Nicostratus got in the way – on purpose even, since no one has ever suggested he was incompetent. The rope had been left behind around Mucia Lucilia’s neck, so another weapon was needed.’ I thought of a quibble. ‘Mind you, in any apartment that had been used for a wedding yesterday and was decorated up for a dinner party tonight, why would a plank of wood be lying around?’

‘Oh, some homes are very untidy!’ sniffed Galla Simplicia, eagerly disparaging this one that had ceased to be hers.

‘Not with my husband in charge!’ Graecina corrected her. She spoke with the tight, demure manner of a woman who had been resolutely drinking even more than the rest of us. I blamed the pain from her scalds for that.

We all sat silent for a time, in deference to the late Polycarpus. We were drunk, but nonetheless capable of good manners.

49

We passed through a period of silence. No one was drinking now. We had speculated ourselves to a standstill, at least temporarily.

We were women completely at ease with each other. We could have been going to the same baths at the same hour for the past twenty years. We could all have been mothers, or more likely grandmothers, watching small children perform in a rustic masque – criticising the costumes other women had made and making lewd cracks about the musicians. That hand drum player is fit. Hair too long, but a wicked look. He can patter me up and down any day he likes …