They looked at me as though I was demented if I had to ask.

I was ready to give up. This bar might seem a safe haven to a young man escaping two murderers, but as a watering hole it was deadly. If this was the best place to buy a drink where I lived, I would emigrate to Chersonesis Taurica, die in exile like Ovid at the back of beyond, yet still think I had the best of it.

Preparing to leave, I glanced around the dismal place, then had one last try: ‘I just can’t work out what a teacher from Rome would have been doing on this road in the first place. None of them earn enough for a summer villa on the coast. I don’t suppose “people around here” know why he came, do they?’

‘He was coming to Antium to be interviewed for a holiday job.’

‘Is that right!’

To my amazement, it turned out to be well known in those parts just which wealthy villa owner had summoned him. Incredibly, the rich man still had the same villa.

I never met the prospective employer, but it was unnecessary. He was the type who, faced with a potential hire who had come to grief, insisted that full details of the man’s experience must be written down; in case Volusius tried to sue for compensation, presumably. A transcript still existed. I was shown it. They would not let me take it off the premises, but a scribe sat down and copied out the ten-year-old statement for me.

Volusius described meeting the man everyone now thought was Claudius Pius, who made friends and lured him off the road to meet his brother. Despite having no interest in weapons, the naïve young teacher found himself agreeing to accompany Pius. They went further than he expected, down extremely remote tracks, and he was already worried when they encountered the promised brother. This man was sinister. They met him in a clearing, as though he had been waiting. It made Volusius realise he had been deliberately stalked. He knew he had been brought here for evil reasons.

Volusius had made a terrible mistake. Although he felt he was about to be murdered, he managed not to show he understood his danger. Perhaps because there were two of them and they thought they could easily control him, the brothers were careless. Volusius broke away and managed to run off. Shaking with fear, he hid in a thicket for hours, overhearing a discussion about fetching a dog to track him down. As soon as he thought the men were out of earshot, he made a break for it, and ran until he reached the road and found the bar. The barkeeper at the time took him to safety at the villa where he had originally been heading.