The motives of women who had unsanctioned romantic relationships were, predictably enough, portrayed by male writers as springing from uncontrollable lust. We have very few examples of women speaking about love in their own voices, but one rare example is the poet Sulpicia. Whether she is describing a real or fictional affair, it is marked that Sulpicia acknowledges the expectation that she should feel shame at a sexual relationship, but she rejects this, telling her lover: “I’m proud we’re joined, each worthy of the other.”

No women were more sexualized than those living as slaves. A line of Pompeii graffiti boasts about the endemic abuse enslaved women endured: “Grab your slave-girl whenever you want; it’s your right to use her.” Perhaps it’s fitting that it’s also through Pompeii’s graffiti that we can also hear the surviving words of a “slave-girl” speaking for herself: “Methe, slave-girl of Cominia, from Atella, loves Chrestus. May Pompeian Venus be dear to both of them and may they always live in harmony.” I find this graffiti more touching than any other recorded in Pompeii. The tenderness of Methe’s expression is especially poignant given the harsh life a woman of her status would have endured.

Yet there are also limits to identifying with the mindset of ancient people. The recently discovered slave’s room gives us a sense of enslaved peoples’ material world, and their words give us some insight into their feelings, but much of their behavior remains alien. Former slaves went on to own and use others themselves, in spite of all they knew about the life. I imagined Amara experiencing some guilt over this, but many freed people must have bought—and abused—their fellow human beings without a qualm. Amara herself does not fundamentally question the institution of slavery, or her right to profit from it. Then again, perhaps this too is as much a modern trait as an ancient one. We still tolerate many forms of injustice because it is as hard for us, as it was for the Romans, to live outside the norms of our own time.

Methe and Chrestus died hundreds of years ago. We can never know what their lives were like, what they may have suffered, whether their relationship lasted, or how many days of happiness they enjoyed. All that survives of them is a woman’s expression of love. And perhaps that tells us enough.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS