He was right. Holding an oil jar or a comb that last experienced human contact millennia ago was shaking an ancient hand – that moisturiser jar introduced me to a Roman woman who glanced over the rim, making eye contact through the centuries, as Marco did through the screen. Her fingers dipped into the jar before she passed it to me and, separated only by time, I dipped my own.

We’d handed that jar to the museum sponsoring the excavation, of course. No matter how much I’d wanted to maintain that sense of connection, keeping it was not a choice I had. Afterwards, I’d combed Roman antiquities markets for a jar similar to the one I lost. Eventually, I found one and paid far more than it was worth. It hadn’t satisfied me. But now I had an entire collection of attempts to connect with other people, stored in my cabinet and inspired by my first Roman purchase, illicitly brought back to Australia despite Italy’s laws about exporting antiquities. I loved all my things, despite the shameful way I’d acquired them.

‘I remember,’ he said. ‘The curator labelled it as being for cosmetics although we were never sure. I don’t even know what Nero was trying to build here. A monument to self-glory? Was he trying to atone for the fire or was it something else?’ He leaned sideways, then returned to view with a small bronze bust. ‘We found this. In an area of the site where we aren’t officially digging yet. What do you think? Could it be Nero?’

Close to his camera, he rotated the bust with his fingertips, displaying Nero’s profile moving as if he were turning to approach me at a party. He looked stern, imperial. Marco continued twisting it. I jumped. Nero’s expression had changed – his whole attitude. Now he looked full of malice, upper lip curled into a sneer. Cruel. Why? Even with a stone statue, nearly two thousand years old, you could never really know someone.

‘It looks like Nero to me,’ I said. ‘In his second phase. Judging by his hairstyle.’

‘These things might be scattered through the Domus Aurea.’

Marco continued describing the palace’s once-white marble rooms – their mosaic floors and ceilings, a huge bronze statue merging the psychopathic emperor into the sun god Sol. In my own burned world, it was vaguely preposterous. Caleb stomped into the room and out again. Marco paused, puzzled by my silence. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m worried about Caleb.’

Marco lifted his hands; he couldn’t help me there. He knew nothing about children.

Keep yourself safe, Marco signed off.

A few minutes later, an email came through from him: Plus ça change. Remember Cicero sent his son Marcus to university to study philosophy but Marcus partied a lot instead. Caleb will grow up and get over whatever this is.