Sharpie

"I don't see why she wouldn't be. She's patrician, born of patrician parents, my loyalty to the Augustus is without question - and they have to look somewhere for prospective wives, why not Calpurnia? They can hardly marry some foreign princess or something, it just wouldn't be - Roman." The scions of the Imperial family had married good senatorial girls before. They weren't Egyptian, to marry their own sisters (only look what sort of a mess that had led to, in the end!) "I'm not going to force her to marry someone she'll hate, or despise. Of course I don't want her to be unhappy - Juno willing, we'll find her someone who will treat her the way she wants to be treated, who will value her as I value you. Although I rather think our own method has given them ideas. Really, I should have held off and asked my father to ask your father, and do it all properly." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "She is growing up, but she is not yet a woman, unless you know something I don't - and when don't you? But talk with her - the sooner she begins to think about it and get used to the idea, the better. And if there's someone who's caught her eye, that would be good to know. Someone suitable - I don't want to hear that she's fallen for the kitchen skivvy or next door's house slave or anything of that sort." @Sara

Attis was not slow in taking the offered seat, aware that it was very few slaves who could ever claim to be privileged enough to be allowed to seat themselves on the same level as their masters. "I've got Metella back home, domine, she's all the girl I need." She'd probably rip his balls off and feed them to him if she learned he'd been spreading his favours around in Greece while she was stuck back in Italia. "And no, it wasn't. I mean, we both know you can, and we both like it well enough, but if you want a girl, who am I to argue about it?" A day and night to himself in Athens... Well, he might find himself a cute young man to spend the night with, and then again, he might be back here before sunset. "Thank you, domine." He didn't think there was much left to organise, though there was probably a whole lot of furniture to rearrange and his master's nerves to soothe - not that Lucius Cassius Longinus was exactly a nervy type of person, even when it came to hosting a dinner party. @Sara

"You're a good friend, Didia," he told her, and shrugged. "I don't know. You just... Didn't sound happy when you spoke of maybe being married, that's all." He was pretty sure that the majority of people in the city wouldn't be so insistent on cutting a slave in on the treasure they'd found, much less giving them equal shares in it. Though, to be fair, right now that was theoretical or hypothetical shares in a very real treasure. If they could buy the house, there would be no question about who owned it but as it was... "If you take two now, I'll take one, that's all I can reasonably manage to explain away later, I think." And one coin in the secret hoard he was saving was better than a hundred times his own value in gold under the floor of a deserted house. @Sara

Attis dropped into a squat by Longinus' feet. "Of course you're allowed to ask for a conversation, domine," he said. "Or anything else at all, for that matter." He didn't need Attis to tell him that, they were both products of the same society, though at vastly different ends of the social spectrum. Longinus was entitled to make any use of Attis that he wished, from mere conversation to slaking his needs in bed. "And no, you didn't, domine," he added in response to the next question. Days off had been mentioned, but Attis knew better than to push and hadn't raised the topic again. He was still a little wary after the past several weeks of dealing with Longinus' sadness and uncertain temper. @Sara

"There are a couple of nice young men within the Imperial family - Titus Flavius Caesar Alexander and Tiberius Claudius Sabucius. I'm not sure how old they are but they must both be closer in age to Calpurnia than you and I are to each other. Neither Lucius Cassius nor Titus Sulpicius have a son the right sort of age, though each of them has a daughter who could be considered for a wife for Titus. I doubt he will want to marry before he's held his first senatorial post, though." And if the discussion highlighted the difference in expectations placed on the men and the women in their society, Aulus was not thinking of that. "I'm open to other suggestions for a husband for Calpurnia, of course." @Sara

"I'm sure I wasn't getting moody," he said, and dropped a couple of coins in her lap. "There. So you can take that trip without anyone telling you that you can't!" His smile grew. He'd seen some of the insulae but never from up close, and his previous home had been a humble villa near the sea, with its own small farm around it, nothing like the huge sprawling estates his current master probably owned. The prospect of seeing an insula didn't worry him; it wasn't as if the part of the house inhabited by the slaves could compare with the fancy mosaics and fine frescoes of the public areas of the house, even if that's where Rufus spent most of his time while serving his master. "Whatever happens, Didia Nonia, I hope you're happy," he told her quietly. @Sara

Attis scrambled to his feet at the sound of his master's voice. He was habitually an early riser (something about being a slave to a military officer, probably!) and had come out to enjoy the early morning before everyone was awake, though there were clattering sounds coming from the direction of the kitchen. "No, domine - should I? I mean, I can if you want me to!" He didn't think his master had any plans for today, not until later, and the young woman he'd found was already making her exit. She surely didn't have to, not so early - Longinus could probably spend another hour or so with her without the world falling apart. "Did you want me for something, domine?" @Sara

Aulus sat back, crossing one leg over the other. "Whereas you have as much ambition as I have, to raise a good family and leave a legacy to Rome - in your own way, anyway. And I don't see why the Augustus and his wife would like to come for dinner in a private citizen's home, especially one he has described as a friend. If he would rather not, that's different - he can say no but I'd like to ask him." She was right about Titus, too, of course. "I'll tell Titus, he should know - it's about time we thought about giving him his toga virīlis, after all." Surely Horatia wasn't old enough to be mother to a son on the cusp of manhood! "I suppose I ought to start thinking about a husband for Calpurnia, too," he added. "Though I promise I don't intend to marry her off too soon, nor do I want to marry her to someone old enough to be her grandfather." Not his only daughter! He wanted Calpurnia to be happy in her marriage, as her mother was, but that needn't stop them thinking of suitable candidates. @Sara

"Well, if - when - I do, you'll be the first person I tell," he told her, with a shy smile. He held one of the coins up, looking at the portrait and inscription. It was at least a decade old, but gold was gold, and an aureus was worth quite a bit regardless of whose head was stamped on it. "They'll all think you're a fine rich lady, coming from Rome," he told her. "We'll take that trip - though you might end up with other people in your life who might not want you to, not with a nobody freedman." She'd said before that there wasn't really anybody she was interested in, not like that, but surely no man could leave her if he had a chance with her, and she should be allowed the chance of happiness in her life. He couldn't see her waiting until he was freed, somehow, even if she was interested in him in that way at all, which she probably wasn't - and he liked her too much as a friend to introduce awkwardness by asking her whether she'd consider him like that. The answer would have to be no, anyway, before he had his freedom. @Sara

"It's a long story. Or maybe it is isn't," Teutus said cryptically, and drank half of his first cupful of wine. "The long and the short of it is, I was born a slave, promised my freedom for years, finally got it, promised that I'd be made my father's heir - only he's a senator so it's not that easy. And he goes and gets another slave girl pregnant and she has a son. Who was declared freeborn this morning." He finished the cup and poured another. "If you want to find a happier person to talk with, I'm sorry I bothered you." Though it was Alexius who'd done the bothering, really. There was nothing anyone could do about it at all,and despite his promises to his father, Teutus felt like just finding work elsewhere not bothering to even return home tonight. Let Tertius be on the receiving end of a broken promise for once. See how he liked it! @Atrice

"We did. I wish things had happened differently, but we are here, and the past is the past." He managed to stroke her cheek with his knuckle before she sat back, removing her face from his reach. "I don't know," he said. "Unless you feel you can host a private dinner for him, and the Augusta? I'm a man of simple ideas, mel mī, unless you wish to wage a military campaign of some description." He laughed, but oh, she would be a fierce opponent when roused, if she had the opportunity to be - there were many reasons women couldn't have military or political careers, after all. The savagery of some barbarian women was breathtaking, he wouldn't wish to come up against a Horatia so roused in defense of her children and family. mel mī - my honey, my sweet @Sara

"There's not much point putting them back in that bag, not with the state it's in now," Rufus pointed out. "Though I don't suppose we'll be able to find anything better, that'll keep them together. Oh!" He shifted so that he could unwrap the pallium he was wearing. "This might do - and why don't you take one or two of them, for... for a rainy day?" He spread the cloth out and began heaping coins into it, many time his own worth pouring through his fingers and shining in the sunlight as he did so. @Sara

The other man - Alexius' - seemed friendly enough, even jovial. His joke made Teutus smile momentarily, as it was no doubt intended to. He supposed he did seem moody to the other man. He certainly felt moody, one reason he'd left the house, where his father was celebrating the birth of a son he could declare free right from the beginning without all the difficulties he faced when it came to Teutus himself. As if Teutus had chosen any of that at all, as if he wanted to be difficult, or to cause difficulties. "Teutus," he offered, without expanding on it and giving the three names he was entitled to as a freedman. He'd been simply 'Teutus' his whole life, why change that now, especially as it seemed not to make one iota of difference one way or the other whether he was free or not. He paused even as the other man sat down in what seemed to be a customary seat for him. "I don't see why you'd want to sit with me, though. I'm not likely to be the most cheerful of drinking companions." @Atrice

He didn't, particularly, mostly because he didn't want to pull the other man's mood down and was feeling far too morose about everything for his own mood to be improved much just by talking with a stranger. He shrugged. "I don't have any objections," he said. "Though you probably have better places to be than hanging around with someone in this sort of mood." He poured his first cup of wine. The other man had done the sensible thing and bought one cup and some food. Teutus was absolutely done with being sensible, at least for now. He'd been sensible all his life and just look where it had got him! @Atrice

It wasn't that long after Rufus had been accosted by Aglaea's master that he saw her again. He was waiting in line at a hot food stall while waiting for his master - the Senate was debating something dreadfully dull and boring that required the presence of the Emperor's brother but not of the Emperor's brother's redheaded body slave. He stepped out of the queue - really, he'd do better saving his money than spending it on whatever the food stall sold, that they claimed was actual food but was probably dead rat. "Aglaea!" @Echo

If slaves without masters were considered suspicious, then Rufus himself was a suspicious person, as were all the house slaves out buying groceries for their masters' dinners, and all the other slaves running various errands - surely there were more slaves out without their masters than there were slaves accompanying their masters to whatever appointments they had. As for anyone else, there were always foreigners gawping at the sights and street traders hawking their goods. Pickpockets worked such areas because the pickings would be good and the crowds meant they blended in. "It was a day like today, sir," Rufus said, by which he meant just as busy and noisy. "She said it was only a few sesterces, sir." Perhaps it hadn't been, perhaps it had been more and she hadn't wanted to tell Rufus that because she didn't know him. But if she'd been telling the truth, why was this Senator so obsessed with getting it back? Much better reconcile himself to the fact it was gone for good, and presumably to someone who needed it far more than the Senator did. @Járnviðr

"I wasn't planning on drinking it in one go," Teutus said, pouring himself the first cup of (hopefully) several. "There isn't enough wine in Rome, but a jugful will do for now." The other man was taller and better built than Teutus, though that wasn't too hard. He'd ordered food as well as a drink, which was probably a good idea, if Teutus were in the mood for good ideas, which he wasn't. Not ideas that would keep him sober longer than he wanted to be, anyway. Not that he was planning on getting so stupidly drunk he couldn't walk. @Atrice

31st August 75 after Teutus hadn't been able to face staying to see any more after Tertius had picked Charis' baby up and given him a name, and a legitimacy that Teutus would never have. He had wandered Rome for a while before finding himself outside a popina on the Via Lata. He had enough money on him for a drink or several. He wasn't about to drink himself senseless, but he definitely didn't want to stay sober. He could face up to his future later on, but right now he was hurting too badly. "I'll take a jug, thanks," he said to the proprietor, and sighed,shifting up a bit so as to make room for someone else to order as well. @Atrice

"I wouldn't think beer would travel as well as all that, and it's easy enough to brew, isn't it?" Davus asked. It tasted like the stuff he'd had back in Alexandria, but who knew whether it would taste that good here if it had been brewed there? Davus didn't know one iota about such things, he just enjoyed them when he had the chance to, which wasn't all that often, not really. "Doesn't the collar give it away?" he asked, probably about to completely embarrass the other man as he gestured to the tag hanging with his master's initials. "No, I haven't been back. I don't know if I want to or not - it's bound to have changed a lot." And going back would confront him head-on with lot of memories, not all of them good. If he didn't go back, he could pretend his mother was still there, singing her old songs as she ground grain into flour for bread. "I belong to a Senator. The money's terrible," he added, trying to lessen the other's potential embarrassment with a bad joke (he wasn't used to making those, either). @Liv

"Although, it's Cassius Longinus who's been the most cantankerous recently, and for good reason," Aulus said, and tilted his head to the side. "A decade? As much as that! It doesn't seem it, I'm sure I'm only thirty-four really. And... only one of the better ones, my sweet?" He could sit there forever, just looking at Horatia. He still had to pinch himself sometimes that he was married to a woman who was right for him in every respect. "I hope I've set your mind at ease, anyway," he told her, though she had smiled her old smile and looked suddenly ten years younger than she had. It had obviously been weighing heavily on her - understandably so, all things considered. @Sara

Teutus' initial plan was to look into importing and selling things in Rome - the place imported luxuries from all over the Empire, surely there was room for one more merchant to set up a trading business, probably travelling out to some of the further provinces to buy their goods there and ship them back to Italia to sell. It would take several people, of course, and he would have to select them carefully - perhaps beginning with a slave or two to do the selling here, maybe? He would have to think about it - that sort of venture would use all the secretarial skills he had learned over the past few years. "I will think about it, and let you know," he said, and shrugged, then shook his head. "I don't think I have anything else I need to say, no, Father." He had disappointed the older man, it was clear that he had - maybe it wouldn't be clear to anyone who hadn't spent years covertly watching the man's expressions to gauge his mood, but it was clear to Teutus. But Tertius was one of those people who wanted everyone to run according to some plan of his own, and he was always surprised when people turned out to have their own ideas and plans for their lives - if he wanted something, why wouldn't he ever come out and say it instead of making people guess and get it wrong? If he wanted to control Teutus so much, there was no need to have freed him. And even now, he could claim a paterfamilias' potestas, which he had over Teutus twice over by virtue of being both his father and his patron. He could veto any of Teutus' plans any time he wanted, and that made Teutus resentful too, though at the system rather than the man by the desk. This time, anyway. @Atrice

"I agree that Titus Sulpicius Rufus can be cantankerous, but he's hardly old," he informed her with a straight face. "A dinner is hardly an onerous thing, either, especially if they have some good entertainment. If we do have to host some unutterably dull Senators and their equally asinine wives, I promise I'll make it up to you!" He'd invite his friends, of course - they could always be relied on to lighten things up, though they would probably prefer a private dinner rather than something large and with the dull Senators that Horatia was envisioning. "Not all Senators are ancient and cantankerous - I'm not, am I?" He leaned his elbow on her desk and his chin on his hand, looking up into her face with a miscievous glint in his eye. @Sara

"I am sure," Aulus told her. "He has offered his support for the next year, in my bid for consul, and I have no reason to doubt his word. He has always been an honourable man, it's why he's had my support since that night - before it, even." Horatia would know exactly which 'that night' he meant; his fleeing under the cover of darkness was a night neither of them was likely to forget. "It would be good to be cautious, of course, but that is different from being fearful." He moved around her chair, so that he could see her face without her straining to look up at him, and giving them both an upside-down view of each other, then shrugged and pulled over a chair, sitting to put them on more of a level. "If anything was to happen, I would have sent you and Calpurnia to the Vestals, along with Felix and Callista, and I would put Titus under the Augustus' protection directly. It would have split the family up, but hopefully only temporarily. My will is Felix' manumission, too, but the Vestals could declare him free, which would put him outside the Praetorian's threats. Or the sort of threats he was employing, at least. Callista is yours, but I would concur with anything you decide as regards her, and if it needs anything to be set in place legally, I will do that for you." Because of course Horatia couldn't set up anything legal herself, of course. The legal system didn't allow for that, regardless of the fact that women were known to be a force to be reckoned with. @Sara

"I've spent far more time around men in the legions than around women apt to burst into tears," he told her, and dropped a kiss on her head. "Would it be any wonder if I was horrified at the thought?" He didn't think that anything could make Horatia cry - he amended his thoughts. Nothing short of absolute catastrophe would bring her to that point. "What else did Quintus say?" He wound a strand of Horatia's hair around his finger. "Well, he asked what projects I had in mind for the coming year and I mentioned my thermae - I need to make an appointment to speak to Octavius about that, actually. And I mentioned your reading circle. And there is the Augusta's idea for a charity for those orphaned in the civil war - maybe you might be interested in that?" He was angling to get thumped, he was sure of it, especially after the tension of the past few weeks. "I told him about what happened, with the house being watched and Felix and Callista being picked up. I said I was afraid that he might have heard suggestions my loyalty was in doubt, and assured him nothing could be further from the truth, and he told me that he has no reason to doubt my loyalty to him, or to Rome." He smiled down at his wife. "He asked if I would like him to look into the matter personally. A favour for a faithful supporter, he called it." @Sara - sorry it's taken me so long!!!

"No, I have said everything I came to lay before you, Augustus - I would not dream of taking any more of your time, especially as your son has a battlefield wound which requires your attention," Aulus said, reminded very much of his own son at a similar age. Children grew up fast enough and it wouldn't be long before his own son would be putting on his toga virilis for the first time - and he would have to begin thinking about prospective husbands for Calpurnia Horatia. At least his conversation with Quintus Augustus had reassured him that he could begin thinking of those future events again and did not have to worry for their safety, as he had been doing since Felix and Callista had come back from the Castra Praetoria. He stepped back, waiting for Caesar to dismiss him and for a slave to guide him back out of the Palace's rabbit warren. @Chris - wrap here? Thanks for a great thread!