Then Maia exclaimed, ‘Oh, Marcus. You can be such an innocent!’

After Maia and Petronius left, the slaves found me something to eat and somewhere to sleep. I had to stop them putting me in my father’s room. Assuming his legal identity was bad enough. I drew the line at his bed.

Food revived me. Pa always ate well. The excellent panpipe-player whootled gently for me too. I was ready to be irritated, but it was quite relaxing. He seemed surprised when I congratulated him on his arpeggios. It looked as if he was hanging around in case I required other services — not that my father would have stood for that. I dismissed the musician without rancour. Who knows what kind of debauched household he originally came from?

Then, of course, I did what you or anyone else would have done: I opened up the tablets.

IV

My life changed for ever at that moment.

My father’s will was quite short and surprisingly simple. There were no outrageous clauses. It was a routine family testament.

‘I, Marcus Didius Favonius, have made a will and command my sons to be my heirs.’

So it was legally proper, but well out of date. Despite all the talk of revisions, this had been written long before he died — twenty years ago, to be precise. It was soon after my father returned to Rome from Capua, where he had originally fled with his girlfriend when he left home, and when he set up again as an auctioneer here, trading under the new name of Geminus. Flora, the girlfriend, never had children. At that time ‘my sons’ meant my brother and me. Festus later died in Judaea. Clearly Pa, who had been close to him, had never been able to face writing him out.

The customary seven witnesses had signed. They ought to be present again when the will was opened, but to Hades with that. Some names were vaguely familiar, business contacts, men of my father’s age. I knew that at least two had died in the intervening period. A couple came to the funeral.