'I sent her money.' My father's contributions were a fraction of the fortune he amassed in the course of his dealings as an auctioneer, antique dealer, and reproduction marble salesman.

'If Ma had been given a denarius for every foolish buyer of flaky Greek "original statues" you conned, we would all have dined on peacocks and my sisters would have had dowries to buy tribunes as husbands.'

All right, I admit it: Pa was right when he muttered: 'Giving money to any of your sisters would have been a bad idea.' The point about Pa is that he could, if it was absolutely unavoidable, put up a fight. It would be a fight worth watching, if you had half an hour before your next appointment and a piece of Lucanian sausage to chew on while you stood there. Yet to him, the concept of any husband daring to hit a feisty wife (the only kind my father knew about, since he came from the Aventine where women give no quarter) was about as likely as getting a Vestal Virgin to buy him a drink. He also knew that Quintus Camillus Justinus was the son of a respectable, thoroughly amiable senator; he was my wife's younger brother, in general her favourite; everyone spoke highly of Quintus. Come to that, he had always been my favourite. If you overlooked a few failings – little quirks, like stealing his own brother's bride and backing out of a respectable career so he could run off to North Africa to grow silphium (which is extinct, but that didn't stop him) – he was a nice lad. Helena and I were both very fond of him.

From the moment of their elopement, Claudia and Quintus had had their difficulties. It was the usual story. He had been too young to get married; she was much too keen on the idea. They were in love when they did it. That is more than most couples can say. Now that they had a baby son, we all assumed they would set aside their problems. If they divorced, they would both be expected to marry other people anyway. They could end up with worse. Justinus, who was the real offender in their stormy relationship, would certainly lose out, because the one thing he had acquired with Claudia was joyful access to her very large fortune. She was a fiery piece when she needed to be, and her habit nowadays was to wear her emeralds on every occasion, to remind him of what he would lose (apart from his dear little son Gaius) if they separated.