"Oh no!" Antonia was definite. "Losing a man to a woman is one thing—giving him up to politics is final."

On her birthday Antonia had freed several of her slaves who deserved retirement. Pallas was among them, rewarded by freedom and a large estate in Egypt for his good service with the letter about Sejanus. Diadumenus, the Chief Secretary, took his deserved retirement; Caenis was to be promoted. Antonia had asked her to prepare the manumission documents, which at last gave her the opportunity to speak on her own behalf: "Madam, you know I have been saving since before I came to you. I want to ask to buy my freedom."

Immediately there was a sense of strain.

She had known Antonia would not like it. Her patroness expected to plan her slaves' lives for them; in the Palace there had been much less scope for advancement, but at least matters of business could be broached without irritating anybody else. She watched the old lady trying to be tolerant.

"That will be unnecessary." Reluctantly Antonia explained that Caenis was to be freed one day under her will.

"Madam, I am grateful, but I should hardly enjoy looking forward to your death."

"Oh, I don't enjoy it myself! Now be serious; I cannot let you waste your money."

Caenis sat still. She would pay for her freedom if she had to, but it would take all her resources. She would have nothing at all to live on afterward. She had a bitter grasp of financial needs. Yet she wanted to be free. She had saved what she knew to be a good secretary's price; she was desperate to realize her ambition now. So many disasters might intervene otherwise. A will could be altered; Antonia's heirs might not honor it; the Senate might change the law. Now that citizenship stood within her grasp through her own enterprise, Caenis could not bear to wait.

Antonia understood the situation. A secretary might not command the outrageous price of a handsome driver or a sloe-eyed dancing girl, but Caenis, trained in the imperial school and with such good Greek, was still a prize. The fact that she managed to save her worth indicated strong willpower. Even with the offer of acquiring her freedom for nothing eventually, she would still be prepared for hardship in order to gain it now.