Later she bore my daughter, the only child of my loins, Diana; that was when I manumitted and married her, and Bethesda settled into the role of a Roman matriarch. That role had not always been a comfortable fit-a slave born in Alexandria to an Egyptian mother and a Jewish father did not easily take to Roman ways-but she had never embarrassed me, never betrayed me, never given me cause for regret. We had stood beside one another through many hardships and some very real dangers, and through times of ease and joy as well. If we had become a little estranged in recent months, I told myself it was merely due to the strain of the times. The whole world was coming apart at the seams. In some families a son had taken up arms against his own father, or a wife had left her husband to side with her brothers. If in our household the silences between Bethesda and me had grown longer, or the occasional petty arguments sharper, what of it? In a world where a man could no longer afford a radish, tempers grew short.

It didn't help, of course, that we were constantly confronted with the contrasting example of our daughter and her muscle-bound husband. They, too, had begun life in unequal stations-Diana born free, Davus a slave-and the gulf between Diana's sharp wits and Davus's simplicity had struck me from the first as unbridgeable. But the two of them were inseparable, constantly touching, forever cooing endearments to each other, even as they approached the fourth year of their marriage. Nor was their attraction purely physical. Often, when I came upon the two of them in my house, I found them deep in earnest conversation. What did they find to talk about? Probably the state of her parents' marriage, I thought…

But the guilt I felt came from more than long silences and petty squabbles. It came from more than the very major row we had had after my return to Rome from Massilia the previous autumn, bringing a new mouth to feed-my friend Hieronymus-and the news that I had disowned my adopted son Meto. That announcement very nearly tore the whole household apart, but over time the shock and grief had lessened. No, the guilt I felt had nothing to do with household matters or family relations. I felt guilty because of Cassandra, of course.