M. Didius Falco/Dillius Braco a well-known Roman
Helena Justina a heroine (a loyal reader)
Ma (Junilla Tacita) a canny depositor
Pa (Geminus) a chipped old block
Maia Favonia (a sister) a late-developing job-seeker
Junia (another sister) a skilled staff manager
Rutilius Gallicus a high profile spare time scribbler
Anacrites a low lyer with variable interests
A. Camillus Aelianus an ill-equipped aristocratic trainee
Gloccus and Cotta invisible bathhouse contractors
Numerous children, dogs, pregnancies and pups
Petronius Longus a stand-in looking for a fair cop
Fusculus an old hand with attitude
Passus a new boy with a taste for adventure
Sergius an official bruiser
Aurelius Chrysippus a patron of literature (a swine)
Euschemon a scroll-seller (a good critic) (a what?)
Avienus a historian with writer's block
Turius a utopian with allergies (to work)
Urbanus Trypho the Shakespeare (Bacon?) of his day
Anna, Trypho's wife who may have a way with her
Pacuvius
Constrictus a love poet who needs to be dumped,
Blitis from a writers' group
Nothokleptes a thieving bastard (a banker)
Aurelius Chrysippus (him again) a secretive businessman
Lucrio a personal banking executive (unsafe deposits)
Bos a big man who explains bank charges
Diomedes a very religious son with artistic hobbies
Lysa (first wife of Chrysippus) a maker of men and their businesses (hard feelings)
Vibia (second wife of ditto) a keen home-maker (soft furnishings)
Pisarchus a shipping magnate who may be sunk
Philomelus his son, a drudge with a dream
Domitian a Young Prince (a hater)
Aristagoras an Old Man (a lover?)
An old woman a Witness
Perella a Dancer
`A book may be defined… as a written (or printed) message of considerable length, meant for public circulation and recorded on materials that are light yet durable enough to afford comparatively easy portability.'
[The creditor] examines your family affairs; he meddles with your transacations. If you go forth from your chamber, he drags you along with him and carries you of, if you hide yourself inside he stands before your house and knocks at the door.
If [the debtor] sleeps, he sees the moneylender standing at his head, an evil dream… If a friend knocks at the door he hides under the couch. Does the dog bark? He breaks out in a sweat. The interest due increases like a hare, a wild animal which the ancients believed could not stop reproducing even while it was nourishing the offspring already produced.'
POETRY SHOULD have been safe.
`Take your writing tablets up to our new house,' suggested Helena Justina, my elegant partner in life. I was struggling against shock and physical exhaustion, acquired during a dramatic underground rescue. Publicly, the vigiles took the credit, but I was the mad volunteer who had been lowered head first down a shaft on ropes. It had made me a hero for about a day, and I was mentioned by name (misspelled) in the
`I can supervise them if they bother to turn up.'
`Take the baby. I may come too – we have so many friends abroad nowadays, I ought to work on
`Authorship?'
What – by a senator's daughter? Most are too stupid and too busy counting their jewellery. None are ever encouraged to reveal their literary skills, assuming they have them. But then, they are not supposed to live with informers either.
`Badly needed,' she said briskly. `Most published letters are by smug men with nothing to say.'
