Philip I Antoninianus: Imperial History and Roman Stories

Vibius had told Celsus that he would sit in the front row. He had said it at breakfast, when confidence cost nothing. By noon he was standing in Marinus's garden, looking at six empty chairs he was not allowed to use.

The gathering was private, but Vibius had an invitation. Marinus sold cloth and wrote poems. In the year 248, he had decided to give his friends an afternoon of both: a reading in his garden, followed by a look at the newest cloth in his storeroom. Vibius had come for the reading. Celsus had come because he had heard there would be food.

A young woman named Melita was arranging the chairs. When Vibius tried to sit in the first row, she asked whether he had agreed to help Marinus read.

“I wasn't asked,” he said.

“Then those seats aren't for you. The readers sit there so they can take turns without walking through the guests.”

He looked behind him. Celsus was waiting beneath a tree, with a fig in his hand and a smile Vibius did not care for.

“I was a clerk for thirty years,” Vibius told Melita. “I can read.”

“Then you may help. Marinus needs someone with a clear voice.”

That sounded suitable. Vibius had spent his working life reading numbers to men who interrupted him. Reading poems to friends should be much easier. He took out a coin with Philip's portrait and offered it for the food and lamp oil he assumed the gathering would use.

“Keep it,” Melita said. “You're giving your time.”

Vibius put the coin away and sat down in the middle of the first row. He smoothed his tunic over his knees. When Celsus passed, Vibius looked straight ahead so that his success would appear natural.

Marinus arrived carrying a roll of writing. He was a broad man with ink on one finger. He thanked Vibius warmly, set the roll beside his chair, then went back inside for more.

Vibius watched him return with a second roll. Then a third.

“How much will you want me to read?” he asked.

“Only when my voice tires. I shall signal you.”

The guests settled. Marinus stood and began with a poem about dawn. Vibius listened carefully to the first few lines. By the time the poem reached breakfast, he was looking for Celsus.

His friend sat at the edge of the shade, eating another fig. He could see the poet without turning his head. More importantly, he could leave without anyone turning theirs.

Marinus finished the dawn poem and began one about a ship. It had not reached the harbor when he lowered the roll and nodded to Vibius.

Vibius stood. He found the place Marinus showed him and read. His voice carried well. A few guests lifted their heads. He enjoyed that. When he came to the end of the ship's voyage, he paused for applause.

Marinus pointed farther down the writing. The ship still had to return.

Vibius continued. The sea was described again, this time from the other direction. He began to wish the ship had stayed where it was.

After that came a poem about a rose. Marinus read its beginning, then passed it to Vibius when he reached the petals. Vibius counted seven comparisons before the flower was finally allowed to be a flower. He pronounced every word clearly. This was no failure of reading.

At the back, Celsus rose. Vibius saw him give Melita a polite nod and move toward the garden gate. Their eyes met. Celsus raised an empty cup in farewell.

Vibius nearly stopped. He could say that he needed water. He could go after his friend, who would be waiting long enough to tell him how pleasant the shade had been.

But Marinus was listening with his hands folded. He looked pleased, even relieved. The other readers had already left, one with an excuse about a child and another without an excuse at all. Vibius had agreed to help. Leaving now would turn his fine seat into a very public retreat.

He read on.

By the final poem, only four guests remained. Melita carried the empty cups away. Marinus sat beside Vibius and followed the words with a finger, nodding when a line sounded as he had hoped.

When it was over, Marinus took the roll and pressed Vibius's hand.

“You made the words live,” he said. “Will you come next week? I have something longer.”

Vibius looked at the three rolls on the chair. Then he looked at the front row, which Marinus would need again.

“I should be able to,” he said.

He found Celsus outside the gate. His friend had waited after all, though he was sitting on a low wall instead of standing.

“Was the seat worth it?” Celsus asked.

Vibius's throat was dry. He took a moment before answering.

“I'm invited to sit there again.”

Celsus got down from the wall. “Good. I'll save you a fig next time.”

Lollia, before the meeting

I had asked Sabellus to walk with me after work. I asked him myself, without sending a friend to find out whether he might say yes. He said yes at once. That should have made the next two days easy.

Instead I spent them wondering what he thought I had asked.

We worked near each other in the market of a Roman town. It was 247, and I had been selling fruit from my aunt's stall for six months. Sabellus carried goods for several merchants. He passed my table so often that I knew when he was tired by the way he set a bundle down.

Once he had brought me water without asking. Once I had kept him a fig when the others were gone. Small things, which could mean anything if you wanted them to mean enough.

We agreed to meet at the old town gate two evenings later, when our work was finished. I chose a clean dress and tied my hair twice. The second attempt was better. Then my aunt asked me to take a basket to a customer near the market. She had forgotten the delivery, and the customer had paid for the fruit already.

I could not leave it for morning. I could not send Sabellus a message either; he was carrying parcels somewhere across town. I took the basket and went to the gate. He would be there. I would have to tell him that the walk I had offered began with more work.

Sabellus, at the gate

I saw the basket before I saw Lollia's face. For a moment I was grateful. I had a bundle of cloth under my arm and no idea how to explain it.

My employer had given me one last delivery. He wanted it carried before dark. I had said I could do it, thinking I would be quick. Then the buyer had sent word that the bundle must go to his house instead of his shop. His house was farther away.

I did not want Lollia to think I had forgotten. I also did not want to lose the work. I needed it. So I waited at the gate with my bundle, turning over several poor explanations.

She stopped in front of me and held up the basket.

“I have to take this somewhere.”

“So do I.”

We looked at each other's loads. Then she laughed. I had heard her laugh at the market, but there it was usually meant for several people. This time it was for me.

“I wanted to walk with you,” she said. “I didn't ask because I needed a carrier.”

“I hoped that was what you meant.”

“It was.”

I should have found something good to say then. Instead I asked where the basket had to go. She pointed toward the market. My delivery was in the other direction.

We could leave each other and meet again, if both jobs ended quickly. I did not trust that plan. I had spent two days waiting for this evening. I wanted to begin it before another customer found something for me to carry.

“Your basket first,” I said. “Then my bundle. Will you come with me?”

“Yes. But I shall carry my own basket.”

I had reached for it without thinking. I let my hand fall. We started toward the market together.

At the customer's house, a servant asked us to wait while she fetched the money owed for the delivery. Lollia put the basket on the doorstep. I stood beside her, still holding the cloth.

The servant took longer than I expected. Lollia asked whether my arm was tired. I said it was a little tired. She told me to put the bundle on the step. I did. It was an ordinary instruction, but I liked hearing her give it.

When the servant returned, one of the coins she gave Lollia showed Philip's portrait. Lollia put the coins away, took back the empty basket, and said we could go. She had not tried to pretend that the delay was pleasant. Neither had she blamed me for being there.

Lollia, after the deliveries

The cloth buyer opened his door himself. He checked the wrapping, thanked Sabellus, and took the bundle. There was no second errand. I waited for one, because the evening had taught me to expect it.

Sabellus turned to me with both hands empty.

“Now,” he said.

We walked toward the gate. I carried the basket by its handle. It was light now, but it still knocked against my leg. Sabellus asked if he might take it for a while.

This time I gave it to him. I had said I would carry it before because I wanted him to understand why I had asked him out. He understood now. There was no need to keep proving it with a basket.

Beyond the gate we found a low wall beside the road. We sat there until the light began to fade. He told me about the little room he rented. I told him that my aunt counted the fruit twice and blamed me when she got two different answers. He laughed, and I liked that too.

When we stood to go back, he asked whether I would walk with him another evening.

“Yes,” I said. “Ask me even if you have a parcel.”

He held out his free hand. I put mine in it, and we went back through the gate with the empty basket swinging from his other hand.

Galla poured the last cup of water onto the roots and waited for the dark patch to spread. It stopped almost at once. She tilted the cup again, though she knew it was empty.

Beyond the little patch she had tried to save, her field had turned the color of old straw. For weeks she had carried water from the well before dawn, enough for drinking and a few plants. The rest of the crop had failed. Now the plants nearest the house were failing too.

She set the cup down. Inside, two small sacks of grain waited beside her bed. She had saved them for the next planting. If she sold them, she could leave the farm. If she kept them, she might still have a farm worth coming back to.

It was the summer of 247. Philip was emperor, and his face appeared on a coin in the little purse Galla carried. She seldom thought about him. The well was closer and needed watching.

That morning the bucket came up with a finger of muddy water. She lowered it again and heard the bottom scrape stone. She tried a different part of the shaft. The rope grew heavy for a moment, then light. When she lifted the bucket, it held mud and nothing she could drink.

Galla sat beside the well until the sun reached her feet.

There was water in town. She had heard that from people on the road. There was no stream near her farm, and carrying enough from town meant hiring a cart. The last time she had asked, the cost would have taken nearly all her money. She could buy water for a few more days, but not enough to bring back the crop.

She stood up and went to fetch a spade. Perhaps she could deepen the well. At the mouth of the shaft she looked down at the stone sides, then at the tool in her hand. The spade had a cracked handle. She could mend that. She could not mend the dry well by herself.

By noon she had brought one sack to the table. The other remained beside her bed. She opened it and ran grain through her fingers. Her husband used to test it that way. Since his death she had done it alone, though she had never been certain what he thought he could learn from touching it.

Last week her neighbor Irene had left for town. Before going, she had told Galla where to find her: a lodging house near the market, behind a shop with three jars painted over the door. There was work sorting grain for a merchant. There might be a place for Galla too.

Galla had said she would come after the harvest. Irene had looked at the field but had not argued.

Now Galla tied the sacks shut. She carried one to the roadside and waited for the grain buyer who passed every few days. He came late, with dust on his face and an almost empty cart.

“Both sacks?” he asked when she told him what she had.

“One.”

He made an offer. It was less than she had hoped for, but he had offered the same last week. Waiting had not improved her grain or his price.

She asked what he would pay for both.

He counted out more coins on the cart's edge. Galla watched them. With that money she could eat in town for longer. She could arrive with an empty sack and fewer things to carry.

She went back inside. The second sack stood beside the bed. She lifted it, put it down, and lifted it again. She did not know where she would plant its contents. That was the trouble. She had been keeping it as though a patch of land elsewhere would appear because she needed one.

At the door, she stopped. The buyer was waiting without calling to her. Beyond him lay the road to town. She carried the sack back to the bed.

“One,” she said when she returned.

He paid her and took the first sack. Before he left, she asked whether he knew anyone going into town the next morning. He did. A carrier would pass at dawn. She could ride if she paid for a place and kept her bundle small.

That evening she packed bread, the remaining grain, a spare dress, and her husband's little pruning knife. She left the cracked spade. She also left the heavy stool she had meant to bring. Twice she took a clay cup out of the bundle because it pressed against her hip. The second time, she put it on the table and let it stay there.

The carrier arrived while the field was still gray. Galla locked the house and paid him. Her bundle sat between her feet. She watched the roof until the road bent and took it away.

In town she found the three painted jars. Irene answered the door of the lodging house with grain dust caught in her hair.

“You came,” she said.

“I sold a sack.”

Irene looked at the bundle. “And brought the other.”

“Yes.”

There was work. There was also a narrow bed she could rent beside Irene's for now. Galla spent the afternoon sorting grain until her back hurt. She earned enough for supper, though she would need more work tomorrow.

Before sleeping, she pushed her own sack beneath the bed. She still had no ground for it. The house she had locked might be waiting months from now, or she might find another place. Tonight she was too tired to choose either future.

From the other bed, Irene asked whether she wanted the lamp left burning.

Galla said no. For the first time in weeks, she did not have to rise before dawn to try the well.

I took the night work because the innkeeper paid before he left. Three nights of watching his door would put food in my mouth for a week. I had been hungry for two days. A man's reasons can be very simple.

The inn stood on a narrow Roman street. In the winter of 246, rain ran down its walls and gathered in the yard. I was new there. The owner, Varro, showed me where he kept the keys and the lamp oil. Then he put one key apart from the others.

“Room seven stays empty,” he said. “No matter who asks.”

I asked whether the roof leaked. He said no. I asked whether someone had paid to keep it. He said no again. I waited, but he had finished explaining.

The first night passed quietly. On the second, a traveler came while I was setting the bar across the front door. He wore a dark cloak that covered him to his ankles. His hair lay flat against his head. Rain dripped from the cloak, yet I heard no water strike the floor.

“I need seven,” he said.

I told him it was closed. We had another room, smaller but dry. He shook his head and placed a coin on the table. Philip's face was on it.

“For the room,” he said. “I won't trouble you.”

I thought of the key Varro had set apart. The traveler had not asked what the room cost, and the coin was more than I had expected to receive that evening. I could let him sleep and have him out before Varro returned. Nobody else need know.

I picked up the key. The man followed me down the passage. When I paused at a door, he said, “The next one.”

He knew the place. That should have stopped me. Instead I decided that a regular guest was less likely to make trouble.

Inside were a bed, a stool, and a small shelf. I raised the lamp so he could see the bed. The traveler stayed in the passage while I did it. He looked past me at the bed, and for a moment I thought he might cry. Then he stepped inside and took the lamp from my hand.

“Thank you.”

I left him the key and went back to the desk. I waited to hear him shut the door. It remained silent. When I went to look, the door was closed.

In the morning, I found it unlocked. The traveler had gone. The lamp stood on the shelf, cold and full of oil. The bedcover lay smooth, with the fold I had noticed the night before still along its edge. There was no wet cloak hanging anywhere, no mud beneath the stool.

I told myself that he had rested without lying down. I have never wanted an explanation more badly, or accepted one more quickly.

Varro returned at midday. He saw the seventh key lying with the others and asked who had used it. I began with the coin. That seemed the part he would care about.

He let me finish describing the traveler. Then he sat down.

“Lentulus,” he said. “He stayed here whenever he came to Rome.”

“Then he knew where the room was.”

“He died in it last month.”

I waited for Varro to laugh. He looked at the coin instead.

“I went with the men who carried him away,” he said. “Keep seven closed tonight.”

He did not take the coin. I put it beneath the lamp at the desk, where I would have to lift the lamp to touch it again.

After dark, the inn grew quiet. Varro slept near the yard. Our two guests had gone to their rooms. I stayed at the desk with the keys on my knee.

The first knock came from the passage. I knew its direction before I stood up.

At room seven, I held my lamp close to the door. The key was in my hand. Three knocks sounded from the other side, slow and careful. I stepped back so fast that oil spilled over my fingers.

“I need seven,” a voice said.

“You have it.” My own voice was hardly there.

The knocking stopped. I could hear myself breathing. Then the voice said, “You took my payment.”

I went back to the desk. I raised the lamp and picked up the coin. On the return journey, I looked into each open doorway. There was nobody in the passage. At seven, I crouched and pushed the coin through the gap beneath the door.

“I won't take payment for it,” I said. “Stay if you must. I won't open it again.”

For a long time nothing happened. Then the coin scraped across the floor inside, moving away from the door.

“Thank you,” the voice said.

I sat on the passage floor until morning, with the lamp beside me and my back against the opposite wall. No one knocked again.

When Varro came out, I returned his keys. He offered me more money to stay. I shook my head. I took only the wages he had already given me and walked to the street.

Behind me, Varro called that I had left my lamp. I kept walking. By then I could see well enough without it.

Dento had lost six coins, but he did not consider himself a man who had lost six coins. He considered himself a man who was about to win them back.

Ten remained in his purse. He counted them beneath the table so Mallus would not see. Sixteen was what he had brought to the inn, and sixteen was what he intended to carry home. That would put the evening right.

Mallus pushed his stool back. “I'm finished.”

“One more.”

“You've said that twice.”

“Because you keep trying to leave.”

The inn was warm. Smoke hung above the lamps, and the woman serving wine was wiping the other tables. Outside, the Roman street had begun to empty. It was a mild evening in 247. Dento had come to eat, drink, and enjoy having money left after paying his rent. Now he could think only of the money in Mallus's hand.

Their game was simple. Each man put the same stake on the table and threw one die. The higher throw took both stakes. If the throws matched, they both threw again. They had agreed on those rules themselves. Dento liked a game without anyone explaining things to him.

“Two coins each,” he said.

Mallus looked toward the door. Then he put down two coins. “This is the last.”

Dento took two from his purse. One showed Emperor Philip's face. He rubbed it with his thumb and set it beside the other. Then he shook the die in his closed hand until Mallus told him to throw it.

Five.

Mallus threw three.

Dento swept up the four coins. His purse now held twelve. The little rush of pleasure was stronger than anything he had felt over supper. He had been right to continue. The first part of the evening had merely been bad luck.

He counted the coins openly this time.

Mallus stood. “Good night.”

“Four each.”

“No.”

“You might win your two back.”

“I have enough.”

Dento disliked the way he said it. Enough sounded like something Mallus had decided for both of them. Dento put four coins on the table and left them there.

The serving woman came over. Her name was Lupa. “Do you want more wine?”

“Later,” Dento said.

“I want to clear this table.”

“We're still using it.”

Mallus looked from the coins to the woman. “One throw, then we go.”

“One throw,” Dento agreed. Mallus sat down and put four coins beside Dento's stake.

Dento rolled four. It was a good number. He watched Mallus pick up the die and thought about carrying sixteen coins home, exactly as planned. Nothing would have changed. He could forget the whole evening.

Mallus rolled six.

For a moment Dento did not move. The coins stood where he had put them. They still looked like his coins. Mallus gathered them and tied his purse.

Dento had eight left.

He could leave with eight. He knew that. He could buy breakfast and still have money for the next few days. But leaving would make the loss complete. While he remained at the table, the evening was unfinished.

“Eight each,” he said.

Mallus stared at him. “No. I've finished.”

Dento emptied his purse. The eight coins spread over the wood. He lined them up with a finger, though they did not need arranging.

“That's all I have.”

“I can see that.”

“Then you know I can't ask again.”

Lupa set a stack of bowls on the next table. She said the door would close soon. Neither man answered her.

Mallus slowly untied his purse. He counted eight coins and placed them beside Dento's. “I leave after this. Whatever happens.”

Dento nodded. He could hardly hear him. Sixteen coins waited on the table. There was the answer to the entire evening, close enough to touch.

He picked up the die. He wanted to throw first, before Mallus could change his mind. The die struck the table, rolled against a coin, and stopped.

Five again.

Dento let out his breath. It was the number that had saved him before. Mallus could beat it only with six. Dento leaned back as if he had already won.

Mallus threw. The die bounced once, hit Dento's neat row of coins, and turned onto its last face.

Six.

Lupa lifted the bowls. Dento heard them knock together. He watched Mallus reach for the coins, first his own eight, then the other eight. Dento wanted to stop his hand. He kept both of his own beneath the table.

Mallus rose without counting again. “Good night, Dento.”

Dento did not answer. Mallus went to the door and let himself out. Cold air crossed the room before the door shut.

Lupa began wiping the table. She worked around Dento's elbows until he moved them.

“Are you waiting for someone?” she asked.

“No.”

He picked up his purse. It was so light that he looked beneath the stool, as if a coin might have dropped there. Nothing shone on the floor.

Outside, he turned toward home. He could still remember the weight of sixteen coins against his leg. He reached down once to feel for it. His hand closed on the empty purse, and he pulled his cloak tighter before walking on.