The sky beyond the terrace was dark blue, alive with the first stars of evening. The room was lit by a lamp which Meto carried in his small hand. 'They're waiting for you,' he finally said, raising his eyebrows uncertainly.

'Who? For what?' I blinked in confusion and watched the lamplight flicker across the ceiling.

'Everyone is there but you,' he said.

'Where?'

'In the dining room. They're waiting for you to begin the dinner. Though why they're in such a hurry I don't know,' he went on, as I shook my head to clear it and struggled to rise from the bed.

'Why do you say that?'

'Because it's a dinner hardly fit for slaves!'

A great gloom seemed to have settled over the dining room. Partly it came from the gravity of the occasion, for this was the last meal before the funeral; throughout the night and all the next day, until the funeral feast that would follow Lucius Licinius's cremation and interment, everyone in the household would fast. Tradition prescribed a meal of rigorous simplicity: common bread and bowls of plain lentils, watered wine and a grain porridge. As an innovation, Gelina's cook had included a few delicacies, all black in colour: black roe served on crusts of black bread, pickled eggs stained black, black olives, and fish poached in octopus ink. It was not a repast to spark clever conversation, even from Metrobius. Across the room Sergius Orata surveyed the prospect with a glum eye and filled himself up with pickled eggs, popping them whole into his mouth.

The gloominess had another source, which emanated from the couch beside Gelina. Tonight Marcus Crassus was in attendance, and his presence seemed to swallow up all spontaneity. His lieutenants Mummius and Fabius, reclining next to each other at his right hand, seemed unable to shake their taciturn military bearing, while, from their shifty glances and grim faces, it was evident that neither Metrobius nor Iaia felt at ease in the great man's presence. Olympias was understandably distracted; considering the shock she had received at Lake Avernus, I was surprised to see her in attendance. She dabbed at her food, bit her lips, and kept her eyes lowered. She wore a haunted expression that only enhanced her beauty by the muted glow of the lamps. Eco, I noticed, could not take his eyes from her.

Gelina was in a state of fretful agitation. She could not be still and was constantly waving at the slaves and then, when they scurried to her side, could not remember why she called them. Her expression shifted from haggard despair to a timorous smile for no apparent reason, and far from averting her eyes she looked from face to face around the room, fixing each of us with an intense, inscrutable gaze that was unnerving. Even Metrobius could not cope with her; he occasionally took her hand to squeeze it reassuringly, but avoided looking at her. His wit seemed to have run dry.

Crassus himself was preoccupied and aloof. Most of his conversation was reserved for Mummius and Fabius, with whom he exchanged curt observations on the state of his troops and the progress made towards completing the wooden amphitheatre by Lake Lucrinus. Otherwise he might have been dining alone for all the attention he paid to his guests. He ate heartily but was pensive and withdrawn.

Only the philosopher Dionysius appeared to be in good spirits. His cheeks had a ruddy glow and his eyes sparkled. The ride to Cumae and back had invigorated him, I thought, or else he was very pleased with whatever result he had obtained by spying on Olympias that afternoon. It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps he was as stricken by her beauty as everyone else, and his purpose for following her was simply prurient. I remembered seeing him on the cliff, furtively watching Olympias from the hidden folds of his cloak, and with a shudder I imagined him secretly fondling himself. If the smile on his face that night was the afterglow of satisfying his peculiar sexual appetite, then the gods were granting me a far more intimate look into the man's soul than I cared to see.

Yet, for a man obsessed, Dionysius seemed quite capable of ignoring Olympias and her distress, even though she reclined at his right hand. Instead he focused his attentions on Crassus. As on the night before, it was Dionysius who finally picked up the reins of desultory conversation and sought to entertain us, or at least to impress us, with his erudition.

'Last night we talked a little about the history of slave revolts, Marcus Crassus. I was sorry you were not here. Perhaps some of my research would have been new to you.'

Crassus took his time to finish chewing a crust of bread before replying. 'I seriously doubt it, Dionysius. I've been doing my own research into the subject during the last few months, chiefly into the mistakes made by unsuccessful Roman commanders when confronting such large but undisciplined forces.'

'Ah.' Dionysius nodded. 'The wise man takes an interest not only in his enemy, but in, shall we say, the heritage of his enemy, and the historical powers at his enemy's disposal, no matter how seamy or disreputable.'

'What on earth are you talking about?' said Crassus, hardly looking up.

'I mean that Spartacus did not exactly arise from nowhere. I have a theory that among these slaves there are whispered legends about the slave revolts of the past, stories built about the likes of the doomed slave-wizard Eunus and embellished with all sorts of mock-heroic details and wishful thinking.'

'Nonsense,' said Faustus Fabius, pushing back a lock of unruly red hair. 'Slaves do not have legends, or heroes, any more than they have wives or mothers or children they can call their own. Slaves have duties and masters. That is the way of the world as the gods have designed it.' There was a general murmur of agreement around the room.

'But the way of the world can be disrupted,' said Dionysius, 'as we have seen all too clearly for the last two years, with Spartacus and his rabble cavorting up and down the length of Italy, wreaking havoc and inciting more and more slaves to join them. Such men thumb their noses at the natural order of things.'

'And so the time has come for a strong Roman to reassert that order!' boomed Mummius.

'But surely it would be helpful,' Dionysius pressed on, 'to understand the motivations and the aspirations of these rebellious slaves, all the more surely to defeat them.'

Fabius curled his Hp derisively and bit into an olive. 'Their motivation is to escape the life of service and labour that Fortune has allotted them. Their aspiration is to be free men, though for that they lack the requisite moral character, especially those who were bom slaves.'

'And those who were reduced to slavery, because they were captured in war or made destitute?' The question came from Olympias, who blushed as she asked it.

'Can a man degraded to slavery ever become wholly a man again, even if his master should see fit to free him?' Fabius cocked his head. 'Once Fortune has turned a man into property, it is impossible for him ever to recover his dignity. He may redeem the body, but not the spirit.'

'And yet, by law-' Olympias began.

'The laws vary.' Fabius tossed an olive pit onto the little table before him. It bounced off the silver tray and onto the floor, where a slave hurried to retrieve it. 'Yes, a slave may purchase his freedom, but only if his master allows him to do so. The very act of allowing a slave to accumulate his own price in silver is a legal fiction, since a slave can truly own nothing – anything he may possess belongs to his master. Even after emancipation, a freedman can be reduced to slavery again if he shows impertinence to his former master. He is politically restricted, socially retarded, and barred by good taste from marriage into any respectable family. A freedman may be a citizen, but he is never truly a man.'