“No wine,” said Kaeso quickly. “It would cloud my thinking. I need to be able to speak clearly.”

Titus gestured to the girl to move on. “What’s this about, Kaeso?”

“What do you know about the murder of a city prefect, an ex-consul named Lucius Pedanius Secundus?”

Titus sat in an old-fashioned folding chair, an antique the dealer claimed had originally belonged to Cato the Younger. Kaeso remained standing. It was not unusual for Titus to sit while his visitors stood.

“Pedanius was killed by one of his own slaves,” said Titus. “A nasty business. Slaves rarely kill a master, but when they do, it always causes a stir. People still speak of the Spartacus revolt, when slaves all over Italy turned on their owners and committed one atrocity after another. Farms were burned. Citizens were crucified. Women were raped and murdered.”

“That was over a hundred years ago,” said Kaeso.

“A hundred and thirty-two years ago, to be precise. And such a tragedy has not occurred again in the last century because extreme measures were taken at the time, and extreme measures continue to be taken whenever any crime is committed by a slave against his master. The alternative is chaos. Why are you asking about this matter, Kaeso?”

“Do you know the facts of the crime?”

“As a senator, I’ve been briefed on all the details.” Titus pressed his fingertips together. He should have asked the girl to bring some wine, whether Kaeso wanted any or not. Talking about scandal made a man thirsty. “An unseemly affair. It seems that Pedanius had owned the slave, a man called Anacletus, for many years, and Anacletus had risen in the household to a high station. After many years of obedient service, Pedanius agreed to allow Anacletus to purchase his freedom. But the slave wanted more than that: the fellow was in love with a pretty new slave boy in the household and wanted to be allowed to purchase the boy and take him with him. Pedanius, in a generous mood, agreed. But then Pedanius changed his mind; apparently he took another look at the new slave and decided he wanted the boy for his own pleasure. The next thing you know, master and slave were rivals for the boy’s affections – an absurd situation for any citizen – and there the trouble started. Pedanius not only reneged on his promise to free Anacletus, but he took to sleeping with the boy every night.”

“And then?”

Titus hesitated to continue with the seamy details. They would be common knowledge soon enough. “One night, Anacletus obtained a knife and, holding a lamp to light his way, he snuck past the night watchman and broke into his master’s bedroom. He says he only meant to threaten Pedanius. But he caught them in the act. Pedanius was unfazed. Apparently he made quite a show of flaunting his power over the boy, showing Anacletus that he could and would do anything he desired with a boy who was, after all, his property. This drove Anacletus into a fury. He stabbed Pedanius to death while the boy screamed and wept.”

“Disgusting,” muttered Kaeso. “All of it, disgusting. So there’s no doubt about the slave’s guilt?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Anacletus will be put to death?”

“Of course. He’ll be crucified.”

“And the boy?”

“The boy witnessed the crime and did nothing to stop it. The law is very clear.”

“And the night watchman?”

“He egregiously failed in his duty. Of course he must die.”

“And the rest of the household slaves – what will become of them?”

“As I said, the law is very clear. All the slaves in the household of Pedanius must be interrogated under torture – that’s happened already – and then be put to death.”

“Surely not!” protested Kaeso. “I know that our ancestors enacted such terrible penalties, but surely the law is more lenient nowadays. Such a crime is so rare-”

“It’s rare precisely because the law is so harsh. All the more reason, when such a crime occurs, that the full penalty of the law must be exacted. The common law dates from time immemorial, but it was codified by the Senate under Augustus.”

Kaeso shook his head. “Do you know how many slaves are in the house hold of Pedanius?”

“No.”

“I do. There are over four hundred of them. Four hundred, Titus!”

Titus pursed his lips. “That is a great many slaves, to be crucified all at once. I hadn’t known there were quite so many.”

“Some of them are old, Titus. Some of them are children.”

“I suppose.” Titus shifted uneasily in the chair. Antique furniture was always so uncomfortable; no wonder Cato was famous for a foul temper. Titus was parched. Why had he not told the girl to bring some wine?

“Can you remember such a slaughter of a household of slaves happening in Roma, ever in our lifetime?” said Kaeso.

“No, I suppose not. These crimes usually happen in the countryside, or in some distant province. And I suppose the number of slaves involved is usually not quite so large.”

“Think about it, Titus. For a crime of passion committed by a single slave, four hundred human beings must die. People who were elsewhere, going about their work, or probably fast asleep, completely unaware of what was happening. Surely that doesn’t make sense to you, Titus.”

“If they weren’t aware of Anacletus’s intentions, then they should have been. That’s what the law says. The statute is clear: it is the responsibility of a slave at all times and under all circumstances to protect his master, with his own life if necessary, from any harm from outside the household or from any other slave within the household.”

“But Anacletus acted alone. There was no plot. How could the other slaves have prevented the crime?”

“I will admit, sometimes, on a case-by-case basis, the law does not perfectly fit every situation. But the law is the law, and must be obeyed. Bend it in one case, and the next time a slave wants to kill his master, he’ll be thinking he can get away with it.”

“That makes no sense at all, Titus.”

“What is your interest in this matter, anyway? No, don’t tell me – there must be some Christians among those four hundred slaves.”

Kaeso took a deep breath. “Yes, I have brothers and sisters in the house hold of Pedanius.”

“Ah! You can drop your pretense of moral outrage, then. You simply don’t want to see your fellow cult members receive their just punishment. Am I right? But what do you care about their earthly fate? Isn’t the world coming to an end at any moment?”

“That’s cruel, Titus. Surely you must be moved by the suffering of so many innocent people. Have you ever thought what it must be like, to die on a cross?”

“The law-”

“How can you countenance such cruelty and call it justice, simply because ‘this is the way our ancestors did it’? How can the gods you worship endorse such wickedness? Do you feel no pity, no shame at the injustice of it? Do you not feel some impulse to do whatever you can, as a senator, as friend of the emperor, to alter the course of events?”

“Is that why you’re here, Kaeso? To petition me to take action as a senator to pervert the course of justice?”

“Is there nothing you can do?”

Titus shrugged. “There’s to be a discussion in the Senate tomorrow. I suppose the logistics of staging four hundred crucifixions will require special planning, if nothing else.”

“Then you could make a proposal for leniency?”

“I suppose I could, if I were so inclined. And if I didn’t think the other senators would laugh me out of the Senate House.”

“Surely not every senator will be in favour of the strict penalty of the law. Surely some of them possess a shred of mercy. If not the senators, then perhaps Nero might be persuaded-”

“Or perhaps your omnipotent god might be persuaded to save his followers. How about that, Kaeso? Is he not all-knowing and all-powerful? Why don’t you petition your god to change the law? He could do it in the blink of an eye.”