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means Dacia. That’s exciting, you can dodge arrows.”
    “Oops! Sorry.”
    “Memmia, you’re soused already. You there, whatever your name is, come here and mop this up and pour us more wine. Why do you stand there like a post?”
    “Well, what else is there to do but drink? Where is Calpurnia, anyway? I’m starving. Late to her own party, what manners!”
    “She’s an odd one, no mistake. Too quiet.”
    “Stuck up, I say. The way she looks at you, you don’t know what she’s thinking.”
    “I like him, though. Sense of humor, anyway. Not like mine.”
    “I don’t know. My husband says he’s all talk and no action.”
    “Can I ask, does anyone know a doctor they can trust? I’m at my wit’s end.”
    “What, is your youngest sick again?”
    “The poor thing. Children! We go through torture to bring them into the world just to worry ourselves sick over them. I swear by Juno I think I’d rather be childl—“
    “Ssh! She’s coming!”
    “Please forgive me, ladies. I’ve been all morning with my tutor, we lost track of the time.” Calpurnia, out of breath from racing up the stairs, settled herself on her couch in the small upstairs dining room.”
    “You’re taking it quite seriously, Greek.” This was Faustilla, the wife of Pliny’s staff officer Nymphidius, a ribald old lady who had been born in Claudius’ reign. She gave Calpurnia an indulgent smile. “I mean we all speak it enough to talk to the cook but why on earth do you want to go reading Homer, or whatever he’s set you to.”
    In fact, Timotheus was dragging her through the Odyssey’s archaic Greek line by line, which was not what she wanted at all, but she couldn’t persuade the man to simply talk to her. She wouldn’t admit this to Faustilla, though. “It keeps my mind occupied for one thing. Haven’t you ever wondered why Latin and Greek have exactly the same words for father and mother but quite different ones for son and daughter?”
    This was met by blank stares. Clearly, they hadn’t.
    “Timon, you can start serving the fish course,” Calpurnia said in painfully correct Greek to her head waiter. She had taken a lesson from her husband and made it her first task to learn the name of every servant in the household.
    Such airs! Fannia smiled to her couch-mate, Cassia, behind her hand. Conversation subsided while plates were passed and the women settled down to eat. Calpurnia and Pliny had brought their own chef with them from Rome but he had fallen ill en route and they had been forced to leave him behind in Athens. She had had to find a local replacement when they arrived. The man came with good references, probably forged. The roast hares were underdone, the grilled smelts were burnt black. Everyone tried not to notice.
    Fabia, Balbus’ wife, belched and spoke around a mouthful of food: “Poor you, Calpurnia, living in this shambles. Can’t the governor requisition better quarters?” She gestured with a thick arm at the peeling fresco on the wall. It was unkind, and meant to be. Malice glittered in her eyes.
    Calpurnia would not allow this woman to make her angry. She forced a smile. “Soon to be repaired. I’ve made my own sketches for a mythical landscape, children riding on the backs of centaurs, a temple in the distance. I’ll paint some of it myself, workmen will do the rest.”
    Silence. The women were dumbfounded. Cassia, an engineer’s wife, wrinkled her small nose and giggled. “The smell of that hot wax, the mess, really!” Embarrassed laughter around the table. An arch, knowing look from Fabia that said What do you expect?
    The luncheon was on the verge of being a disaster. How Calpurnia loathed these gatherings, and yet she felt compelled to go through with them. She had endured many such occasions in Rome too, but there she was one senator’s wife among many, not required to play a role that felt too big for her. This was different. She felt their resentment, their envy. And she was all alone,