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pierced by three doorways, each flanked by slender columns and capped with a pediment. The corridors beyond were concealed by curtains of rich red fabric, embroidered along the bottom with an acanthus motif in yellow. Standing Grecian lamps 27

    at either corner and a floor mosaic of no great distinction (Diana in pursuit of a boar) completed the decoration. It was as I had expected.
    The vestibule was adequately restrained and tasteful so as not to contra-dict the sternness of the stucco facade, yet so expensively appointed as to belie any impression of poverty.
    The old doorkeeper indicated with a gesture that we should wait.
    Silent and smiling, he withdrew through the curtained doorway to our left, his wizened head bobbing above his narrow shoulders like a cork on gentle waves.
    " A n old family retainer?" I asked. I waited until he had passed from sight, and kept my voice low. Obviously the old man's ears were sharper than his eyes, for he had heard well enough to answer the door; and it would have been rude to talk about him in his presence, as if he were a slave, for he was not. I had noticed the ring of manumission upon his finger, marking him a freedman and citizen.
    " M y grandfather," Tiro answered, with more than a little pride in his voice, "Marcus Tullius Tiro." He craned his neck and looked toward the doorway, as if he could see through the red curtain to watch the old man's shuffling progress down the corridor. The embroidered bottom edge of the curtain wavered slightly, lifted by a breeze. Thus I deduced that the hallway to the left led somehow to fresh air and sky, probably to the atrium at the heart of the house, where presumably Master Cicero was taking comfort in the heat of the morning.
    "Then your line has been serving the family for at least three generations?" I said.
    " Y e s , though my father died when I was very small, before I had the chance to know him. As did my mother. Old Tiro is the only family I have."
    " A n d how long ago did your master free him?" I asked, for it was Cicero's first and family names that the old man now bore in addition to his old slave name: Marcus Tullius Tiro, freed by Marcus Tullius Cicero. Such is the tradition, that an emancipated slave will take the first two names of the man who frees him, giving them precedence to his own.
    "Going on five years now. Cicero's grandfather back in Arpinum owned him until that time. Owned me as well, though I've always been with Cicero, since we both were boys. The old master transferred owner-ship as a gift when Cicero completed his studies and set up his own household here in Rome. That was when Cicero freed him. Cicero's 28

    grandfather would never have bothered. He doesn't believe in manumission, no matter how old a slave becomes, no matter how long or how well he serves a master. The Tullius family may have come from Arpinum, but they're Roman to the core. They're a very stern and old-fashioned family."
    " A n d y o u ? "
    " M e ? "
    " D o you suppose Cicero will one day free you as well?"
    Tiro colored. " Y o u ask the strangest questions, sir."
    "Only because it's my nature. My profession, as well. You must have asked yourself the same question already, more than once."
    "Doesn't every slave?" There was no bitterness in Tiro's voice, only a pale and unassuming note of sadness, a particular melancholy I had met before. I knew then, in that instant, that young Tiro was one of those slaves, naturally intelligent and brought up amid wealth, who bears the curse of realizing how arbitrary and capricious are the whims of Fortune, which make one man a slave all his life and another a king, when at root there is no discernible difference between them. "One of these days," he said quietly, "when my master is established, when I'm older. Anyway, what's the use of being free unless you want to start a family? It's the only advantage I can see. And that's something I don't think about. Not often, anyway."
    Tiro turned his face away,