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it surprised a chuckle out of him that caught him under his cracked ribs.
    Arrius went on, “You study with the philosophers in the Basilica Ulpias? What’s your teacher’s name?”
    “Timoleon of Athens. He’s usually there around noon. But if he’s busy...”
    “If he’s too busy to see one of his students who’s been slugged by the Christians, he has no business setting himself up as an arbiter of the good life,” retorted Arrius equably. “I’ll send one of my men to tell him you’re ill.”
    Marcus opened his eyes a slit, dazzled by the reflection of the sun on the bright rings of the hauberk. “But...” he protested, knowing he shouldn’t be lying here doing nothing, but feeling too sick to do anything else.
    “But nothing. Take care of yourself, boy. You’ll be hearing from me.”
    A few moments later he could hear the man’s hobnailed boots on the rickety wood flooring of the hall and feel the jar of his body weight as he descended all those flights of stairs. Then abruptly he fell asleep and, contrary to his expectations, slept like a dead man, dreaming nothing.

III
If you love an earthen vessel, say it is an earthen vessel which you love; for when it has been broken you will not be disturbed. When you are kissing your child or your wife, say it is a human being whom you are kissing; for when the wife or child dies, you will not be disturbed.
    Epictetus
    G RILLING AND OPPRESSIVE , the heat of afternoon seemed to strangle him out of unconsciousness instead of into it. He lay for what seemed like hours, staring at the stained, cracked boards of the ceiling over his head, wondering if all last night and that morning had been some kind of insane delirium. Though he was sure he had lain down fully clothed, he was now naked, and the bedding of his narrow sleeping-couch was damp with his sweat. From across the room he heard voices, the philosopher Timoleon’s, slow and dry and deliberate, laboring over the commonplaces of the Forum and the market, against the high nattering counterpoint that Marcus recognized with surprise as belonging to his brother Felix.
    “Of course, one hears all manner of gossip,” the teacher was saying, “and one sees these orgiastic processions wending their way through the very heart of Rome; these mincing priests of Cybele and Attis, with their dampened locks and affected gait. As Juvenal says, the mire of the Orontes has spewed itself into the Tiber...”
    “Oh, quite, quite,” agreed Felix’s voice. “Fact is, though, can’t expect all them easterners just to drop their ways when they come to Rome, now, can we? I mean, we conquered ’em, and all.”
    “No,” sighed Timoleon. Opening his eyes, Marcus could see the deliberate shake of that leonine head. “For the gods made all states and degrees of mankind, as they created different varieties of animals, each for their different task. And as horses, and asses, dogs, and wolves were each separately made, so the minds of the different races were each cast to their own mold...”
    “That’s just it, ain’t it?” said Felix. “Can’t blame a dog for sniffin’—though, mind you, all that philosophy gaff is a sight beyond me. Always was.”
    Marcus closed his eyes again, blotting out the afternoon sunlight and wishing he could silence those disparate voices as well. He wondered how he could possibly have slept, when the gods only knew what was happening to the girl he loved—except, of course, that he had the suspicion that the centurion Arrius would not have permitted him to do otherwise.
    He sat up, stifling a groan as his cracked ribs pinched him, and Felix said, “Hullo! It’s Silenus himself!” Felix, as was to have been expected, had brought wine (and cups—he’d called on his brother’s lodgings before). He and Timoleon faced each other across the makeshift table, and Felix had clearly been doing his unsuccessful best to keep the dignified rhetorician entertained until Marcus could awaken and