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on its side. It was fully three paces in diameter, and the top surface was the height of a man’s waist. A wide and shallow trough had been carved between the center of the disk and its outer edge, going the entire circumference of the disk. This wide groove was filled with freshly harvested olives.
    “Caesar grants privileges and citizenship to those who cooperate,” Damian continued, “and ruthlessly destroys those who do not.”
    The bound wrists of Damian’s captive were tied to an upright axle in the center of the olive press. His arms were stretched across the trough of the press, just above the olives that filled it. The rest of his body hung down over the edge of the press, and he stood awkwardly, his belly pressing into the stone.
    “You may recall my first words to you,” Damian said. “I invited you to eat and drink. I promised to give you comfort in exchange for answers.” Damian shrugged. “You should not be surprised, then, that when you refused to speak, your food and drink were removed. That, however, is only the beginning of what you face for refusing to cooperate.”
    Damian pushed himself off the edge of the olive press. He felt his hatred for Nero and Helius coiling in his belly, and he used it to lash out at this prisoner. Damian needed the hate—he was not capable of torture without it.
    Damian spoke to the giant slave who had been standing silently to the side. “Let’s show him what we have in mind.”
    A half hour earlier, Damian had instructed other slaves to deliver several wooden beams to be left near the press. These beams were the height of a man and the thickness of Damian’s arm.
    Damian picked up the end of one beam. Because of the fierceness of his hangover, his vision seemed to explode in small dots as blood rushed to his head. He fought the urge to vomit again and pretended nonchalance as he laid the beam across the olive press, several feet down from the captive’s arms and parallel to them.
    This beam now rested halfway between the captive’s arms and the upper portion of the olive press, which was a second disk of stone that sat upright and fit snugly within the shallow walls of the trough of the lower disk. Like a wheel too, it had a wooden axle protruding horizontally, with a ring at the end that fit over the vertical axle in the center. This heavy wheel of stone was designed with the protruding horizontal axle to be pushed by three men walking around the outer edge of the olive press, so that the disk could be rolled continuously within the trough of the lower disk, its tremendous weight squeezing oil from olives that drained from the trough into a catch basin.
    “Begin,” Damian said, holding the outer end of the beam. He’d instructed Jerome on what to do next.
    Jerome moved to the axle of the upper disk and grabbed it with both hands in front of his chest. He set his weight against the axle. His head was shaved, and the layers of muscle between the bottom of his skull and the top of his neck bulged as he leaned into the axle.
    Although it normally took three men to move the stone disk, Jerome shoved it forward with little sign of strain. Olives in front of the round upright stone disappeared beneath it, becoming pulp as the disk passed over. Two steps later, moving around the outside of the lower disk, Jerome reached Damian and stopped with the upper disk resting against the beam across the trough.
    Jerome paused.
    Damian looked at the captive farther down, whose eyes were fixed on the beam. Damian nodded. “Jerome.”
    Jerome pushed the upper wheel forward another step as Damian held the beam in place so that it would not slip. The disk rolled over it, snapping it like kindling.
    “I believe the sound of your arm breaking would not be much different than that. If we could hear it over your screams.” Damian grabbed another beam and laid it across the olive press a few feet closer to the captive, allowing Jerome to roll the disk over it, too, with the same