About this story
You want help reaching a girl named Lygia, a foreign king's hostage raised as a daughter in the house of Aulus Plautius. Petronius grasps the problem before you finish: she is not a slave, not a daughter, and not beyond the state's attention. He keeps Caesar's messenger waiting an hour and turns the litter toward the Plautii.
Who you’ll meet
Lygia, the royal hostage raised as a daughter in a house that cannot protect her, and Petronius, the arbiter of taste who keeps an emperor waiting while he decides what happens to her — the woman you want and the uncle who will arrange it.
How it opens
Noon found Petronius recovering from Nero's banquet among steam and cedar.
PetroniusRome asks too much of a man who attends the emperor after midnight.
You waited beside the bath while attendants worked perfumed oil into his arms.
Bath AttendantThe tribune Marcus Vinicius has returned from the eastern legions.
PetroniusAdmit him, but remove that bronze stool before he praises it.
Choose
Asia taught me to value Roman discomfort.
I came because I need counsel, not furniture.