The only lover I’ve had–a man I chose for myself, for no reason but love–was a gladiator I met when I was fifteen. And it wasn’t love when Emperor Domitian bought me, either. When I became a singer and performer in Brundisium I had several admirers and was quite fond of a few of them–Tribune Paulinus Norbanus of the Praetorian Guard was always kind and friendly, but it still wasn’t love there. I spent some bad months in a brothel after being sold by the worst of my mistresses I don’t like to think about those times, but I got out and that’s all there is to say. Slave girls service their masters–we all expect that it’s another duty for us like laundering togas or scrubbing out mosaic tiles. I’ve been a slave most of my life I didn’t choose the men who bedded me, so I wouldn’t call them lovers.

Of all your lovers, who did you like the best? He likes to test that, and it’s kept me alive so far. I fascinate him because he doesn’t frighten me. To his family is he capricious, fearful, fickle–they quiver before him. To the Senate he is arrogant, overbearing, dismissive–they despise him. To his soldiers he is blunt, honest, brave–they worship him. It depends which side of him you see, and he has as many sides as a set of dice. Is Emperor Domitian as bad in person as the senate makes him out to be? It’s hot, teeming, raucous, and quite frequently cruel. I don’t remember much of Judaea, but even so, Rome has never felt like home to me. The rest of my family died, and then I was enslaved and brought west. I survived the suicide massacre of Masada when I was about four years old one of seven survivors. What were your first impressions of Rome, after being sold to slavery in Judea? she is here to tell us of her remarkable journey, and about the highest echelons of Roman society. Dear readers, tonight with me is a woman who came to us as a Judaean slave girl, only to catch the eye of our divine emperor.

Kate quinn mistress of rome series