The slaves were in a good humor because they knew my father was able to set a far better table than I. I was less eager because my father had a lot of slaves. That, I decided, was why he had insisted that I come. He wanted me to help out. We found the house laid out with the tables and couches set up within the peristyle, since the triclinium was far too small to hold them all. To my great relief father had persuaded some of his freedmen to help out. Most of these were men and women recently manumitted who had no slaves of their own to tend to. Hermes was already half-drunk and when he crawled onto the couch he wiggled his feet at me insolently until I took his sandals. Just wait, I thought to myself. I felt better about serving Cato and Cassandra. They had served my family all their lives and hadn’t all that much time left to them. They rated a little indulgence. For the next couple of hours we brought in the platters, kept the wine cups filled, and generally behaved as slaves.
