Written for readers who have finished Book 1.
The man who taught Philaretos the scroll trade — and taught his father before him. Broad, slow, generous, with a craftsman's ruined eyes. Euander has watched religion change in Ephesus before and adjusted without bitterness, and he makes the case any reasonable man of his world would make: there are two kinds of power, they have always coexisted, and no one need wreck his own livelihood over a new teacher's argument. It is not a stupid case.
A silversmith of Ephesus whose living comes off the pilgrim trade — the miniature shrines, the amulets, the…
Neokoros — the priest-administrator of the Temple of the Sebastoi, and therefore keeper of the honour that…
Philaretos's sister, and the reason the household stands up. Kira has kept the accounts since she was…
The overseer's wife, and the warm centre of the house. Married thirty years, she keeps a home in the streets…
Senior overseer of the Ephesian church: a man in his sixties who has spent thirty years keeping order in a…
A scroll-copyist in the craftsman quarter of Ephesus, and a specialist in the Ephesia grammata — the famous…