Written for readers who have finished Book 1.
The overseer's wife, and the warm centre of the house. Married thirty years, she keeps a home in the streets above the State Agora where the door opens to whoever knocks and nobody is hurried out again. She holds no office and says little in a gathering; the household, and a good many of the people who pass through it, run on her all the same.
A silversmith of Ephesus whose living comes off the pilgrim trade — the miniature shrines, the amulets, the…
The man who taught Philaretos the scroll trade — and taught his father before him. Broad, slow, generous…
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…
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…