Written for readers who have finished Book 1.
Philaretos's sister, and the reason the household stands up. Kira has kept the accounts since she was fifteen, when their father died and left the two of them a name in the trade; she reads the money where her brother reads the words. She has no quarrel with what he is listening to and no intention of listening to it herself. What she wants is plainer and harder to get: to know what is going to change, and whether she will have any warning before it does.
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…
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…