Written for readers who have finished Book 1.
A scroll-copyist in the craftsman quarter of Ephesus, and a specialist in the Ephesia grammata — the famous spell-scrolls the city exported across the Greek-speaking world. He is good at it: a real, unexamined skill, and a sister who keeps the accounts. Whether the formulas actually do anything is not a question his trade has ever required him to ask. Then he begins, for professional reasons, to listen to a teacher in a hired hall.
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…
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…