Maybe imagine here the praetor, in front of the jury and the crowd of onlookers and the cuckolded husband and probably everyone’s dads too, demanding that Calidius answer what he was doing in someone else’s marital bedroom at night. What possible reason could he have for being there? A pause. An awkward cough. The shifty look of a man about to go as low as he could to save his own life. And when Calidius finally spoke he said, ‘I was there not for the woman’ (name not recorded). ‘I was there . . .’ A pause. ‘. . . because I wanted to bang the slave-boy.’
