II explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Grief and Healing

  Lucius's intense grief over Ilia's disappearance and Thrasyllus's advice to seek distraction through travel and study highlight the theme of healing from loss.

• Deception and Survival

  Thrasyllus and Catullus conceal the truth about Ilia's elopement with Carus, maintaining a deception to protect Lucius from further pain, while Cora's unnoticed presence underscores her survival as a slave.

• Class and Hierarchy

  The contrast between Lucius's wealth and Catullus's poverty, along with the treatment of slaves like Cora and Tarrar, emphasizes the rigid class structures of Roman society.

Characters to notice

• Publius Lucius Sabinus

  Lucius is sobbing on his cushions, consumed by grief over Ilia's disappearance, and remains oblivious to Cora's singing and presence.

• Thrasyllus

  Thrasyllus comforts Lucius, advises him to master his grief, and reveals he knows Ilia ran away with Carus the Cypriote, though he keeps this from Lucius.

• Catullus

  Catullus, Lucius's penniless uncle, sleeps on deck, complains about his poverty and the monotony of Roman food, and cynically discusses Ilia's infidelity.

• Cora

  Cora, a Greek slave bought for her voice, sings hymns to Aphrodite hoping to divert Lucius, but he takes no notice; she later examines her own beauty in a mirror.

• Tarrar

  Tarrar, the Libyan boy, is instructed by Thrasyllus to draw the curtains noiselessly.

Key passages

• “Lucius lay on his cushions sobbing like a child. Beside him sat old Thrasyllus, with his hand on his master’s heaving shoulder: “Lucius, pray control yourself,” he said. “Master yourself and yield piously to Fate. Ilia is gone, she is gone. She is probably gone forever. She has disappeared. Pirates must have kidnapped her while she was bathing.””

  Lucius wept uncontrollably on his cushions, and Thrasyllus tried to calm him, urging him to accept fate and suggesting that Ilia had been taken by pirates while bathing.

  Thrasyllus offers a false explanation for Ilia's disappearance to spare Lucius the truth.

• ““And everyone knows—the steersman told me so himself—that she ran away with Carus the Cypriote, the sailor! Everyone knows it, all the sailors and rowers.””

  Catullus reveals that Ilia actually eloped with Carus the Cypriote, a sailor, and that the entire crew is aware of it.

  This exposes the deception maintained by Thrasyllus and Catullus.

• ““She was like the Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles,” Thrasyllus persisted. “I could never see it!” Catullus persisted, in his turn. “I could never see it. There may have been something of Praxiteles’ Venus in the lines of her body … something, perhaps, though much coarser; but her face certainly lacked the charm, the smile of that divine statue.””

  Thrasyllus compares Ilia's beauty to the famous statue of Venus by Praxiteles, but Catullus disagrees, finding her coarser and lacking the statue's charm.

  This debate highlights differing perceptions of beauty and Ilia's idealized image.

• “She stood naked. She looked at her wrists, which were slim, like a patrician’s. She stooped and looked at her ankles. She arched the instep of her narrow, shapely foot. And she passed her slender fingers over her hips, which were like a virgin’s, and over her waist, round which she could almost make her two hands meet.”

  Cora undresses and examines her own body, noting her slim wrists, delicate ankles, and narrow waist, comparing herself to a patrician.

  Cora's self-inspection reveals her awareness of her own beauty and perhaps a desire for recognition.