‘I Thought Grumio And Clemens Volunteered To Serve My Household To Gain Vital Workplace Skills,’ Claims Shocked Caecilius

Caecilius poenitens est

Lucius Caecilius Iucundus, the head of a wealthy Pompeiian household familiar to generations of young Latin scholars, has told scribes how shocked he was to learn from plebeians - who burst into his atrium yesterday and occupied his triclinium - that he has never actually paid his villa workers Grumio and Clemens a single denarius for their services.

“Many years ago I came home after hard day’s counting money at the office, to find these two young people had moved into a cubiculum at the back of the villa,” said Caecilius. “My dear wife Metella convinced me that they came knocking on our door one day, desperately keen to gain vital 24-hour-a-day experience in a typical domestic workplace environment. Imagine my horror when some poetry-scribbling dole scrounger - who was squatting in my favourite lectus - shouted that my wife had in fact bought them, body and soul, in a Slavecentreplus auction.”

“Naturally, I intend to start paying these key members of my household staff ten sesterces a week for their valuable services, starting the day after tomorrow,” he offered. “Although I reserve the right to make deductions from Grumio’s salary for drinking me out of house and home as he cooks my dinner. And I also reserve the right to beat him severely. That's my commitment to furthering his education.”

“I never spoke to them, except to give them an order, so I can solemnly swear in the names of all the gods that I never had the faintest idea they weren’t in my household of their own free will, nor that I never paid them a thing for all their labours,” insisted a red-faced Caecilius. “May the earth split open and swallow me if it’s not true.”