The Julian secret

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Demetrius did not like being among the dead at night. If the purpose of being here was to visit a tomb, perhaps to lower food to the spirit of someone departed, then it should be done in daylight when the gods could see and note the piety with which the ancestors were treated. The same would be true if this were a funeral procession. Night was the time of evil and the underworld, the time of Pluto or whatever name these Romans had for the master of Hades.

But Demetrius was a Greek, a mere slave, who did not get to choose the time and place of his labors.

Even in the poor light of stuttering torches, though, it was obvious that Sextinus, his master, was unhappy even if he was carrying out a command of the Emperor himself. The other slave, a Gaul whose tongue had been cut out for some minor disrespect, was clearly as unhappy as Demetrius. Not only were the streets between the tombs dark, it was said that at night deadly serpents came out from the Tiber's swamps at the foot of the hill below to devour whatever might remain of the recently deceased.

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