Welcome to the ancient villa of the Pisoni, the last stop on your journey. You can’t leave Herculaneum without seeing it! It looks like an emperor’s palace; but actually, it was built by a powerful family back in the Republican age.
Follow me, the master asked me to be your guide, because you are distinguished guests. I don’t usually deal with stuff like this, but if the master asks… I am at your disposal. My name is Diótima and I am a philosopher.
There: you are pulling a face, just like everybody when they meet “a philosopher slave?!”.
Oh don’t worry, I’m used to it. Everyone thinks slaves are only good for mopping floors and serving antipasti… But no… I am the library manager!
So I will tell you. I was bought as a child, at an auction. When I told them my mother had taught me to read, no one believed me: they put me right away to work in the kitchens. Imagine, this villa is so big that I didn’t meet the owner for months and months! I didn’t even know what he looked like. All I saw was a lot of guests coming and going at all times of day and night. The master had all kinds of visitors: aristocrats from Rome, local politicians, Greek scholars with long beards…
One day, when I was clearing up the dirty plates after a banquet, I found a note. One of the guests, a poet, had lost it. I tried hard to read his scribbled verses: they were about love, pain, destiny… a real winger, to be honest.
Then I heard somebody coughing behind me. I was frightened, so dropped all the plates and the silver jug. You could hear the crash all the way to the lobby!
A man with a pile of papyrus rolls under his arm looked at me with an amused expression. ‘Well get this,’ he said, ‘I have an educated slave and I didn’t know it!’
I threw myself at his feet, begging for mercy. I was sure it was going to be the end for me!
But he burst out laughing. He said that philosophy is worth much more than a few terracotta pots.
It was the first time I heard that magic word: phi-lo-so-phy…