A Letter from Titus, a Tanner of Rome, to His Beloved Julia

Monday, January 13, 226 A.D.

Dearest Julia,

It is evening as I write, the lamplight flickering against the clay walls of this inn, and the pungent scent of hides heavy in the air. I have made my delivered to Severus, and I’ll leave for home at first light.

It clings to me, this smell of piss, no matter how hard I scrub or how often I soak myself in the baths.

Do you remember, once, how you teased me, saying I would smell like the horse piss, even if I stood out all night in a storm? You laughed so freely then. I think of that sound often. I hope the children laugh as you did, even when I am not there to hear it.

The truth is, I miss you. I miss us.

I miss the days when we would talk into the night, when I would come home not just to eat and sleep but to truly be with you.

Lately, I feel as though I am more a shadow passing through our home than a man who lives within its walls. The leatherwork consumes me, Julia. I wake thinking of orders yet unfulfilled, debts yet unpaid. The weight of it all presses down on me, and I wonder: is this what life is meant to be?

Marcus came by last week—yes, that Marcus, the one with the golden brooch shaped like Jupiter’s thunderbolt. He walked in with his fine toga and his polished sandals, and for a moment, I felt ashamed of the grime on my hands, and how I smelled.

He did not seem to mind, though. He had come to commission leather for new armor. His son is to join the legion, marching north to Britannia. I think of our own little Felix, not yet six years old, playing at being a soldier with a stick in the courtyard, and I shudder.

Marcus spoke of his son with such pride. Yet there was a weariness beneath his words, as if the idea of sending the boy off felt more like surrender than triumph. I asked him why he looked so troubled, and he said something I cannot stop turning over in my mind: “We trade the best of our lives for what we think we should want, not what we truly need.”

Julia, is that what I have done?

Traded laughter for coin, love for the press of responsibility? I think of you, sitting at home, mending the tunics and minding the children while I bury myself in the vats and tools.

Do you feel the same weariness as Marcus? Do you wonder, as I do, if the life we are living is the one we truly want—or merely the one we have settled into, like an old cloak too familiar to cast off?

Sometimes, late at night, I imagine another life. One where I close the tannery and take you and the children to the countryside.

We would grow olives or tend sheep. We would live simply, without the noise of the Forum or the stench of the tannery. Felix would run barefoot through the fields, and Claudia would learn the songs of the herdsmen.

You and I would sit beneath the olive trees, watching the sun set over the hills, and we would talk—not of debts or hides or the price of grain, but of dreams and memories.

But even as I write this, I know the truth: I could never leave this place.

The tannery is as much a part of me as the calluses on my hands. I would wither without the work, without the purpose it gives me. What I want, Julia, is not to abandon my labor but to find meaning in it. But lately, I just feel like Sisyphus, rolling his stone upon his hill, only to see it careen back to where it starts all over again. To carve out a space for you, for the children, for the life we dreamed of when we first married, seems ever more difficult.

Do you remember those days? When I would come home from the shop with gifts—small things, like a ribbon for your hair or a sweetmeat for Felix? When we would sit by the fire, and you would tell me stories of your childhood, your voice soft and full of wonder? I miss those moments. I miss you.

Here is what I have decided. I will endeavor to come home earlier from the shop than I have been. I will take Felix to the baths and listen to his endless stories about slaying monsters with his stick-sword. I will sit with Claudia as she practices her letters and marvel at how much she has grown. And most of all, I will give you the time and attention you all deserve, my beloved.

I know we have failed in this before.

I have let the weight of my work blind me to what truly matters. We have even had cross words, from time to time, and I forgive you for you impertinence and unkindness, as I was also unkind to you as well. But I am asking for you to continue to stand by me so that we can be the father, mother, and citizens that our children require by our example.

Kiss the children for me. Tell Felix that his father will join him in a swordfight this Saturn’s Day.

And as for you—when I return home tomorrow evening, I will delight in you, and sit with you. We will light the fire and talk, as we once did. I will listen, Julia. To your stories, your worries, your laughter. I will listen, you will listen, and we shall both be understood.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed,
Titus