This is the Friends of History Debating Society.

I am Gaias, John Bachelor, and I welcome Michael Vleyhoes,

Germanicus.

We are by the Thames, as we do on Sunday nights.

On our way to the theatre, we stopped off for a cup of wine.

Thank you very much.

It's excellent.

The Thames is its winter.

So it is neither fair nor is it in any fashion threatening.

The winter is not snowing.

It's not as cold as it could be.

We're warmly wrapped.

We're a questering class, meaning we don't work, but we're not

worried about the politics of Rome.

Somewhere on the frontier, the legions are in action against

rascals, the barbarians.

The mission is our emperor.

He's in trouble with the Senate.

But that doesn't bother us because we're far away at the edge of the

empire, surrounded by retired centurions and their servants.

So the town is bustling.

No more boated cut to the threatness.

...