This story is excerpted and adapted from the new book A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome by Emma Southon, PhD, published by Abrams Press © 2021. Like all the best detective stories, the story opens with the body of a woman being found in Rome in the early hours of the morning, around A.D. 24. The sun was rising, the birds were singing, and a woman’s crumpled body was lying on the ground. The body was that of Apronia, the wife of…
