six in the
morning
But it closed down , never to open again . They live their narrow round -- he in his shop , she in her household -- and yet new and wider horizons have vaguely formed themselves around them since that summer evening by the crumbling Roman fort . It was daybreak of a March morning in the year of Christ 92 . Outside the long Semita Alta was already thronged with people , with buyers and sellers , callers and strollers , for the Romans were so early-rising a people that many a Patrician preferred to see his clients at six in the morning . Such was the good republican tradition , still upheld by the more conservative ; but with more modern habits of luxury , a night of pleasure and banqueting was no uncommon thing . Thus one , who had learned the new and yet adhered to the old , might find his hours overlap , and without so much as a pretence of sleep come straight from his night of debauch into his day of business , turning with heavy wits and an aching head to that round of formal duties which consumed the life of a Roman gentleman . So it was with Emilius Flaccus that March morning .