The Story of Papirius

Roman writers liked to tell the story of the boy Papirius. He went with his father to a session of the Senate, which was sworn to secrecy, and when his mother pressed him he invented a debate on whether a man should have two wives or a woman two husbands. The next day the matrons of Rome came to the Senate asking for two husbands, and the baffled senators only understood once the boy explained. They rewarded his discretion with the name Praetextatus, after the purple-bordered toga worn by Roman boys. Beccafumi, working in Siena in the mid-1520s, tells it as one continuous scene, with Papirius appearing more than once. Behind him is Rome as a visitor of that century knew it, the Colosseum and a triumphal arch beside the medieval Torre dei Conti and Hadrian's tomb already turned into the fortress of Castel Sant'Angelo.