If any of my family survived the fall of Rome, it would have been in Constantinople. I don't know their final fate, but so much of Rome burned. I curse myself sometimes because I destroyed my records of my descendents, so I don't actually know. But it seemed so logical at the time. How would I explain that, two hundred years after I went missing, I returned, looking much the same as when I left? No. I could only listen from the garden to make sure they were well. And then the barbarians came.