Eirēnē

Eirēnē was born on a small farm in the hills above Smyrna, in the Roman province of Asia, during the reign of Augustus. Her father, Menedēmos, grew grain and legumes, with a few vines close to the house and a kitchen garden her mother, Philonis, kept watered. The family spoke Greek and paid taxes to the provincial administration. A clay lamp burned at the hearth niche, and Philonis set pinches of barley and a splash of wine there for Hestia before the day’s grinding and baking.

Two sons had come before. Philōn, born the year before Eirēnē, had lived only long enough to be wrapped and laid out. Dionysios was Menedēmos’s son from his first marriage, nearly sixty now and bent from decades working the same fields. He still took the donkey out at dawn and brought news back from the track that ran toward Smyrna’s market.

Philonis nursed Eirēnē through the spring and into the heat. When the time came to mix gruel, she mashed grain with water kept in a jar sunk into the cool earth. The child crawled on the packed floor while Philonis spun wool. Dionysios, passing through at midday, lifted her and held her for a moment before setting her down and returning to the threshing.

Before the harvest that year, Dionysios fell ill with a fever and died within days. Menedēmos brought in the grain with hired help and a neighbor, Agathōn.

In the winter that followed, Eirēnē’s belly loosened and she passed watery stool through the day. Philonis tried boiled water and a little salted broth, holding the child through the night. Eirēnē died the next morning.

They washed her, rubbed her with oil, and wrapped her in cloth. Menedēmos carried her to a small grave near the settlement’s edge and set a few grains and a coin beside her before covering the earth.