The Emperor Marcus Aurelius made lists of traces of time, both sordid and attractive, in Greek. A burnt crust, almost black on the bread, awakens the appetite. A dark scab on an old wound commemorates the death threat. The figs open when they are ripe, almost on the verge of rot. The strange shine of the olives the moment their skin wrinkles and their pulp begins to ferment. The accidental attraction in which the impression of death approaches the riot. She is a "tempestuous" beauty, said Fronton, her teacher. Like the open jaws of wild beasts, they fissure their faces in the instant before death. Every prehuman trace in the nature of the dying, of what is about to die, of what is going to die, attracts the emperor.