The barbarians don't attack, but they are blockading the town

Apparently, the barbarians don't wish to attack, but they are everywhere around Tarraco. In the country, clouds of smoke rise from the sites of hamlets and isolated farms. Refugees thronging into the town confirm the scouts' reports: the blockade of Tarraco has begun.
Our troops aren't numerous enough to attempt a sally. Messengers have been sent by sea to Rome for reinforcements. We can only wait, and hope that the Emperor's legions won't be all busy on another front. With all these refugees in town, supplies will be short. The poor, like Verania and her children, will be the first to suffer.
It is in this frame of mind that, one evening, several days after the beginning of the siege, I leave the ramparts and head for Olivia's house. On my way, Verania, whom I've barely seen since our arrival in town, seems being waiting for me.
"How are your children?" I ask.
"Fine, for the moment. But it seems that the siege will last long?"
"Yes, it seems so," I say laconically, guessing that bad rumors are spreading through the town.
"We haven't many means of living, and prices are higher and higher, even when something is left to buy. Actually, the only valuable thing we have left is ourselves..."
She blushes slightly and, for an instant, looks several years younger.
"If I could sell myself as a slave, my children wouldn't fear hunger anymore."
The understanding of what Verania is proposing astonishes me. I've already heard, like everyone, more or less true stories about parents pressed by distress who sold their own children as slaves. But it's the first time that I hear a woman proposing herself as a slave to protect her children. I can't help admiring her, and realizing that she has first thought to me as a master really moves me.
An odd thing is that I've never owned slaves. As a child, my parents were humble tenant-farmers, the last degree before being a slave oneself, and we did all the work without help. Then I've lived the life of a soldier, used to do all the chores by myself, and to ask the camp wenches when I needed some company... not that my income as an officer doesn't enable me, now, to buy and support one or several slaves.