When does an anecdote become a story? How explicit must its ideological work be? Mérimée’s novella Carmen is a test case for the intelligibility of Roman reception. The narrator is a Roman historian, tracking down the site of the battle of Munda. He encounters a man with a mysterious past, and the tale made famous by Bizet’s Carmen unfolds. Caesar, lawbreaker and civil warrior, casts a long shadow over the story, which invites the reader to contemplate the insufficiency of human law – among Romans, the Roma, in Spain – before the divine law of God.