“But,” she said, “what do you really want to do with your life, Minutus? I’ve heard you spend your nights in brothels and neglect your studies with your rhetoric tutor. If you really want to read out your book this winter then you must keep your undisciplined body in check and work hard. It’s high time you made a suitable marriage.”
I explained that I wanted to make the most of my youth, within limits, and that at least I had not landed myself in trouble with the authorities for drunkenness and other things young knights were known for.
“I am looking around,” I said. “I take part in the riding exercises. I listen with the audience in the Praetorium if there is anything interesting. I read books. Seneca the philosopher has shown kindness to me. Naturally I am thinking of applying for a quaestor’s office sometime, but I’m still too young and inexperienced for that, even if I could get special permission.”
Tullia looked at me pityingly.
“You must realize that what is most important for your future is getting to know the right people,” she explained. “I’ve arranged invitations for you to good families, but they tell me you are sulky and silent and won’t meet friendship with friendship.”
“My dear stepmother,” I said, “I respect your judgment in every way. But everything I have seen and heard in Rome tells me to avoid binding myself to people who at the moment are considered the right people. Two hundred or so knights, not to mention a number of senators, were executed or committed suicide only a year or two ago, simply because at the time they were the right people or knew the right people only too well.”
“Thanks to Agrippina, all that’s changed now,” protested Tullia with perhaps too much eagerness. But my words gave her something to think about.
“The wisest thing you could do,” she suggested after a while, “would be to devote your time to the races and join one of the color parties. That’s a completely nonpolitical interest but will still lead to useful connections. You like horses.”
“One can have enough of horses,” I said.
“Horses are less dangerous than women,” said Tullia maliciously.
My father looked at her thoughtfully and said that for once she was light.
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“It would only attract unnecessary attention,” she said vindictively, “if you set up your own team at once, presuming your father can afford it. I know it’s only a matter of time now before we can let the fields grow again as pasture land. Growing corn in Italy will not pay once the harbor in Ostia is completed. But you’d hardly make a good horse breeder. Be content with betting on the races.”
But my days were full enough without the circus. I had my own old house in Aventine, Barbus to look after, Aunt Laelia to appease, and I also had to defend my Gallic freedman when his neighbor accused him of causing an offensive smell with his soap making. It was a relatively simple matter defending him in court, for the tanneries and dye works caused far worse smells. But it was more difficult to meet the statement that the use of soap instead of pumice was weakening and against the will of our fore-fathers. The neighbor’s lawyer tried to have the manufacture of soap banned in Rome by appealing to the forefathers of our forefathers all the way back to Romulus, all of whom had been content to scour themselves with the health-giving and hardening pumice.
In my speech for the defence, I praised Rome as an Empire and world power.
“Romulus did not burn eastern incense before his idols,” I cried proudly. “Our stern forefathers did not have caviar brought from the other side of the Black Sea, or foreign birds from the Steppes, or flamingos’ tongues or Indian fish. Rome is the melting pot of many peoples and customs. Rome chooses the best of everything and ennobles alien customs so that they become her own.”
So the use of soap was not banned in Rome and my freedman improved his soap by blending perfume with it and giving it beautiful names. We made a small fortune from Genuine Cleopatra Soap, although it was made in a back street in Subura. I must also admit that his best customers, apart from Roman women, were Greeks and people from the East who lived in Rome. The use of soap in public baths was still considered immoral.
I had much to do, but nevertheless it happened that at night, just before falling asleep, I often wondered about the meaning of life. Some- times I was pleased with my little successes and sometimes I was depressed because it all seemed so meaningless to me. Chance and fortune ruled over one’s existence, and death was sooner or later the hopeless lot of every person. I was, of course, both happy and lucky, but every time I achieved something, my pleasure became clouded and I was discontented with myself again.
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