Walking through the city with a large heavy Antiochus, Marcus looked at these cheerful crowds of people, slightly drunk, screaming, stretched on the face masks of wood bark and leaves, waving small phalluses made of flowers. Almost all of them without exception sang comic scraping songs and Marcus, unwittingly picked up by this whirlpool of fun, also sang along.
He sometimes liked to wander around Rome on such holidays, wrapping up, if it was winter or early spring, in a warm cloak, throwing a hood over his head. He liked to breathe the air of a free city and feel like a citizen of a universe named Rome. He liked to observe, because a leisurely, thoughtful contemplation was taught by Diognetus, but he had also been instructed that contemplation should be meaningful, leading to the right thoughts.
These drunk people in painted masks. Why did he look at them, what he wants to see, see under masks? Wouldn't it be better to give up thinking and get into a full-flowing human river, bubbling on narrow city streets and spilling wide, on the outskirts, like a spring Tiber during floods?
Wouldn't it be better to boldly approach a young freed woman with an indiscreet offer? Or embarrass the venerable matron with a cheeky look? And then brag about your courage in front of the Victorinus or Fuscianus? Because Baebius Longus and another friend of the plebeians Calenus, already boasted wins over women. Not over slaves, with which you can do anything, but over the free Romans.
A 14-year-old boy entering adulthood. Isn't that why he should celebrate such an important event? Adulthood was not only to change one set of clothes for another, to switch from a white toga with a red stripe to a fully white one. Adulthood was the ability to do things that were previously forbidden, it was to deny all prohibitions.
He thought like this, and suddenly his thoughts were embarrassing. The heady feeling of freedom, the permission of anything to the soul, gave courage to the depths of the heart, led to recklessness. He and Antiochus went further to the Aventine hill, where there was a temple of the goddess of fertility Ceres. That's where the sanctuary of Liber and Libera was.
Narrow streets, high bulk of brick insulae, from the entrance to which carries the smells of cooking food, urine and sewage. The walls of the houses were painted with all sorts of words, for the most part obscene, to which everyone was accustomed here. “Semporius yesterday inserted Sext's widow,” “Nicanor beats Checher's wife,” “Flor is a real stallion; he is not enough for five women,” “Girls, I traded you for men's ass.”
This was not the first time Marcus has read such coarse inscriptions coming from the depths of people's self-awareness. Of course, the simplicity of street humor was not in any comparison with the exquisite jokes of lawyers, philosophers or rhetoricians. She was closer to the Atellan farce and the mime, to the actors who played them, for example, to the well-known Marullus. Nevertheless, Marcus was never confused by the frank images inspired by Eros, crammed defiantly with huge phalluses.
He noticed that at the entrance to the houses on small chairs sat caretakers from retired military, in the past options39 or decurions.40 They collected rent for the owners, kept order. Usually these former fighters played with weighty sticks in their hands and looked unkindly at passers-by. But today they were disassembled by fun, and they did not look like sullen supervisors.
Noticing Marcus, one of these caretakers rose from his chair, and scornfully ignored the massive, clumsy Antiochus, who had warily stepped from behind the young patrician, saying, smiling:
“Dominus, does a woman want to.”
“Do prostitutes work during the day?” Marcus wondered, having heard about the experience of adult buddies.
“They always work, young dominus,” replied the caretaker, continuing to smile unpleasantly.
“Or maybe so I celebrate my new age?” returned to Marcus bold thoughts, which arose when he looked at the girls and women singing in the streets, at their pink cheeks and cheerful eyes, at their alluring bodies.
“We're going to the Libera sanctuary,” Antiochus interjected. In the cool air his voice sounded cracked, revealing a Greek accent. “The dominus doesn't have time now.”
“I think it will be up to the young master himself,” the caretaker said brazenly.
As he spoke, a mature, kind woman with fiery red-painted hair, a typical lupa,41 peeked out of the entrance of the insulae. Prostitutes were often painted in such defiantly bright colors, walked red or blue-headed.
“You have a place in the Lupanar,” Antiochus observed, “you violate the law of Augustus, which prohibits the accepting of customers at home.”
“What are you, the lictor? Something unnoticed by your fasces,”42 echidna throws a woman, quickly looking around Marcus. “Augustus has long been a god, and the gods do not always descend to such little things. Oh, what a lovely boy! Come on, come on with me!” she invited Marcus.
But words were not limited. She grabbed it, and Marcus unwittingly noticed her old skin, dirty nails on her hands, felt the unpleasant smell of an unwashed body. He became disgusted, the desire to go did not arise, but the legs themselves obediently led after the woman on shabby wooden stairs, on the floors, at the ends of which there are large vats for sewage. Residents poured their excrement there every morning. This smell was disgusting, sickening, but Marcus, as if fascinated by something, went after the old prostitute. Behind puffed heavy Antiochus.
The woman, meanwhile, having received a client, and even such a sweet, clean boy, went a quick step and spoke loudly, she was in a good mood. It turned out that she was from Bithynia, from where was born Hadrian’s favorite Antinous. No, she didn't know Antinous, and in the town of Claudiopolis, where he was born, she was not, but she heard about him. Hadrian had raised many monuments to this unfortunate young man. Died in the color of years! What a grief for his mother!
She herself, and her name was Demetra, three boys and all attached—traded in the shops of their fathers. She tried for them, she collected a small capital, forced them to go to school. True, their teacher was strict, he beat them with a whip mercilessly for every fault. But they grew up obedient and attentive to her, to their mother, to the glory of the gods!
They didn't get to the top floor, where the prices for the rent weren't as big as the bottom. Demetra rented a room for two thousand sesterces a year. The situation in it, although not shone luxury, but seemed quite tolerable. Apparently, its owner enjoyed success with men, especially in his younger years.
In the corner was a large bed, which could fit a few adults, perhaps three or four. That's what Marcus thought. A couple of trunks set against the wall. The table on which there were two clay jugs, and a chair stood near the window. From there was a coolness—on the upper floors there was no glazing, there were only wooden shutters, out of shape from the damp and barely covered. They hardly let the daylight pass, and therefore the room was gloomy.
In such darkness it was difficult to see the drawings on the walls covered with ochre, but Marcus still considered the erotic scenes that Demetra ordered the artists tailored to her craft. On them men with huge phalluses, exceeding the size of their hands, copulating with women in various poses.
“Now, now, sweetheart!” Demetra said, deftly removing Marcus's warm heavy cloak, then the tunic. She, accustomed to all the whims of men, did not pay attention to the slave standing there. Who knows, maybe he was there to make sure that no one harmed his master? Or maybe the young master would want them to have her together, at the same time? She, of course, was ready for anything, but it would cost more.
