The next morning I rose early, ate a frugal breakfast of honey and bread, offered my beard to Belbo for a trim (I trust no one else to use anything sharp near my neck), donned my toga, since I intended to pay some formal visits, and stepped out of the house. The fresh, dewy air was bracing; the lingering chill of the night was tempered by the morning's warm sunshine.
I filled my lungs with a deep breath and headed up the street with Belbo beside me.
The Palatine seemed to me particularly lovely that morning. Of late, whenever I left the immediate vicinity of my house, I had been struck by how dirty and grubby so much of Rome had begun to seem, especially the Subura with its brothels and taverns and foul-smelling little side streets, and the Forum with its toga-clad hordes of politicians and financiers going about their frenzied business. How much more pleasant the Palatine was, with its shaded, well-paved streets, its quaint little shops, orderly apartments and handsome houses. One could breathe in such a neighborhood, and walk even in the busiest part of the day without knocking elbows with a hundred rude, shoving strangers.
I had gotten used to living in a rich man's neighborhood, I realized, and the adjustment had not been difficult at all. What would my father say, who had lived all his life in the Subura? Probably, I thought, he would be proud of his son's material success, however unconventionally I had acquired it. He would also probably remind me that I should keep my wits about me and never be deceived by appearances. The rare and beautiful things that wealth and power can buy are often only decorations to conceal the way that such wealth and power were attained. Yes, a man can breathe freely on the airy, spacious Palatine-and a man can also stop breathing. Something more awful than knocking elbows with strangers had happened to Dio. The quality of a man's bedsheets counts for nothing if his sleep is forever.
The way to the house of Lucius Lucceius took us past the apartment building from which Marcus Caelius had recently been evicted. As we passed I paused to take a look. Not only was the upper story deserted, but a sign had been painted in handsome black letters on the corner of the building: