“Stop, Domitia! We've all been through this. What time did you get married?”
“At sixteen.”
“And I was fifteen. You know that marriages are not made out of love, but out of expediency. We all sacrifice ourselves to marriage, but then…”
Sabina led her eyes in the direction of the slaves and made a sign with her hand. They stopped waving, slowly moved to the far edge of the huge hall. Sabina and her friend got off the bed.
“Marcus,” Sabine said to the boy, “we go to the thermae. Don't you want to come with us? It's so hot today!”
Marcus broke away from reading, hesitantly looking at his mother. She made a permitting gesture with her hand, and they all went to the entrance to the imperial baths. In a large room lined with black-and-white floor slabs, columns of Corinthian pink marble towered around the perimeter, and in the niches the sculptures of Venus and Cupid, who took frivolous poses, took refuge. In the center was a pool in which the blue water splashed.
“Hadrian banned the joint washing of women and men,” Sabine remarked, smiling playfully. “But we're all here. Aren’t we?”
She threw off the tunic, exposing the taut, slender body of the nulliparous woman and began to slowly descend the steps into the water. She felt Marcus studying her, and therefore she was in no hurry. Domitia also followed her example, however, not too much embarrassed—they used to bathe with their son at home.
“Come on, Marcus. Come join us!” Sabina called, turning to him in the water so that he could see her all, from the breasts to the tips of feet. “Don't stand like a statue!”
Marcus undressed and, turning to give clothes to the slave, noticed two African slaves standing nearby. Those with their hands folded on their stomachs, looked indifferently in front of them, like two living idols motionlessly frozen on the order of the lady.
The villa of his parents, where Marcus lived, was located on Caelius near Regin's house. It was one of the seven hills of the city, which had long been favored by the Roman nobility. The area became fashionable among patricians because of the picturesque and sparsely populated area. There was no crowding nor the crowds of the big city, here they did not hear the noise and cries of the crowd, nor the disgusting smells of Roman streets.