By the immortal gods, who poured red wine into my head?
Me, obviously.
I stumbled through the door with dignity—because how else should a man wear his toga if not like a drunken gladiator’s cloak? I saluted the lamp of Minerva, tripped over the tripod of Mercury (he smiled, I cursed), and collapsed at my desk like a free citizen should. Time to record my thoughts—or what’s left of them after four amphorae of Falernianus and two rounds of “Guess Who Belched?”
I drank with Rufus. Yes, that Rufus—friend, poet, and walking disaster. Remember, O Journal, that fateful night he fell through the ceiling? He lived in one of those sky-high flats that get neither sunlight nor shame. Trying to perform a verse by Horace (or maybe just reaching for more wine), he stepped on a basin and crashed gloriously into old Livia’s apartment below.
Straight into the arms of a marble statue of Pudicitia.
And as he later grinned, one tooth short: “The only chaste woman’s arms that ever embraced me.”
Left hand clutched an amphora, right hand flung wide for drama:
“Vita brevis, vinum longum, hic cecidi.”
— “Life is short, wine is long, here I fell.”
Slightly better than “Oops.”
—
I tried to tally my monthly budget. Official salary: 2,000 denarii.
But I suspect part of it vanishes into “sewer maintenance taxes” (read: wine for the aedile).
Here’s what I’ve spent so far this month:
- Goat cheese (eaten once, dreamed about thrice): 120 denarii
- Salted fish, as salty as my life: 230 denarii
- Wine (unknown quantity, but deeply cherished): 540 denarii
- Parchment, wax, reeds—because without work, there’s no bread (or wine): 180 denarii
Remaining: 930 denarii
Rent: 1,000 denarii
Conclusion: I’ll be writing extra funeral inscriptions. Maybe even my own.
—
At the tavern “Apud Porcum Lautum” — famous for its suspicious smell and dirty jokes — we heard this gem:
— Why don’t scribes ever marry?
— Because no woman wants to be called his tablet for life!
And:
— What did the Vestal say when she saw the statue of Priapus?
— Come in… but quietly.
I laughed like a drunken donkey. Rufus laughed into the table. A veteran vomited in a cup.
It was a fine evening.
—
And if I die tomorrow, let the future know:
It’s no shame to drink cheap wine, only a shame to have no one to tell your dreams to after drinking it.
My reed trembles. I shall sleep beside Apollo’s statue.
Perhaps a virtuous woman will dream of me.
Or at least one with a tray of olives.
Vivat Roma. Vale.