“Do you think so, Catus Pompilius? Look at their faces, the joy written upon them, the lightness in each person’s step from the oldest to the youngest. Do you call it waste because you truly believe it, or because your thoughts drift to the only domus in this place where Saturnalia chills the very air you breathe and no sigillaria are exchanged?”
Catus Pompilius remembered now, all too well, that lonesome, dark home of his father’s on the far side of the town, the gates usually barred.
Suddenly they were there, within the unplanted peristylium of his childhood home. No fire was lit, and no laughter bounced off of the walls, as is common in places where children dwell.
A great sadness and anger washed over Catus then and he felt himself gravitate a step or two toward the light of Vesta’s
