In this, in a thousand other ways, I live in more
Comfort than you, my illustrious Senator.
I wander wherever I choose, alone: ask the price
Of cabbage and flour, stroll round the dodgy Circus
And Forum at evening: loitering by the fortune-tellers:
Then home to a dish of oilcake, chickpeas, and leeks.
Three lads serve my supper, a white slab holds two cups
And a ladle: a cheap bowl too, oil-flask and saucer:
All Campanian ware. Then to bed, with no worries
About early rising, appearing before Marsyas’ statue
With its pained face, that can’t stick Novius Junior’s.
I lie in bed till ten: then take a stroll: or after reading
Or writing work I’ll enjoy in peace later, rub myself
With oil, but not what dirty Natta steals from the lamps!
When I’m tired and the hot sun tells me to go and bathe,
I avoid the Campus and those three-way ball games.
I take a light lunch, enough to prevent me fasting
All day long, then I idle about at home. This is the life
Of those relieved of the weight of wretched ambition:
I comfort myself, this way, that I’ll live more happily
Than if grandfather, father and uncle had all been quaestors.