Augustus Road

"The Palatine Hill is ahead." In the shadow of the building, Kelly looked at the smoke rising high in the distance and judged, "We turn left at the street ahead."

Kelly was right. There were no road signs in Rome. People could only judge the direction by landmarks: temples, mountains, and fruit trees. Near the turn of the Grand Circuit, Carabis saw that on the Palatine Hill mentioned by Kelly, there were some beautiful courtyards standing faintly. That must be the residence of the most powerful people in Rome. In the center of the courtyard, there was an extremely dilapidated shack standing proudly. It was filled with all kinds of people, carrying all kinds of furnaces, lighting up wisps of smoke, worshiping devoutly, and circling around this shack. The smoke that Kelly saw just now rose like this.

"That was the hut where the great Romulus, the founder of the city, used to shepherd sheep. Now it has become the most prosperous place of incense." Kelly pointed to the direction Carabis was looking at and introduced.

Perhaps this is the charm of the ancient city, where luxurious new buildings and dilapidated old traditions intersect and do not interfere with each other.

They soon turned into the neighborhood where the Avendini Hill is located. This is a big cave for immigrants and poor people. Every guy who has just come to Rome to try his luck settles here because the rent and living allowance here are the cheapest. The densely packed shanties are up the mountain and spread all the way to the Tiber River on the other side. The alleys are all pure mud, winding and muddy. Pigs, dogs, and chickens pass by proudly on them without avoiding humans. Among a large group of shanties and dilapidated apartment buildings, there is often an old but majestic mansion, like a white swan squeezed into a pond full of gray ducks. This must be the courtyard of the oldest nobles in Rome.

Carapis wanted to see the legendary Roman Forum, but Kelly had no intention of doing so. When they arrived at another section of the city wall at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, they went out through the city gate, where the Temple of Bellona and the Temple of Apollo stood. Between the two temples was a relatively quiet neighborhood. After turning around, Kelly parked the mule cart under a two-story apartment building at the back of the street. It was built of wood and mud, with a patio in the middle, with some wooden statues and firewood piled up in a mess, and a narrow external staircase leading to the second floor, with these cheap flowers and plants dotted on the railings. When they entered, the residents of the building, citizens, freemen and slaves, were sitting together at the dining table in the patio, around a platform made of small dining tables, eating heartily. Seeing Carapis and his party, a fat man with a silver necklace around his neck and wearing colorful hemmed clothes stood up amiably and greeted them warmly: "Welcome to our vici! Enjoy today's Compitania Festival, a festival that belongs to everyone."

vici, in Latin, means crossroads and neighborhood.

Kelly threw a purse directly on the fat man's chest, "Here are a hundred Sestris." Then he pulled Carabis forward and said, "Crassus's people introduced us to settle here. This family will live here. Arrange it immediately." Then Kelly leaned over to Carabis's ear and said, "I will leave immediately. Don't ask me what I am going to do. You should move the things in the mule cart and your women and children to the room immediately. This apartment is Crassus's property. Don't worry about everything. Don't move around, don't move things around, and wait for my next instructions." After that, Kelly walked to the door, looked cautiously at both ends of the street for a while, took out a box from the mule cart, and left in a hurry with the other two. "Hello, freemen from other places. My name is Delfero, also a freeman from Greece. I am the manager of this block. I am honored to take on this glorious position. I clean the intersection every day, offer sacrifices to the patron saint of the block on the altar, and take one tenth of the rent as commission. By the way, your name is Carabis. Judging from your appearance, you seem to be Asian." The fat man kept talking. He used the key to open a room on the second floor near the southwest corner, and then enthusiastically wanted to bring slaves to help Carabis move the things on the mule cart below.

"No need!" Carabis grabbed the fat man's hand, then nodded apologetically, indicating that he could go out and do his own thing, and then walked down the stairs step by step. Paluma was guarding the mule cart outside the door. Carabis was in the noisy and dancing group of tenants. Together with Boti, they moved all the luggage one by one to the empty space in the room, and then carefully locked the door.

This apartment was very simple, just a large square shape. The right side was separated by a wooden board and a door, forming a separate long and narrow bedroom with an old bed and gray curtains. The left side was separated by a hanging curtain, containing a stove and a dining rack blackened by smoke, which seemed to serve as a kitchen. The room in the middle had a brazier and a rough, dull niche on the wall, which was empty. Under the niche was a rough wooden dining table and four chairs. Carabis walked around and hung the pigeon cage on the windowsill next to the corridor outside the door. He said to Paluma, "Just play with your pigeons here, don't make any noise."

Paluma nodded and quickly lay on the windowsill. Boti came over and whispered, "Maybe I should go out to buy some bread and vegetables."

"Yeah." Carabis then sat on the chair, lost in thought, calming down the excitement of what he saw and felt today. It turned out that what Kelly said was really right - Rome is not an eternal city made of marble at all, at least not now. It is indeed a big pigsty now!"

In the evening, Bodi bought bread, pies, lettuce, charcoal and other sundries from outside. Carabis lit a brazier and huddled with little Paluma to keep warm. Bodi was busy cooking in the kitchen. Soon, there were loud noises and screams coming from the narrow window on the wall. Carabis rushed into the bedroom, pulled out the broadsword from under the bed, and leaned against the window to observe - a four-story apartment building two blocks away was burning fiercely, and there were shouts, footsteps and sirens everywhere. It seemed to be an ordinary fire - he thought so too, this kind of thing made of mud and wood layer by layer, when it met fire, it immediately turned into a big torch, and the building he lived in was the same.

Less than three quarters of an hour later, there was a loud crash, and the apartment collapsed completely. Dark gray smoke rolled up. It was finished and turned into a pile of rubble in the city of Rome. At this time, Botti's toast and lettuce pie were served, and Carabis and his adopted son began to devour them.

"Carabis, open the door!" There was a sharp kicking sound, accompanied by Kelly's annoying voice.

;