Petronius: Satires and the Book of Priapeia

LO...inflamed by the lust of the jesters, she herself rose, and having snatched up Giton, dragged him into the bedroom. Without a doubt, the boy had not resisted, and not even the girl had fearfully trembled at the name of marriage. And so, when they were shut inside, we sat before the threshold of the bridal chamber, and Quartilla, in particular, had applied her curious eye to a crack that had been wickedly widened and was watching their childish game with lascivious diligence. With a slow hand, she drew me also to the same spectacle, and because our faces were pressed together as we watched, she was moving her lips in the interval when she was not watching, and was striking me, as it were, with stolen kisses.

We were thrown onto the couches and spent the rest of the night without fear.

The third day had now arrived, that is, the expectation of a free dinner, but fleeing was more pleasing than resting, as we were riddled with so many wounds. And so, while we were sadly deliberating how we might avoid the present storm, one of Agamemnon's servants interrupted our trembling and said, "What? Do you not know at whose house it is taking place today? Trimalchio, a most luxurious man, has a clock in the dining room and a trumpeter outfitted, so that he may know how much of his life he has lost." We therefore dress ourselves carefully, having forgotten all our troubles, and we order Giton, who was most willingly performing his servile duty, to follow us to the baths. We meanwhile, dressed, began to wander, or rather to joke more and approach the circles Groups of people conversing in public., when suddenly we see a bald old man, dressed in a reddish tunic, playing ball among long-haired boys. And it was not so much the boys that had led us to the spectacle, although they were worth seeing, as the master of the house himself, who in slippers was exercising with a green ball. He was no longer retrieving the one that had touched the ground, but a slave had a full bag and was supplying the players. We also noticed new things. For two eunuchs spadones castrated men were standing in different parts of the circle, one of whom was holding a silver chamber pot matella a portable toilet/potty, the other was counting the balls, not indeed those that were vibrating between their hands as they played, but those that were falling to the ground. While we were admiring these luxuries, Menelaus ran up and said, "This is the one at whose house you will recline, and indeed you see the beginning of the dinner already." And Menelaus was not yet speaking when Trimalchio snapped his fingers, at which signal the eunuch placed the chamber pot under him as he played. After he had relieved his bladder, he asked for water for his hands, and having sprinkled his fingers a little, he wiped them on the head of a boy.