Regina
Alvarado
Assignment 6
Today was a market day and there
was to be a festival. Claudia dressed in
a simple stola and draped her pulla around her before heading out. She was accompanied by her guardian on her
way to the beginning of the procession.
Today the citizens were holding the festival to honor and sacrifice to
Jupiter. Claudia made her way to Capitoline Temple where the statue of Jupiter
stood and waited for the end of the procession.
She was in no hurry because the parade had to make its way from the
Campus Martius, through the city walls, go around the city, go down the Via
Sagra, and then finally makes its way to the temple. There at the temple a ritual was performed
where a bull was sacrificed to the greatest of the gods. Claudia didn’t mind watching the entirety of
the processions on any given festival day because she didn’t much like how the
general stood so smugly atop his chariot, flanked by his sons on horseback.
Claudia’s father loved festival
days because he didn’t have to work and it was a day of joyous celebration. Claudia loved it too,for two reasons. The first
was because she loved the feast the city ate at the banquet after the
sacrifice. She was indifferent to the religious part of it and liked that she
wasn’t required to go to it every time. However she was truly thankful to Vesta
for all that she gave to the city. The second reason that Claudia loved
festivals is because plebes like Marcus, her love, could enjoy in the
festivities as well. Near the end of the day after her guardian had partaken in
the festivities and the drinks it offered Claudia would sneak off to see
Marcus. She had long since stolen a toga of her father’s to give to Marcus on
these days. His plain tunic would have given his status away and they would
have been met with hostility. With a toga, Marcus and Claudia could roam around
the city after most of its citizens had become drunk and were staggering
around. On evenings like those Claudia liked to think that class had no
boundaries. She loved to entertain the idea that she could be with her love
Marcus without her father being furious. She hated the reality that it was just
an idea and could never be reality.
