A day in the life of Antonius
My name is Antonius, son of Aquilus the Senator. We live in a large Villa. Every day, I wake up and get ready for school and I put on a toga and a pair of leather shoes. I eat breakfast with my family which means that I have to wait for my mother and sisters to get ready and they take far too long to get dressed. That makes me even hungrier! My mother, Claudia and my sisters, Amica and Aurelia, like to make their skin white with chalk and highlight their eyebrows with crushed ants eggs, which I think is disgusting!
Before breakfast, we pray to the Gods. There are quite a few to worship and Mum never forgets to pray to Venus, the Goddess of beauty! Our breakfast is usually made by our slaves, and they make me my favourite – fresh fruit, olives and fish – yummy! My friends usually stop at the bakery for pancakes on the way to school, but my family likes to lie on our sofas in a circle when we eat. Most children here are poor so they can’t afford to pay the teachers. Instead of going to school, they have to work in the fields pulling up weeds and ploughing. Because my family is rich I can go to school every day and I have my own slave to walk me there and back! It’s nice being rich – I heard that poor families in the towns have to share a toilet too – gross!
At school, we learn maths and read poetry from scrolls. I am learning to write at the moment and I practise on a tablet. A tablet is covered in bees wax and I write words into it with a small metal stylus.
After school I go home I love to play board games before dinner, sometimes with Casius the slave boy when he isn’t working. Every night our family eat a feast, with lots of meat, herbs and vegetables. My favourite part of the dinner is the gravy called liquamen
which is made with rotten fish!