Chapter Four
It’s hard to focus on the lecture streaming on my tablet when I know I get to go out tonight. This one is about Prodicus’s “The Choice of Heracles,” where Virtue and Vice represent the two sides of a woman. The popular view of Rome includes orgies in the public baths, but women of stature covered most of their faces. The veils symbolized modesty but also appear in scenes of seduction. That dichotomy portrays women as both demure and lustful, both submissive and destructive.
There are two pages of scrawled notes by the time the professor gives us a reading assignment. In the past week I would have immediately opened my books, eager to begin. Today I bolt upstairs for the shower, determined to make the most of my brief foray outside.
The soaps I use are imported from France,
