The two dogs were still by it, took their places under it as if they had belonged to me since puppyhood and under it trotted as I returned home.

Once home I ate the lunch permitted me and had an hour's sound, dreamless sleep.
I woke feeling so well that I sent for Agathemer, bade him have my litter ready and told him I was going to the Baths of Titus.
Inevitably Agathemer protested that I was not well enough; naturally I insisted and, of course, I had my way.
As with court levees, I have never been able to take as a matter of course without wonder and admiration, the marvellous spectacle afforded by an assemblage of our nobility and gentry gathered for their afternoon bath in any of our splendid Thermae.

Of these I hold the Baths of Titus not only the most magnificent, which is conceded by everybody, but also I hold them the most impressive mass of buildings in Rome, both outside and inside, and surpassing in every respect every other great public building in the city.

Most connoisseurs appraise the Temple of Venus and Rome as our capital's most splendid structure, but I could never bring myself to admit it superior to or even equal to the Baths of Titus.

To enter this surpassing building, always congratulating myself on my right to enter the baths and use them; to be one of the courtly throng of fashionable notables resorting to them: I could never take these things as a matter of course.
Nor could I ever take as a matter of course the sight of the bulk of Rome's nobility, gentlemen and ladies together, thronging the great pools and halls or roaming about the corridors, passage-ways or galleries, all totally nude.
Social convention is an amazing factor in human life.