Nova Roma-Chapter 7 - In the farm part 2

The morning light beamed on Flavio's face, who stared at the ceiling of his room with a defeated look "Here we go again".

Flavio's morning routine could be described as boring, he gets up at 8 a.m. to go to the bathroom but he needs to use the sponge of the sea for cleaning "Very soon you will be in the past, stupid sponge"

Then he goes to the lavatrina of the house (Bath for the Romans) and washes his body

"I must take advantage of the fact that I am in the field to create soap and I can not bear to just bathe with water but it is still better than only using oil that experience was disgusting.

But even all that discomfort was small compared with the way the teeth were cleaned here, my parents and the principal servants used urine, I almost vomited when they offered me to do that disgusting thing.

Fortunately, as I am a child, I did not have the misfortune to try it personally before I unlocked my memory. I forced them to never touch urine for brushing their teeth again, and instead, I made a mixture with ground mint leaves and charcoal, it had a leafy flavour but it was still better than urine and also improved the smell of the breath of the person which is a win-win "

After washing his body and brushing his teeth, he wore his silk clothes and went towards the triclinium(Dining room for the Romans).

Breakfast had changed quite a lot, thanks to the orders of Flavio. On the table you can see freshly baked white bread and honey in a small jar, As for the main course you can see a plate of scrambled eggs and for drinking there was hot milk which was freshly milked from a cow and pasteurized,

There was also a kind of thin bread in the form of a saucer, and next to it was the same thin bread but with cheese inside it. Yesterday Flavio taught the maids how to make what he called flour tortilla, he also said that once the tortilla was prepared and cheese was placed inside and folded the tortilla to heat it again causing the cheese to melt.

He called it that quesadilla and he made it very clear that if it has only cheese then it is quesadilla if the tortilla contains any other food, it is called taco and even if the taco is topped with cheese, it is still a taco. Thanks to Flavio's efforts in the 21BC, in the 21st century there was never a quarrel over the quesadilla that was with cheese or without cheese (in the author's comments you can find the link to a curious animation that explains why this last line)

After having a slightly more familiar breakfast Flavio was in a good mood and thus went to his father's studio, to draw some necessary plans, a few hours later Sadiki entered the studio and informed him that the architect Marco had arrived.

Flavio instructed Sadiki to let him in, the architect Marco was a man about 30 years old who was surprised that the person who had summoned him was a 5-year-old boy.

"Welcome architect I have been waiting for you, I hope you can help me build buildings using few of my plans that are quite special, but before that, you need to look into my eyes as it is the protocol of this house"

After doing what was necessary Flavio showed him 5 papyrus, Marco was surprised by the detail of the plans, he had never seen that level of detail before but he did not understand those strange letters that the plans had though.

"Very well I'm glad you like it but first of all take this other papyrus will help you to understand the construction plans", Flavio placed 3 more papyrus on the table Marco looked curiously at the content of that papyrus when he took one for seeing he was surprised to see a lot of text explaining the conversion between units that he knew (Roman) and another system called the universal system.

There was also the conversion of the numbers that he knew to these other numbers called imperial (Arabs) what surprised him most was the facility to make large sums, all because of the curious number "0" that represented nothingness, but it allowed us to do a great variety of calculations.

Marco knew that this knowledge was very important, he looked at Flavio and said "You can count on my loyalty young master, nobody else will see these scrolls even if it costs me my life "

Flavio nodded in satisfaction "Now let me explain these scrolls, we'll start with the simplest to the most complicated"

He pointed out the first plan "This is called a chicken coop, it is a safe house for chickens where they can put their eggs without worries, I hope you can make a few chicken coops, Although chickens seem insignificant they are very important for the meat and eggs, one egg of a chicken can provide a lot of nutrients without mentioning the wide variety of applications thereof "

Flavio took the second plan and continued "This is a building that I currently call the biodegradation plant, its application would be to create fertilizer, the creation of food for chickens (Worms), the third use cannot be told because it is confidential.

I want you to make a small scale version of the biodegradation plant on this farm. A larger version of this plant has to be created at the stronghold of Dovakhiin. You can get the necessary labour for this project from my father. I want you to create the small version on the farm within 2 days."

Flavio put the 2 plans aside and grabbed the 3rd plan "This is a called a water tower, it has the function to store water and uses the force of gravity to distribute it through pipes, it has a similar function to the aqueducts. You are going to build two of them, one big one in the fort and another small one in the palace, these are very important for me.

I hate to bathe in the bathtub, and I prefer showering, so make the building as soon as possible try not to take more than 3 months, if it is necessary to look for other artisans ask for them for help"

Flavio put aside all other plans and showed Marco the 4th plan "This beautiful workshop is very important and urgent it must be built in the fort in 1 month. You have an unlimited budget for this workshop as the value of this factory creating paper is much much higher than any of the construction costs."

Flavio then showed his final blueprint "This building will be built in the fort, I call it the propaganda ministry, as for its function it is a state secret, I hope you can keep the pipes marked in the building, it will be one of the first buildings to use tap water.

Also, I hope you can use the same mechanism to create a network of water pipes in the palace, do not worry about the denars for the works, if you need money just ask and you will have it. If at any time you have any questions just look for me."

After spending an entire afternoon talking to Marco, Flavio called Sadiki and asked him to bring a disposable slave, white ash, some containers, dry grass, lard, olive oil and water, everything necessary to create soap.

Sadiki recorded everything in a papyrus, the process to create soap along with the recommendations that his master gave to create the soap. It was quite simple but extremely dangerous due to the by-product that is produced because of ash(bleach).

One slave in the experiment suffered severe burns in the skin and eyes due to handling without the precaution of the byproduct created by the ash. Master called it bleach and said that it can be used to make paper and wash clothes, but that for clothes it needs to be lowered in concentration with some water.

He also mentioned that people who work with bleach must use leather gloves and eye protection glasses. The master also explained that the protective glasses are made with leather and two pieces of glass, he made a small drawing and asked that I order them to be manufactured with some craftsman.

After ending the suffering of the poor slave, master just said it is a small step for science but a great leap for Roma, after removing the corpse, another slave was called and unlike the first one this one only needed to make some mixes with lard, butter with olive oil, and dry lavender was added in the mixture, After which bleach was very carefully added and the mixture was set to rest. Master said that after 7 days of rest the soap which would be formed could be used to wash the body.

He also mentioned that if we used the same recipe but without lavender and extra bleach we can make soap for clothes.

Before leaving he drew a building plan for an area to wash clothes called lavoir, he said that we should send it to a stonemason, he described it as an extremely useful in washing clothes.

After taking care and checking the progress of his different projects Flavio ate dinner and went to his room to sleep, tomorrow he figured that he would show the function of piercing the ring in the nose of the bull because the bulls would have recovered by now.

Edit by: Chroniclemale