““Let me give you a piece of advice,” she murmured. “Rome only exists because of slaves. That’s how it functions. We are its muscles, its brains, and most of all its secrets. You are now a part of that world. You are what you are, no matter what you once were. But there is power in such a position. Understand that. And learn to use it.” Her breath in my ear was warm, but her words sent a chill down my spine. I hadn’t even guessed that this refined woman was a slave. But of course she was. Trained, specialized, highly skilled, but not free.””
![“Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so extraordinary a series of gradations as this [step by step, from humans to apes to monkeys to lemurs] - leading us insensibly from the crown and summit of the animal creation down to creatures, from which there is but a step, as it seems, to the…” quote by Thomas Huxley](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/f0b/thomas-huxley-1183_animal_perhaps-no-order-of-mammals-presents-us_3051.jpg)
