Here, where so many touch Roman soil for the first time, is a special place for me; even with my eyes closed the sounds and smells are like no others.
Here my reputation is made, here my money comes ashore. My ships cross our sea to its furthest shore where caravans wait to embark, they having travelled so far from beyond Rome's influence that what they carry I cannot buy with my gold, neither can I buy their loyalty, that I have had to earn over many a long year with favours that were as dangerous as they were difficult to execute.
Now my ships arrive in the docks as heavily disguised as I am myself, carrying hides, fish or corn and hidden amongst which are those items which only I am aware. As I help to unload the fish from a distressed but sound boat, I watch as a high ranking but out of favour family are smuggled aboard, there they will hide under the nets and baskets until the boat has set sail.
I turn my back on the docks and walk to one of my warehouses where the overseer bars my entrance until I show him the token that all my workers carry bidding my overseers to treat them with respect. He looks closely at the token and then waves me in the direction of his room where he says a bundle awaits me. Taking the bundle I load it onto one of his donkeys for which I pay him and leave leading it along the road that hugs the coast, until, as evening comes on, I take a path to the beach and wash away the stink of my disguise; as I don the fresh clothes my bundle has provided me with, I see my boat pull towards the setting sun.

Fortune has walked with me since I took my first stumbling steps. She has directed me to those members in my family most able to prepare me to secure, and the ability to preserve, a safe place in this crazy city.
It is my experience that one can call too many times on the gods, therefore in my dealings with the gods and Rome I have created several identities, faces to front my different enterprises, men and women with faces that blend into obscurity.