0:00:17.852,0:00:21.118 It's March the 17th in A.D. 73. 0:00:21.118,0:00:24.436 We're visiting ancient Rome to watch the Liberalia, 0:00:24.436,0:00:30.418 an annual festival that celebrates the liberty of Rome's citizens. 0:00:30.418,0:00:36.404 We're looking in at a 17-year-old named Lucius Popidius Secundus. 0:00:36.404,0:00:41.135 He's not from a poor family, but he lives in the region known as the Subura, 0:00:41.135,0:00:48.084 a poorer neighborhood in Rome, yet close to the center of the city. 0:00:48.084,0:00:51.452 The tenants of these apartments are crammed in, 0:00:51.452,0:00:54.851 which poses considerable risk. 0:00:54.851,0:01:01.635 Fires are frequent and the smell of ash and smoke in the morning is not uncommon. 0:01:01.635,0:01:07.990 Lucius, who awoke at dawn, has family duties to perform today. 0:01:07.990,0:01:12.302 His 15-year-old brother is coming of age. 0:01:12.302,0:01:16.836 Half the children in ancient Rome die before they reach adulthood, 0:01:16.836,0:01:20.702 so this is a particularly important milestone. 0:01:20.702,0:01:27.868 Lucius watches his brother stand in his new toga before the household shrine with its protective deities 0:01:27.868,0:01:35.737 as he places his bulla, a protective amulet, in the shrine with a prayer of thanks. 0:01:35.737,0:01:39.118 The bulla had worked. It had protected him. 0:01:39.118,0:01:44.635 Unlike many others, he had survived to become an adult. 0:01:44.635,0:01:49.802 At 17, Lucius has almost completed his education. 0:01:49.802,0:01:53.334 He has learned to speak well, make public speeches, 0:01:53.368,0:01:57.218 and how to read and write both Latin and Greek. 0:01:57.218,0:02:02.635 His father has taught him the types of things you can't learn in the classroom: 0:02:02.635,0:02:08.653 how to run, how to swim, and how to fight. 0:02:08.653,0:02:13.418 Lucius could choose, at 17, to become a military tribune 0:02:13.418,0:02:18.068 and command soldiers on the edge of the Empire. 0:02:18.068,0:02:22.585 But in other ways, Lucius is still a child. 0:02:22.585,0:02:25.285 He's not trusted to arrange business deals. 0:02:25.285,0:02:30.335 His father will take care of that until he is 25. 0:02:30.335,0:02:36.436 And Dad will arrange Lucius' marriage to a girl 10 years younger. 0:02:36.436,0:02:41.685 His dad has his eye on a family with a 7-year-old daughter. 0:02:41.685,0:02:43.253 Back to the Liberalia. 0:02:43.253,0:02:50.588 As Lucius leaves with his family, the shops are open as the population goes about its business. 0:02:50.588,0:02:54.535 The streets are full of itinerant traders selling trinkets 0:02:54.535,0:02:58.018 and people bustling from place to place. 0:02:58.018,0:03:02.784 Large wagons are not allowed in the city until after the ninth hour 0:03:02.784,0:03:06.183 but the streets are still crowded. 0:03:06.183,0:03:10.352 Fathers and uncles take the kids to the Forum Augustus 0:03:10.352,0:03:14.140 to see statues of Rome's famous warriors 0:03:14.140,0:03:19.069 like Anaeus, who led Rome's ancestors, the Trojans, to Italy. 0:03:19.069,0:03:22.242 And Romulus, Rome's founder. 0:03:22.242,0:03:27.569 And all the great generals of the Republic from more than 100 years earlier. 0:03:27.569,0:03:33.468 Lovingly, we can imagine fathers and guardians with their now adult childen 0:03:33.468,0:03:36.902 remembering stories of Rome's glory 0:03:36.902,0:03:41.602 and re-telling the good deeds and sayings of the great men of the past: 0:03:41.602,0:03:47.952 lessons on how to live well, and to overcome the follies of youth. 0:03:47.952,0:03:53.918 There is a sense of history in this place, relevant to their present. 0:03:53.918,0:03:59.135 Romans made an empire without end in time and space. 0:03:59.135,0:04:02.769 Rome was destined to be eternal through warfare. 0:04:02.769,0:04:06.903 Wars were a fact of life, even in A.D. 73. 0:04:06.903,0:04:09.552 There are campaigns in the north of England 0:04:09.552,0:04:11.018 and into Scotland, 0:04:11.018,0:04:13.702 to the north of the River Danube into Romania, 0:04:13.702,0:04:18.835 and on the frontier between Syria and Iraq to the east. 0:04:18.835,0:04:22.618 It's now the eighth hour -- time to head for the baths. 0:04:22.618,0:04:26.803 Lucius and his family head up the Via Lata, the wide street, 0:04:26.803,0:04:31.684 to the Campus Martius, and the enormous Baths of Agrippa. 0:04:31.684,0:04:35.817 The family members leave the clients and freedman outside, 0:04:35.817,0:04:39.268 and enter the baths with their peer group. 0:04:39.268,0:04:44.268 Baths would change from dark, steamy rooms to light ones. 0:04:44.268,0:04:47.768 The Romans had perfected window glass. 0:04:47.768,0:04:51.335 Everyone moves from the cold room 0:04:51.335,0:04:54.071 to the tepid room 0:04:54.071,0:04:57.418 and to the very hot room. 0:04:57.418,0:05:00.601 More than an hour later, the bathers leave 0:05:00.601,0:05:10.185 massaged, oiled, and have been scraped down with a strigil to remove the remaining dirt. 0:05:10.185,0:05:14.268 At the ninth hour, seven hours after they left home, 0:05:14.268,0:05:18.052 the men return for a celebratory dinner. 0:05:18.052,0:05:25.085 Dinner is an intimate affair, with nine people reclining around the low table. 0:05:25.085,0:05:27.452 Slaves attend to their every need 0:05:27.452,0:05:33.834 if the diners, through gestures, demand more food and wine. 0:05:33.834,0:05:38.370 As the day closes, we can hear the rumble of wagons outside. 0:05:38.370,0:05:43.820 The clients and freedmen, with a meal of robust -- if inferior -- food inside them, 0:05:43.820,0:05:49.453 shuffle off to the now tepid baths before returning to their apartment blocks. 0:05:49.453,0:05:54.868 Back at Lucius' house, the drinking continues into the night. 0:05:54.868,0:05:57.852 Lucius and his stepbrother don't look too well. 0:05:57.852,0:06:05.051 A slave stands by in case either of them needs to vomit. 0:06:05.051,0:06:08.052 With hindsight, we know Lucius' future. 0:06:08.052,0:06:13.486 In 20 years' time, the Emperor Vespasian's youngest son, Domitian, as emperor, 0:06:13.486,0:06:18.253 will enact a reign of terror. Will Lucius survive?