1 00:00:17,852 --> 00:00:21,118 It's March the 17th in A.D. 73. 2 00:00:21,118 --> 00:00:24,436 We're visiting ancient Rome to watch the Liberalia, 3 00:00:24,436 --> 00:00:30,418 an annual festival that celebrates the liberty of Rome's citizens. 4 00:00:30,418 --> 00:00:36,404 We're looking in at a 17-year-old named Lucius Popidius Secundus. 5 00:00:36,404 --> 00:00:41,135 He's not from a poor family, but he lives in the region known as the Subura, 6 00:00:41,135 --> 00:00:48,084 a poorer neighborhood in Rome, yet close to the center of the city. 7 00:00:48,084 --> 00:00:51,452 The tenants of these apartments are crammed in, 8 00:00:51,452 --> 00:00:54,851 which poses considerable risk. 9 00:00:54,851 --> 00:01:01,635 Fires are frequent and the smell of ash and smoke in the morning is not uncommon. 10 00:01:01,635 --> 00:01:07,990 Lucius, who awoke at dawn, has family duties to perform today. 11 00:01:07,990 --> 00:01:12,302 His 15-year-old brother is coming of age. 12 00:01:12,302 --> 00:01:16,836 Half the children in ancient Rome die before they reach adulthood, 13 00:01:16,836 --> 00:01:20,702 so this is a particularly important milestone. 14 00:01:20,702 --> 00:01:27,868 Lucius watches his brother stand in his new toga before the household shrine with its protective deities 15 00:01:27,868 --> 00:01:35,737 as he places his bulla, a protective amulet, in the shrine with a prayer of thanks. 16 00:01:35,737 --> 00:01:39,118 The bulla had worked. It had protected him. 17 00:01:39,118 --> 00:01:44,635 Unlike many others, he had survived to become an adult. 18 00:01:44,635 --> 00:01:49,802 At 17, Lucius has almost completed his education. 19 00:01:49,802 --> 00:01:53,334 He has learned to speak well, make public speeches, 20 00:01:53,368 --> 00:01:57,218 and how to read and write both Latin and Greek. 21 00:01:57,218 --> 00:02:02,635 His father has taught him the types of things you can't learn in the classroom: 22 00:02:02,635 --> 00:02:08,653 how to run, how to swim, and how to fight. 23 00:02:08,653 --> 00:02:13,418 Lucius could choose, at 17, to become a military tribune 24 00:02:13,418 --> 00:02:18,068 and command soldiers on the edge of the Empire. 25 00:02:18,068 --> 00:02:22,585 But in other ways, Lucius is still a child. 26 00:02:22,585 --> 00:02:25,285 He's not trusted to arrange business deals. 27 00:02:25,285 --> 00:02:30,335 His father will take care of that until he is 25. 28 00:02:30,335 --> 00:02:36,436 And Dad will arrange Lucius' marriage to a girl 10 years younger. 29 00:02:36,436 --> 00:02:41,685 His dad has his eye on a family with a 7-year-old daughter. 30 00:02:41,685 --> 00:02:43,253 Back to the Liberalia. 31 00:02:43,253 --> 00:02:50,588 As Lucius leaves with his family, the shops are open as the population goes about its business. 32 00:02:50,588 --> 00:02:54,535 The streets are full of itinerant traders selling trinkets 33 00:02:54,535 --> 00:02:58,018 and people bustling from place to place. 34 00:02:58,018 --> 00:03:02,784 Large wagons are not allowed in the city until after the ninth hour 35 00:03:02,784 --> 00:03:06,183 but the streets are still crowded. 36 00:03:06,183 --> 00:03:10,352 Fathers and uncles take the kids to the Forum Augustus 37 00:03:10,352 --> 00:03:14,140 to see statues of Rome's famous warriors 38 00:03:14,140 --> 00:03:19,069 like Anaeus, who led Rome's ancestors, the Trojans, to Italy. 39 00:03:19,069 --> 00:03:22,242 And Romulus, Rome's founder. 40 00:03:22,242 --> 00:03:27,569 And all the great generals of the Republic from more than 100 years earlier. 41 00:03:27,569 --> 00:03:33,468 Lovingly, we can imagine fathers and guardians with their now adult childen 42 00:03:33,468 --> 00:03:36,902 remembering stories of Rome's glory 43 00:03:36,902 --> 00:03:41,602 and re-telling the good deeds and sayings of the great men of the past: 44 00:03:41,602 --> 00:03:47,952 lessons on how to live well, and to overcome the follies of youth. 45 00:03:47,952 --> 00:03:53,918 There is a sense of history in this place, relevant to their present. 46 00:03:53,918 --> 00:03:59,135 Romans made an empire without end in time and space. 47 00:03:59,135 --> 00:04:02,769 Rome was destined to be eternal through warfare. 48 00:04:02,769 --> 00:04:06,903 Wars were a fact of life, even in A.D. 73. 49 00:04:06,903 --> 00:04:09,552 There are campaigns in the north of England 50 00:04:09,552 --> 00:04:11,018 and into Scotland, 51 00:04:11,018 --> 00:04:13,702 to the north of the River Danube into Romania, 52 00:04:13,702 --> 00:04:18,835 and on the frontier between Syria and Iraq to the east. 53 00:04:18,835 --> 00:04:22,618 It's now the eighth hour -- time to head for the baths. 54 00:04:22,618 --> 00:04:26,803 Lucius and his family head up the Via Lata, the wide street, 55 00:04:26,803 --> 00:04:31,684 to the Campus Martius, and the enormous Baths of Agrippa. 56 00:04:31,684 --> 00:04:35,817 The family members leave the clients and freedman outside, 57 00:04:35,817 --> 00:04:39,268 and enter the baths with their peer group. 58 00:04:39,268 --> 00:04:44,268 Baths would change from dark, steamy rooms to light ones. 59 00:04:44,268 --> 00:04:47,768 The Romans had perfected window glass. 60 00:04:47,768 --> 00:04:51,335 Everyone moves from the cold room 61 00:04:51,335 --> 00:04:54,071 to the tepid room 62 00:04:54,071 --> 00:04:57,418 and to the very hot room. 63 00:04:57,418 --> 00:05:00,601 More than an hour later, the bathers leave 64 00:05:00,601 --> 00:05:10,185 massaged, oiled, and have been scraped down with a strigil to remove the remaining dirt. 65 00:05:10,185 --> 00:05:14,268 At the ninth hour, seven hours after they left home, 66 00:05:14,268 --> 00:05:18,052 the men return for a celebratory dinner. 67 00:05:18,052 --> 00:05:25,085 Dinner is an intimate affair, with nine people reclining around the low table. 68 00:05:25,085 --> 00:05:27,452 Slaves attend to their every need 69 00:05:27,452 --> 00:05:33,834 if the diners, through gestures, demand more food and wine. 70 00:05:33,834 --> 00:05:38,370 As the day closes, we can hear the rumble of wagons outside. 71 00:05:38,370 --> 00:05:43,820 The clients and freedmen, with a meal of robust -- if inferior -- food inside them, 72 00:05:43,820 --> 00:05:49,453 shuffle off to the now tepid baths before returning to their apartment blocks. 73 00:05:49,453 --> 00:05:54,868 Back at Lucius' house, the drinking continues into the night. 74 00:05:54,868 --> 00:05:57,852 Lucius and his stepbrother don't look too well. 75 00:05:57,852 --> 00:06:05,051 A slave stands by in case either of them needs to vomit. 76 00:06:05,051 --> 00:06:08,052 With hindsight, we know Lucius' future. 77 00:06:08,052 --> 00:06:13,486 In 20 years' time, the Emperor Vespasian's youngest son, Domitian, as emperor, 78 00:06:13,486 --> 00:06:18,253 will enact a reign of terror. Will Lucius survive?