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