WEBVTT 00:00:17.852 --> 00:00:21.094 It's March the 17th in A.D. 73. 00:00:21.118 --> 00:00:24.288 We're visiting ancient Rome to watch the Liberalia, 00:00:24.312 --> 00:00:28.956 an annual festival that celebrates the liberty of Rome's citizens. 00:00:30.418 --> 00:00:36.251 We're looking in at a 17-year-old named Lucius Popidius Secundus. 00:00:36.275 --> 00:00:41.111 He's not from a poor family, but he lives in the region known as the Subura, 00:00:41.135 --> 00:00:45.550 a poorer neighborhood in Rome, yet close to the center of the city. 00:00:45.574 --> 00:00:46.574 (Gong) 00:00:48.084 --> 00:00:50.525 The tenants of these apartments are crammed in, 00:00:50.549 --> 00:00:51.550 (Grunting) 00:00:51.574 --> 00:00:53.629 which poses considerable risk. 00:00:54.851 --> 00:01:00.225 Fires are frequent and the smell of ash and smoke in the morning is not uncommon. 00:01:01.635 --> 00:01:06.274 Lucius, who awoke at dawn, has family duties to perform today. 00:01:07.772 --> 00:01:08.785 (Cheering) 00:01:08.809 --> 00:01:11.367 His 15-year-old brother is coming of age. 00:01:12.302 --> 00:01:16.812 Half the children in ancient Rome die before they reach adulthood, 00:01:16.836 --> 00:01:20.106 so this is a particularly important milestone. 00:01:20.702 --> 00:01:23.970 Lucius watches his brother stand in his new toga 00:01:23.994 --> 00:01:27.459 before the household shrine with its protective deities, 00:01:27.483 --> 00:01:31.440 as he places his bulla, a protective amulet, 00:01:31.464 --> 00:01:33.790 in the shrine with a prayer of thanks. 00:01:35.737 --> 00:01:38.237 The bulla had worked. It had protected him. 00:01:39.118 --> 00:01:43.256 Unlike many others, he had survived to become an adult. 00:01:44.440 --> 00:01:49.778 At 17, Lucius has almost completed his education. 00:01:49.802 --> 00:01:53.035 He has learned to speak well, make public speeches, 00:01:53.059 --> 00:01:56.159 and how to read and write both Latin and Greek. 00:01:57.088 --> 00:01:59.873 His father has taught him the types of things 00:01:59.897 --> 00:02:02.389 you can't learn in the classroom: 00:02:02.413 --> 00:02:04.142 how to run, 00:02:04.166 --> 00:02:06.832 how to swim, 00:02:06.856 --> 00:02:08.270 and how to fight. 00:02:08.294 --> 00:02:13.394 Lucius could choose, at 17, to become a military tribune 00:02:13.418 --> 00:02:15.772 and command soldiers on the edge of the Empire. 00:02:18.068 --> 00:02:22.008 But in other ways, Lucius is still a child. 00:02:22.032 --> 00:02:24.871 He's not trusted to arrange business deals. 00:02:24.895 --> 00:02:28.386 His father will take care of that until he is 25. 00:02:30.335 --> 00:02:35.430 And Dad will arrange Lucius' marriage to a girl 10 years younger. 00:02:36.436 --> 00:02:41.026 His dad has his eye on a family with a 7-year-old daughter. 00:02:41.685 --> 00:02:43.229 Back to the Liberalia. 00:02:43.253 --> 00:02:45.409 As Lucius leaves with his family, 00:02:45.433 --> 00:02:49.058 the shops are open as the population goes about its business. 00:02:50.588 --> 00:02:54.511 The streets are full of itinerant traders selling trinkets 00:02:54.535 --> 00:02:56.902 and people bustling from place to place. 00:02:57.801 --> 00:03:02.254 Large wagons are not allowed in the city until after the ninth hour 00:03:02.278 --> 00:03:04.235 but the streets are still crowded. 00:03:06.183 --> 00:03:10.328 Fathers and uncles take the kids to the Forum Augustus 00:03:10.352 --> 00:03:13.157 to see statues of Rome's famous warriors 00:03:14.140 --> 00:03:18.243 like Aeneas, who led Rome's ancestors, the Trojans, to Italy. 00:03:19.069 --> 00:03:20.932 And Romulus, Rome's founder. 00:03:21.948 --> 00:03:25.677 And all the great generals of the Republic from more than 100 years earlier. 00:03:27.569 --> 00:03:30.861 Lovingly, we can imagine fathers and guardians 00:03:30.885 --> 00:03:33.444 with their now adult children 00:03:33.468 --> 00:03:36.664 remembering stories of Rome's glory 00:03:36.688 --> 00:03:40.578 and re-telling the good deeds and sayings of the great men of the past: 00:03:41.356 --> 00:03:43.688 lessons on how to live well, 00:03:43.712 --> 00:03:46.560 and to overcome the follies of youth. 00:03:47.674 --> 00:03:51.835 There is a sense of history in this place, relevant to their present. 00:03:53.354 --> 00:03:57.806 Romans made an empire without end in time and space. 00:03:57.830 --> 00:03:58.831 (Thump) 00:03:58.855 --> 00:04:01.518 Rome was destined to be eternal through warfare. 00:04:02.769 --> 00:04:06.879 Wars were a fact of life, even in A.D. 73. 00:04:06.903 --> 00:04:10.994 There are campaigns in the north of England and into Scotland, 00:04:11.018 --> 00:04:13.678 to the north of the River Danube into Romania, 00:04:13.702 --> 00:04:18.583 and on the frontier between Syria and Iraq to the east. 00:04:18.607 --> 00:04:22.249 It's now the eighth hour -- time to head for the baths. 00:04:22.273 --> 00:04:26.461 Lucius and his family head up the Via Lata, the wide street, 00:04:26.485 --> 00:04:30.396 to the Campus Martius, and the enormous Baths of Agrippa. 00:04:31.684 --> 00:04:35.403 The family members leave the clients and freedmen outside, 00:04:35.427 --> 00:04:37.761 and enter the baths with their peer group. 00:04:38.981 --> 00:04:43.109 Baths would change from dark, steamy rooms to light ones. 00:04:44.149 --> 00:04:46.212 The Romans had perfected window glass. 00:04:47.768 --> 00:04:51.311 Everyone moves from the cold room 00:04:51.335 --> 00:04:52.548 to the tepid room 00:04:53.959 --> 00:04:55.942 and to the very hot room. 00:04:55.966 --> 00:04:57.149 (Man) Oops! 00:04:57.173 --> 00:05:00.577 More than an hour later, the bathers leave 00:05:00.601 --> 00:05:02.807 massaged, oiled, 00:05:02.831 --> 00:05:03.973 (Whistling) 00:05:03.997 --> 00:05:06.731 and have been scraped down with a strigil 00:05:06.755 --> 00:05:08.321 to remove the remaining dirt. 00:05:10.066 --> 00:05:14.126 At the ninth hour, seven hours after they left home, 00:05:14.150 --> 00:05:16.648 the men return for a celebratory dinner. 00:05:17.829 --> 00:05:20.278 Dinner is an intimate affair, 00:05:20.302 --> 00:05:24.072 with nine people reclining around the low table. 00:05:25.085 --> 00:05:27.428 Slaves attend to their every need 00:05:27.452 --> 00:05:32.075 if the diners, through gestures, demand more food and wine. 00:05:33.675 --> 00:05:38.223 As the day closes, we can hear the rumble of wagons outside. 00:05:38.247 --> 00:05:39.646 The clients and freedmen, 00:05:39.670 --> 00:05:43.796 with a meal of robust -- if inferior -- food inside them, 00:05:43.820 --> 00:05:46.028 shuffle off to the now tepid baths 00:05:46.052 --> 00:05:48.240 before returning to their apartment blocks. 00:05:49.453 --> 00:05:54.345 Back at Lucius' house, the drinking continues into the night. 00:05:54.369 --> 00:05:57.346 Lucius and his stepbrother don't look too well. 00:05:57.370 --> 00:06:01.866 A slave stands by in case either of them needs to vomit. 00:06:05.051 --> 00:06:07.910 With hindsight, we know Lucius' future. 00:06:07.934 --> 00:06:13.345 In 20 years' time, the Emperor Vespasian's youngest son, Domitian, as emperor, 00:06:13.369 --> 00:06:14.997 will enact a reign of terror. 00:06:15.021 --> 00:06:17.237 Will Lucius survive? 00:06:17.261 --> 00:06:19.150 (Drums)