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