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Roman Teenagers

Roman teenagers.

By GazakPublished 10 months ago 4 min read
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Roman Teenagers
Photo by Amir Hosseini on Unsplash

it's March the seventeenth in A.D. seventy three.

we're journeying historical Rome to watch the Liberalia,

an annual competition that celebrates the liberty of Rome's citizens.

we're looking in at a 17-year-vintage named Lucius Popidius Secundus.

he's now not from a negative family, however he lives inside the location known as the Subura,

a poorer neighborhood in Rome, but close to the center of the town.

(Gong)

The tenants of those residences are stuffed in,

(Grunting)

which poses huge chance.

Fires are frequent and the odor of ash and smoke within the morning isn't uncommon.

Lucius, who awakened at sunrise, has own family duties to perform today.

(Cheering)

His 15-yr-old brother is coming of age.

half the children in historic Rome die earlier than they reach maturity,

so this is a mainly essential milestone.

Lucius watches his brother stand in his new toga

earlier than the household shrine with its protective deities,

as he locations his bulla, a defensive amulet,

in the shrine with a prayer of thank you.

The bulla had labored. It had covered him.

not like many others, he had survived to end up an person.

At 17, Lucius has almost completed his schooling.

He has learned to speak well, make public speeches,

and the way to study and write each Latin and Greek.

His father has taught him the kinds of matters

you cannot analyze in the classroom:

the way to run,

how to swim,

and a way to fight.

Lucius may want to pick, at 17, to grow to be a navy tribune

and command squaddies on the edge of the Empire.

but in different approaches, Lucius continues to be a baby.

he is not trusted to set up enterprise deals.

His father will deal with that until he is 25.

and dad will set up Lucius' marriage to a girl 10 years more youthful.

His dad has his eye on a family with a 7-yr-old daughter.

back to the Liberalia.

As Lucius leaves along with his family,

the shops are open because the population goes approximately its enterprise.

The streets are complete of itinerant traders promoting trinkets

and people bustling from vicinity to location.

massive wagons aren't allowed inside the metropolis until after the 9th hour

however the streets are still crowded.

Fathers and uncles take the youngsters to the discussion board Augustus

to look statues of Rome's well-known warriors

like Aeneas, who led Rome's ancestors, the Trojans, to Italy.

And Romulus, Rome's founder.

And all the notable generals of the Republic from more than one hundred years earlier.

Lovingly, we are able to consider fathers and guardians

with their now grownup children

remembering stories of Rome's glory

and re-telling the coolest deeds and sayings of the extremely good men of the beyond:

lessons on the way to live properly,

and to conquer the follies of youth.

there is a experience of records on this location, relevant to their present.

Romans made an empire with out end in time and area.

(Thump)

Rome was destined to be everlasting through battle.

Wars had been a truth of lifestyles, even in A.D. seventy three.

There are campaigns in the north of britain and into Scotland,

to the north of the River Danube into Romania,

and at the frontier among Syria and Iraq to the east.

it's now the 8th hour -- time to go for the baths.

Lucius and his family head up the thru Lata, the extensive road,

to the Campus Martius, and the extensive Baths of Agrippa.

The circle of relatives participants depart the customers and freedmen outdoor,

and enter the baths with their peer organization.

Baths could trade from darkish, steamy rooms to light ones.

The Romans had perfected window glass.

anyone movements from the bloodless room

to the tepid room

and to the particularly warm room.

(guy) Oops!

extra than an hour later, the bathers depart

massaged, oiled,

(Whistling)

and were scraped down with a strigil

to get rid of the ultimate dust.

at the ninth hour, seven hours after they left home,

the men return for a celebratory dinner.

Dinner is an intimate affair,

with 9 human beings reclining around the low table.

Slaves attend to their each want

if the diners, via gestures, demand more meals and wine.

as the day closes, we can listen the rumble of wagons outside.

The clients and freedmen,

with a meal of sturdy -- if inferior -- meals interior them,

shuffle off to the now tepid baths

earlier than returning to their rental blocks.

lower back at Lucius' house, the ingesting keeps into the night.

Lucius and his stepbrother do not appearance too nicely.

A slave stands by means of in case either of them desires to vomit.

With hindsight, we know Lucius' destiny.

In 20 years' time, the Emperor Vespasian's youngest son, Domitian, as emperor,

will enact a reign of terror.

Will Lucius live to tell the tale?

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