How Was Life Like in the Roman Republic?

Rome, 55 BC. Lucius is seventeen. He wakes up choking on smoke: the carpentry workshop below him is burning, and Rome has no fire brigade. Out of the dark comes Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome, with hundreds of men carrying ladders, hooks and buckets. He doesn't ask where the fire is. He asks who owns the building. In one day, Lucius's family learns how the Republic really works: a patron who wants their vote, a crossroads shrine that is the only thing the poor run themselves, apartment blocks that burn all the time, and an army that is hiring. Every deal is legal. Every deal is a choice.