Marooned In The Past: Surviving Exile In Ancient Rome

You awaken in a world of marble and filth, of sublime beauty and casual brutality. It is Rome in 117 AD, the absolute zenith of the Empire's power under the Emperor Trajan. This is not a guided tour of ancient ruins; it is a meticulously researched survival manual for a modern person violently displaced in time.

Every aspect of your 21st-century identity is now a liability. Your knowledge is seditious, your posture is insulting, and your basic assumptions about reality are a fatal handicap. This guide deconstructs the unseen framework of Roman life, from the nuanced gestures that separate a free man from a slave to the unspoken rules of the public baths, the very heart of the city's social life.

You will learn to navigate a world without germ theory, where a simple cut can be a death sentence and lead slowly poisons the water. You will be armed with the necessary deceptions and moral compromises required to stay alive, adopting the prejudices and piety of an era whose core values are anathema to your own. This is an unflinching look at the true cost of survival in a world governed by slavery, spectacle, and the ever-present will of the gods.

This book charts a course from the terror of arrival to the slow, soul-altering process of becoming a part of the past. It is a journey into the intricate social machinery of the most powerful civilization the world had ever known. You will learn not only what a Roman did, but how a Roman thought, and what it would take to become one.