3 ms·

if you ignore infant mortality, life expectancy was late 50s during Ancient Rome times. not too bad.

woofie11 5y ago
I don't believe your number. Citation required. And I'm serious about that. I'm sure it's possible to get that number somehow, but the devil is in the details. Do you factor in: - Famines? - Wars? - Being killed by bandits? - Are you talking about the city of Rome? Italy? Gaul? - Just rich people, or do you include folks like slaves? - Etc. If you're going to accuse me of giving bad information, you'll need to provide better information. And from there, you need to count on dubious records. I took my number from Crash Course history (the unit on the middle ages), but it meets what I'd previously read across multiple credible sources.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  this is direct from wikipedia's article on ancient roman demographics. first result on google. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire#:~:text=When%20the%20high%20infant%20mortality,doubled%20to%20the%20late%2D50s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire....
  - woofie11 5y ago
    I figured. Google it, find the first random web page, and type it in. This article is a summary of one random historian, Frier. Probably better summary of evidence: https://archive.org/details/demographyromans0000park/page/20/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/demographyromans0000park/page/20... "We have a single papyrus record of 122 individuals listed in a register of taxes. Of these 122, 85 have ages extant. ... only 8 are over the age of 49 years, and only 2 of those are over 54" "average life expectance at age 15 range from 8.3 to 15.4 years." Etc. There's a broad set of estimates, but the estimate of 50 years is simply not plausible, unless you're talking about the wealthy elite. Being poor in Rome sucked. And with Rome, I guess that's usually the case. I'll mention: For all the talk of infant mortality, most infant deaths in history weren't recorded. The figure everyone tosses around -- 28 years -- sort of already takes that into account. I've given up on editing bad Wikipedia pages a long time ago.

I don't believe your number. Citation required. And I'm serious about that. I'm sure it's possible to get that number somehow, but the devil is in the details. Do you factor in: - Famines? - Wars? - Being killed by bandits? - Are you talking about the city of Rome? Italy? Gaul? - Just rich people, or do you include folks like slaves? - Etc. If you're going to accuse me of giving bad information, you'll need to provide better information. And from there, you need to count on dubious records. I took my number from Crash Course history (the unit on the middle ages), but it meets what I'd previously read across multiple credible sources.

inter_netuser 5y ago
this is direct from wikipedia's article on ancient roman demographics. first result on google. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire#:~:text=When%20the%20high%20infant%20mortality,doubled%20to%20the%20late%2D50s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire....
- woofie11 5y ago
  I figured. Google it, find the first random web page, and type it in. This article is a summary of one random historian, Frier. Probably better summary of evidence: https://archive.org/details/demographyromans0000park/page/20/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/demographyromans0000park/page/20... "We have a single papyrus record of 122 individuals listed in a register of taxes. Of these 122, 85 have ages extant. ... only 8 are over the age of 49 years, and only 2 of those are over 54" "average life expectance at age 15 range from 8.3 to 15.4 years." Etc. There's a broad set of estimates, but the estimate of 50 years is simply not plausible, unless you're talking about the wealthy elite. Being poor in Rome sucked. And with Rome, I guess that's usually the case. I'll mention: For all the talk of infant mortality, most infant deaths in history weren't recorded. The figure everyone tosses around -- 28 years -- sort of already takes that into account. I've given up on editing bad Wikipedia pages a long time ago.