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> poorest of the poor get vaccinated that's an odd comparison, there were no vaccines in ancient Pompeii, but they had fresh running water everywhere, they had

> poorest of the poor get vaccinated that's an odd comparison, there were no vaccines in ancient Pompeii, but they had fresh running water everywhere, they had a fully working well maintained sewage system, they had fully working well maintained piping system, they had fully working and well maintained infrastructures, such as roads, public buildings, public baths, markets, they had access to high quality food, they had very low crime levels (compared to the period of course), people were protected from outsiders by a fully working well equipped army, the State was present and vigilant, there was virtually no kind of organized crime syndicate running things locally, like modern Camorra, something that's not true anymore not in some poor of the poorest land, but in Italy in 2023 in the same areas where Pompeii was. Go and see how they live in Scampia and you'll be shocked how backwards society went over time.

peoplefromibiza 3y ago
Of course some Neapolitan came and downvoted the comment. I'm Italian BTW, the problem is not the people living in Scampia, the problem is the fact that a place like Scampia exists and everybody there thinks it's normal. The Romans would have never allowed something like that. Their slaves had better lives than that.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  > The Romans would have never allowed something like that. Their slaves had better lives than that. That’s either sarcasm or you certainly know almost absolutely nothing about how the Romans treated their slaves. You could try looking up the conditions of slaves working in mines or agricultural estates or some of the laws related to slavery they had… (also sexual exploitation was on a whole other level which is hard to even grasp for us) > Scampia I’m sure it’s much nicer that some of the slums in Ancient Rome, the city itself (Pompeii and Herculaneum were relatively well off cities at the time in probably one the richest regions in the world (Campania))
  - peoplefromibiza 3y ago
    > you certainly know almost absolutely nothing about how the Romans treated their slaves You seem to be one that makes a lot of assumptions. > I’m sure it’s much nicer that some of the slums in Ancient Rome That's the point. It is not. > Pompeii and Herculaneum were relatively well off cities Yeah, Egypt was too, Middle East was too, Persia (Iran) too. Look at them now.
ffgjgf1 3y ago
> public baths Perfect place for spreading diseases. > had access to high quality food, The economic elite probably did. Everyone else? Unlikely, especially not consistently. Most people were dirt poor by modern standards (no real equivalent in the western world) > no kind of organized crime syndicate running things locally We know that how? The whole patron-client system was essentially that. also why do you claim that state was “ was present and vigilant”? As far as we know that’s certainly a silly claim if we compare it to modern Italy. having the sewage and water systems was was pretty cool pf course by premodern standards. But almost everyone still had to use communal fountains or latrines unless they were slaves in some rich person’s mansion.
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  > Perfect place for spreading diseases. First of all I was talking about thermal baths were bacteria do not survive anyway. But secondly, Romans did not know antibiotics or bacteria or how infections worked, we do and still there are several outbreaks every year in almost every "first world" country. Do I need to remind you about COVID? People still do not wash their hands and it helped a global pandemic spread. So in the end things were definitely not worse when preventive measures were a lot worse and a lot of the knowledge about how disease spread was a mystery. But they were a lot cheaper and better maintained compared to today. If we were putting the same effort 2 thousand years later, we should be living in a literal heaven. > Everyone else? Unlikely More than they do today. One would think that 2 thousand years later the situation should be much better, and yet it's not. Again: look at the e-coli outbreak in the US, the richest country in the World, in 2022 and 2023, not in 312 B.C. Ancient Romans could not preserve food, so it was fresh by definition except the kind of food they could dry up (salted or air dried) or keep in oil (olive oil, which was popular in every Mediterranean ancient culture) > We know that how? It's called history, you might be surprised how many things we can learn by studying it. There were elites who could get away with a lot and did a lot of shady stuff, but definitely nothing of to the kind of the organized crime we know today as mafia or cartels. The greatest threat were pirates, who, as the name implies, only attacked ships sailing in the open sea. Which was already a very risky activity on its own back then.
  - 3y ago

peoplefromibiza 3y ago

Of course some Neapolitan came and downvoted the comment. I'm Italian BTW, the problem is not the people living in Scampia, the problem is the fact that a place like Scampia exists and everybody there thinks it's normal. The Romans would have never allowed something like that. Their slaves had better lives than that.

ffgjgf1 3y ago
> The Romans would have never allowed something like that. Their slaves had better lives than that. That’s either sarcasm or you certainly know almost absolutely nothing about how the Romans treated their slaves. You could try looking up the conditions of slaves working in mines or agricultural estates or some of the laws related to slavery they had… (also sexual exploitation was on a whole other level which is hard to even grasp for us) > Scampia I’m sure it’s much nicer that some of the slums in Ancient Rome, the city itself (Pompeii and Herculaneum were relatively well off cities at the time in probably one the richest regions in the world (Campania))
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  > you certainly know almost absolutely nothing about how the Romans treated their slaves You seem to be one that makes a lot of assumptions. > I’m sure it’s much nicer that some of the slums in Ancient Rome That's the point. It is not. > Pompeii and Herculaneum were relatively well off cities Yeah, Egypt was too, Middle East was too, Persia (Iran) too. Look at them now.

ffgjgf1 3y ago

> public baths Perfect place for spreading diseases. > had access to high quality food, The economic elite probably did. Everyone else? Unlikely, especially not consistently. Most people were dirt poor by modern standards (no real equivalent in the western world) > no kind of organized crime syndicate running things locally We know that how? The whole patron-client system was essentially that. also why do you claim that state was “ was present and vigilant”? As far as we know that’s certainly a silly claim if we compare it to modern Italy. having the sewage and water systems was was pretty cool pf course by premodern standards. But almost everyone still had to use communal fountains or latrines unless they were slaves in some rich person’s mansion.

peoplefromibiza 3y ago
> Perfect place for spreading diseases. First of all I was talking about thermal baths were bacteria do not survive anyway. But secondly, Romans did not know antibiotics or bacteria or how infections worked, we do and still there are several outbreaks every year in almost every "first world" country. Do I need to remind you about COVID? People still do not wash their hands and it helped a global pandemic spread. So in the end things were definitely not worse when preventive measures were a lot worse and a lot of the knowledge about how disease spread was a mystery. But they were a lot cheaper and better maintained compared to today. If we were putting the same effort 2 thousand years later, we should be living in a literal heaven. > Everyone else? Unlikely More than they do today. One would think that 2 thousand years later the situation should be much better, and yet it's not. Again: look at the e-coli outbreak in the US, the richest country in the World, in 2022 and 2023, not in 312 B.C. Ancient Romans could not preserve food, so it was fresh by definition except the kind of food they could dry up (salted or air dried) or keep in oil (olive oil, which was popular in every Mediterranean ancient culture) > We know that how? It's called history, you might be surprised how many things we can learn by studying it. There were elites who could get away with a lot and did a lot of shady stuff, but definitely nothing of to the kind of the organized crime we know today as mafia or cartels. The greatest threat were pirates, who, as the name implies, only attacked ships sailing in the open sea. Which was already a very risky activity on its own back then.
- 3y ago