Here are the very basic: Pork 1 Italian pound 12 Assuming a person eats 1/2 of meat a day, plus bread and other stuff, you could dedu

Here are the very basic: Pork 1 Italian pound 12 Assuming a person eats 1/2 of meat a day, plus bread and other stuff, you could deduct that it would take about 8-10 Denarii per day for a person to feed themseleves. The lowes wage, is for unskilled famer: Farm laborer, with maintenance (daily) 25 So about 33% of the income is spend on food, nevermind basic necessities. But when you compare to today's countries in development, it fares pretty well. http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11693372&fsrc=RSS http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displaystory.cfm... Now if you are a wall painter, things get better: Wall painter, as above (daily) 75 You are spending only a small fraction of your income in basic food. from that limited data, it seems that life wasn't bad at all during those times.