| I do not think that life expectancy was so poor among civilized Romans, at least after factoring out mortality in infancy and youth. As you probably know, the longer you live, the greater your life expectancy (all else being equal) because you have already survived infancy and youth, which are averaged in. Thus, it is probable that if one reached the later teens, one's life expectancy was 50 or 60, and that if one reached 30, it was about 70. I say this because proverbially, 70 was considered the normal life span. Dante refers to meeting Virgil, in the Inferno, in the middle of his years, meaning when he was 35........ |
