Tall Romans, Old Romans, and Healthy Romans

And in another bit of research, its been shown that the Romans of Pompeii were as tall as we are, and ate a far better diet than the average Victorian.


Tall and Healthy Romans

We are often told that that the Romans, or anyone in the past for that matter, were all much shorter than we are.

 

Well, not so these people, and in fact on average, these Romans were seemingly taller than the population of modern Naples.

 

For some reason we are also always told that the average Roman died in their early thirties (as did everyone else before the modern era, allegedly), even when even a casual look at the historical records showed that if a child survived past age ten, and had a good diet, and weren't slaves or working in terrible conditions, they could live very similar life lengths to us. This research has once again shown this short height and lives to be just another myth, or at least far less accurate than we were generally taught.

 

The Pompeii skeletons show that there are plenty of middle-aged to elderly people among them, and distributed in proportions similar to a random collection of people now.

This is probably because they had a great diet ... the archaeology of the town of Pompeii and the surrounding area gives us an idea what life was like for rich and poor. One conclusion, if you exclude the absolutely destitute or slaves who had no support networks at all, is that both rich and poor in Pompeii had a decent diet. True, the rich may have had more elaborate dining rooms, but the poor ate decently too.

They discovered this by examining the contents of a cesspit which collected the waste from the lavatories of a block of modest flats in Herculaneum - the next-door town to Pompeii - and which showed that the ordinary people in this block were eating a marvellous diet, from sea urchins to nuts and figs, eggs and chicken. Similar studies in Pompeii, have produced similar results, while Rome skeletal studies of teeth via dental palaeopathology, dental enamel and bone examinations via isotopes in the remains have shown both migration patterns and diet in that city.

The Pompeian and Herculaneum studies found that men tended to consume more cereals and seafood, while women ate more eggs, dairy and meat. The men ate over 50 percent more seafood protein on average than women, and got slightly more protein from grains. The women consumed more terrestrial meats, more eggs and dairy products, and more local fruits and vegetables. 

This was likely to be that men were often fishermen and probably ate some of their own catch as well as eating out more than women, and so had more access to imported/cooked food, which would have included fresh fish. A high percentage of the people of nearby Herculaneum either were, or had previously been enslaved, but evidence suggests that men who were enslaved, could be freed at a younger age than women, which may have allowed them access to a greater range of food options.

 

It was noted that olive oil made up at least 12 percent of the calories consumed by all the people studied, regardless of social status (bread dipped or drizzled with olive oil was a common quick breakfast then, and indeed as an appetiser now in Italy). 

 

Pompeian Food Bar And Food

 

Pompeii street pub/snack bar foods served included duck, snails and some type of alcoholic drink and commoners generally had diets that included lentils, olives, nuts and fish, as well as the odd scrap of salted meat. The richer population also ate imported foods such as shellfish, sea urchin and even a giraffe's leg as well as exotic and imported spices that came from regions such as Indonesia.

While in Rome itself, the middle- and lower-class residents dined on cheap, but healthy foods, while slightly wealthier citizens dined on delicacies. Common people in ancient Rome ate millet, a grain not eaten by the wealthy, and consumption of millet may have been linked to overall social status, with relatively poorer city and country dwellers eating more of the grain than did wealthier city dwellers. 

 

All Romans ate less fish than people at Herculaneum and Pompeii probably because transporting fish to the city wasn't quick enough to ensure the fish were still edible in the summer heat.

Overall in the empire, cereals and beans were the staples of the Roman diet, together with fish, cheese and more limited quantities of eggs and meat. The main differences were usually between the social classes, with even slaves being kept on a high-energy diet of bread, dried-fruits and low-quality cheese and wine, to ensure that they could carry out heavy manual work.

I posted a story on this idea, back in 2007 .... its always nice to be vindicated .... Historical myths continue to be exploded .....