The media daily tell us terrible news about terrorism, plane crashes and natural disasters, but in fact we live in the safest era in history: modern man has a much better chance of living to old age and dying a natural death than his ancestors had. Life expectancy today is significantly higher than in Ancient Greece or Rome. But does this mean that the maximum time that a person can live has increased just as significantly and can it increase even more?
People have dreamed of living, if not forever, then for a very long time since ancient times. This desire was reflected in the myths and legends of many peoples: in them the ancestors lived not only better, but also longer. Examples of incredible "longevity" can be found in the Old Testament: Adam lives there for 930 years, and Noah - all 950. Of course, from a scientific point of view, this is impossible. However, history remembers quite a few very real people who, even today, could be called long-livers.
Speaking about the average life expectancy in the XX and XXI centuries, we can confidently name specific numbers that reflect the state of affairs in different countries. But the deeper we go into the past, the less statistical data we have and the more often we have to rely on indirect information.
How long did the child's life last
If we set ourselves the goal of determining the average life expectancy in ancient Greece or Rome, we will face problems. Firstly, the monstrous level of infant mortality: given this factor, we risk coming to the conclusion that in ancient times there were no people over 30-40 years old. Secondly, almost all personal information from the surviving written sources concerns people from the upper classes, and mostly men. The only thing that can be argued more or less confidently is that during the entire existence of the Greco-Roman civilization, the state of affairs with the life expectancy did not fundamentally change.
In the absence of antibiotics, vaccinations and a balanced diet, natural selection worked hard, and only the strongest and healthiest survived. Sometimes artificial selection was added to natural selection.
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As we know from Plutarch, if a Spartan baby was born not strong enough and “well-built”, he was ruthlessly killed, “believing that his life is not needed either by himself or by the state, since he was denied health and strength from the very beginning. For the same reason, women washed newborns not with water, but with wine, testing them. They say that sick with epilepsy and in general sick from unmixed (that is, pure, not diluted with water. - Author's note) wine die."
At the same time, they did not feel remorse, believing that if the baby is pleasing to the gods, someone will take care of him, and if not - who are we to argue with the will of the gods?
Forever young: how many adults lived in Antiquity
If a Greek or Roman lived to adulthood, his chances of a long life were greatly increased. Of course, in his young and mature years, a person was waiting for his dangers: men died in the war and from domestic injuries (a banal fall from a horse and a complex fracture could easily end in death), women died due to childbirth. Constant pregnancies weakened and depleted the body, making it more susceptible to disease.
In addition, the chances of a long life more than now depended on a person's social status: slaves and poor people engaged in hard and dangerous physical labor and ate much worse than aristocrats and rich people.
Finally, in adulthood, when a man stopped going to war and entrusted the most difficult work to his grown sons, and a woman was getting out of childbearing age, the chances of suddenly dying were markedly reduced.
Sometimes the demographic situation was sharply worsened by serious disasters: epidemics or especially prolonged and destructive wars (in general, wars were, of course, commonplace). A striking example of this situation can be found in the history of Rome during the late republic. According to Titus Livy, in 135 BC. e. 370 thousand citizens lived in Rome. And in 45 BC. e., that is, 90 years later, there were only 150 thousand citizens. Such was the price of prolonged civil wars and repression.
But before you get horrified, keep in mind that the situation remained practically unchanged until the 19th-20th centuries. Medical historian Mirko Grmek in his book Gerontology. The doctrine of old age and longevity”writes that in the 18th century in Sweden, where similar statistics were already being conducted, the average life expectancy was 34.5 years. And in the USA at the beginning of the 19th century - 33 years.
Life path stages
As we already understood, it was quite easy to die in ancient times (as in many subsequent times). This, however, does not mean at all that a person at 30 or 40 years old was considered an old man. On the contrary, the stages of growing up adopted then differed little from the present ones.
The boys came of age - depending on local laws - at the age of 16-18. Before that, they went to school, studied literacy and numeracy, and played sports. Young men were taken into the army not earlier than 17-18 years old. For example, in Athens, the ephebes (that is, young men 18–20 years old) were trained in the art of war and guarded the border, but they were not yet allowed to go to war, considering them insufficiently experienced.
Every Roman from any noble and wealthy family sought to make a military and / or political career, but there were age restrictions for each position. For the first significant post, the quaestor, the qualification was set at 28 (for patricians) and at 30 (for plebeians). Edil could become not earlier than 36, and praetor - 39 years. Finally, the age limit for the highest public office, the consul, was 40 for patricians and 42 for plebeians.
Sometimes there were exceptions, as, for example, in the case of Gnaeus Pompey: he showed himself to be a brilliant military leader from a young age, and the Senate allowed him to become consul ahead of schedule. Just like in our time, young geniuses sometimes appear who have made a billion-dollar fortune by the time their peers are just starting to work.
“For men, this is a different matter, / He will return home with a gray head and take the girl as his wife. / And the time of the poor woman is short,”complains the main character of Aristophan's“Lysistrata”.
Of course, there have been exceptions. For example, the Roman matron Servilia (the mother of that very Brutus) became Caesar's mistress at the age of 40, and their whirlwind romance lasted two decades.
How long have centenarians lived
Pliny the Elder in his "Natural History" notes that the first Greek historians ascribed an unprecedented age to some of the heroes of their works due to errors in calculations. “All this came from ignorance of the time. After all, some counted years according to summer, others according to winter; some - in the four seasons, like the Arcadians, for whom the year consisted of trimesters, others in the waning of the moon, like the Egyptians. That is why it turns out that someone lived for a thousand years,”writes Pliny. At the same time, the historian names the long-livers known to him, for example, Cicero's wife Terence.
Tsar Leonidas, who led the Spartans at Thermopylae, was over 40, and he was a man in his prime (in principle, only mature warriors who had a son were taken into the elite detachment of three hundred). Another Spartan king, the famous commander Agesilaus II, died at 84, returning from another campaign. Perhaps, even in our time, there are not many men of this age who are able to spend whole days in the saddle, and at night, in any weather, sleep on the ground wrapped in a raincoat.
The illnesses and ailments that plague the elderly have not changed either. “In old age, there are difficulties in breathing and urination, heaviness of the stomach, pain in the joints, […] insomnia, […] disruption of the intestines” - this is how Aulus Cornelius Celsus wrote in his work “On Medicine” two thousand years ago. Other ancient authors noted that old age makes a person more susceptible to various diseases, and also that older people should eat less heavy food and, in general, carefully monitor their diet, exercise and not drink strong wine.
As you can see, the tips are quite sensible. Fortunately, in our time, an increasing percentage of people have a chance for a "quality" old age. But a life of 150, 200 or 300 years in length remains the same fantasy as it was in antiquity.
