“For sure, they ate better than we did,”
Yet the average life span was only 21 years! Yes, 21 years! Must have been that fermented fish sauce killing them off when it wasn’t volcanoes.
I doubt that the average life expectancy figures for the Roman Empire are based on much of anything. If the average really had been 21, that would stem from a high infant mortality rate (a problem everywhere until about a century ago) and large percentage of the population living in slavery.