Do you have any concept on what life was like for people 2000 years ago? Half of all children born died before their 3rd birthday. A women stood about a ten percent chance of dying every time she gave birth.
Cicero- Great Roman statesman grew up in a small town outside of Rome and his family were the local laundry mat- that is they washed clothes with coal pitch and goat urine. But as humble as his family was-his dad had "Clients" that followed him. Cicero was lucky enough to be taken aboard to a higher family in Rome as a "client". But Cicero is truly a "self made man" in Roman Times.
Sorry- did I interupt your viewing of "Spartacus?"
Silly, pompous ass: first decide which side of which point you want to argue, then argue it consistently.
For one thing, it's been 10+ years since I had a TV in my house, and I have never seen Caligula OR Sparticus.
For another, you keep citing emperors and senators, then saying that's how the common man was. Then you say we have no writings about the common man, but its okay, because we have a wealth of written records about day-to-day life and the common man.
*Now* you're babbling irrelevant crap about mortality rates as if showed anything but your own pompous propensity to bluster loud wet farts from your mouth!
Shut up! Read Pliny the Elder or Plutarch or someone and *decide* what you think, or just have another scotch and go to freaking bed.