When speaking about wine consumption in ancient times, you have to remember that the way wine was consumed then was very different than how it is now. Wine was consumed heavily watered down and had other additives such as spices and olive oil. In fact there are writers of ancient Greece and Rome who shame those who do not water down their wine enough. Also remember that wine (and other alcohols in general) were generally used to make drinking water safe. So yes, people did drink a lot of wine, but not necessarily in a way that supported drunken debauchery as the everyday norm.
yes, correct. Also, the alcohol content was extremely lower than it is today. most people don't realize this. The methods we make wine today has creates a higher ABV then it used to be. We have machines and tools to perfect the concentration of the alcohol in the wine.
@@nem447 I don't think anyone mentioned anything about it being healthy. Simply making the point that the amount of wine reported that people drank doesn't necessarily equate to widespread drunkeness and alcoholism in ancient times.
and very rich! The 20-33 year expectancy includes infant mortality, if you only count those lived past ONE year, the life expectancy was 34-41. And of those, the rich ruling classes had better food etc, so tended to survive longer. You originally had to be over 31 to be elected as Senator and Roman soldiers where pretty healthy (when not killed in battle!) and only retired after 25 years service, so around 40's or 50's... not too different from many Govt jobs today!
The greeks idolized youth, thus thier statues were of the perfection human body. The Romans on the hand, were more realistic about life. Thus many of thier statutes portrayed people as they really were. Old people included.
Drinking was deadly for the Romans, not so much because of the alcohol as the fact that they used lead vessels for mixing wine and storing it. They also used lead as a wine additive, to make it sweeter and redder. The richest Romans had lead pipes in their homes. This may have contributed to lead poisoning, as well.
@@ChassityNOubre_88 yeah, she got scarred from smallpox, used lead to cover it up. Then got even more scars from the lead, which made her use more lead to cover those scars, and it became a never ending circle until she died
Unfortunately, many of the treatments for cancer they had back then have progressed little, Poison called chemotherapy, burn, called radiation therapy and surgery which they didn't perform often for lack of suitable anesthesia. There are still many non infectious diseases that are incurable today.
There’s a misconception in this video that Romans ignored sanitary precautions. Quite the opposite, that’s the reason why they built huge aqueducts to bring clean water from mountains, had public baths where they could bathe frequently, invented the sewage system etc. The sponge used for wiping, as the video showed, was cleaned in a solution of salt in vinager, which is an effective antiseptic. Of course they didn’t know about microorganisms, but their measures were a huge step forward in disease prevention, and the huge resources employed show the importance they gave to them. It’s completely anachronistic to judge them by today’s standards.
People always quote that 20-30 year life expectancy without realizing that most people really actually lived to between 45-65 but that the infant mortality rate was so high that it offset the average massively
To be fair, that’s just the result of the general scientific illiteracy of most average people (not necessarily their fault, science ed is shocking in most countries), the same reason people call evolution ‘just a theory’ as if that means it isn’t real
Yeah and people keep complaining about it but that's the average. Definitely a skewed statistic, but still an accurate one. Like if you get given 100$ and then 1$, you got given an average of 50.5$ twice.
The two things that caused the mortality rate to be like it was were infant mortality and the fact that, in actuality one in 20 women actually died in childbirth- not 2.5%. A woman might have no issues giving birth to her first couple of children but would develop complications in a subsequent birth and die- either during labor or after from infection. Before the advent of modern medicine the number one cause of death for women was in fact- childbirth.
We actually had quite a bit of advanced medical knowledge and tech by the 1980s (though further improvements have DEFINITELY occurred in several areas), but that's still within the last 50 years. We take so much of it for granted today. If you had cancer or certain injuries in the early 1800s, you were hosed.
Same here. I sometimes wish I could've experienced America when it was still brand new and experience things like the wild west. Wouldn't it be badass to visit saloons and go on adventures? Then again, I love air conditioning and wifi. I also have a disease that would've killed me at 28, but modern medicine saved my life. I seriously would've had a slow and miserable death.
You have a point, Connor. Still, while the patricians often lived to be a lot older (obvious, looking at the sculptures of those who could afford portraits) the bones of the lower classes really do show that most of them barely reached middle-age even if you don't count child and infant deaths. Poorer nutrition gave them weaker immune systems, they lived in more crowded and unsanitary conditions, and had more people ranking above them who could legally kill them. (murder was only a crime if you did it to someone of your own station or higher, or to someone who was someone else's property.)
Yeah, it bothers me as well. Yet we have accounts of Centurions that were deemed fit to fight and respected in their sixties, and then "fight" did not mean pressing a button.
Whenever I see a notice for a new Weird History video, I watch it almost immediately. I'm a huge history nerd and I always learn something new. Thanks for all the great videos!
As someone who had a really dangerous birth and had to have a blood transfusion due to blood loss, I most certainly would have died had I given birth in the past. That is really scary to think about.
Think the age of consent was relative to the expected lifespan? Old age of 30 years was attributable to the starting gun going off much sooner than todays life expectancy.
They would be overwhelmed probably. I knew someone who had lived in China for many years when he was young and then his family moved to LA. He said that even going to the store to pick out bread was overwhelming, simply because of how many choices there were compared to China. I would think it would be something like that but far more intense.🤷
My Latin teacher, Ms. Morgan who probably remembered the era, was oftentimes asked if she would have wanted to live in Roman times. She said "absolutely not, it would have been horrible for ordinary people." I agree, I'll keep twenty-first century west even without flying cars.
The "average" age was in the twenties. Remember an average is including all the early deaths, including infant mortality, with those of advanced age . There were a lot more dead babies than there were old people. That would skew the the numbers in a negative direction. If you lived to be 20 chances were you would live into your sixties.
Wow. My style I studied English with this I restarted English after 10 years I am a beginner studying English with asmr. Please come and take a look and support. Thank uou
This was interesting and perfectly timed. One of those odd conversation about history sparked it. Great video.I would not face wanted to live during those tines.
Rome suffered from one of the worst cases of unintended consequences ever. As it’s empire expanded it built better and better roads. But those roads made it possible for diseases to travel very quickly up and down them and straight into the heart of Rome.
Several things. Pericles, the leader of Ancient Athens, realized that the Spartan Army was superior to his Army, and so recalled his soldiers and civilians to remain in fortified Athens when the Spartans invaded. The concentration of people there combined with poor sanitation created a plague that wiped out more of the population including Pericles, inflicting even more loss of life than even the Spartans could inflict. Great strategy there. As for cancer, the Romans created their own demise by drinking water from lead pipes as their plumbing consisted of this metal. Further, ax white sugar from the New World had not been discovered, the Romans used lead stirrers to mix their wine before drinking. The lead actually sweetened their usually dry wine. As for bacteria and drinking, even in 18th Century London, the English would drink the water from The Thames River, the same River, they would dump their sewage. The English invented Gin at that time to mix with their drinking water to destroy the disease-inducing ingredients that caused their constant diseases often with failed results. It was the French at that time that discovered the connection between such bacteria and disease.
I had a bad case of food poisoning a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I was gonna die or something. I can only imagine how awful cholera or all those other horrible diseases made people suffer.
It depend who you were. But a prison was normally a whole in the ground. They did feed you and give water. But they were damp, and cold. You had no bed but straw to aly on. And you got no baths.
Age expectancy in the late 20s or 30s is way exaggerated by infant and child mortality. Once you made it to adulthood, you were expected to live more than double that with ease
I'm 49 as I write this and as much as I'd love to go back in a time machine to check out ancient Rome, if I lived there, I probably wouldn't be around. Gall bladder removal and herniated discs suggest I wouldn't be too happy.
Right? It used to make it make sense to me why people got married so young. If you think people are dropping dead by the time they're 30 then it makes sense to want to get married and have families ASAP
@@Artliker1234 chances are if you survived childhood/infancy then you'd live a generally long life, think like 70's and stuff, I'm not sure on the exact number cause I'm messed up on meds after having my wisdom teeth ripped out but I know you had a good chance of making it atleast until your 60's if you could survive through infancy and childhood
@@Artliker1234 people could live until 60-100 like today it was just more likely that they died in infancy or something especially if you were poor you were lucky if you lived to your later forties…
For those of you wondering, 100 gallons of wine per year is about 1,040 mL of wine per day on average. For comparison, a typical bottle of wine is about 750 mL.
I got really sad at the cancer one. I can't help but think that's what I'll die of and knowing it history and meaning. I've had 4 family members die from it and a current family member fighting it. Cancer sucks.
Agreed. You just have to enjoy everyday. But also don't let thoughts of death take over your life. We will all die and none of us know when. Once that's accepted you will find peace c
The 1st one they talk about is the reason why the AVERAGE lifespan was 30. If you made it to adulthood you had just as much chance of living into your 60's as you do today.
I remember in my first semester of college biology class, classmates and I had to do a project (workbook included ) about life expectancies of the past. I was surprised to learn that the average life expectancy in Rome was 22! I and my classmates was like wow that’s so young!
Just to let you know the statistic doesn’t get much higher then 40 until the start of the 20th century with revolutions in medicine around child mortality. If you take away childhood deaths from the stats the average would be 50 years for basically all of history until the last 130 years ago
I love how short the stories are but always bring up the most important parts of the video and not hours hours long and love the sense of humor❤❤❤ keep it
The low life expectancy was partly due to a large percentage of childhood deaths. I'm sure once you passed those ages you could live closer to the ages we had in the 1950s.
Sadly, I don't agree. As soon women got to childbearing age, then it became a matter of which child's birth, would take you out. And where would your husband get a wet nurse?
@@lindac6919 childbirth was not that dangerous. There were approximately 25 maternal deaths for every 1000 births. That’s a 2.5% chance of death giving birth. That’s a shockingly high number compared to the 0.013% chance in modern countries like the U.K., and obviously financial situation could increase or decrease this percent, but the average was around 1/40 deaths per birth, so most women survived just fine. If they hadn’t, the population would not have been able to grow
I know 1,000 women. 25 of them dying is a grievous loss to me and our communities. Now tell me that childbirth isn't "that dangerous" today. The maternal mortality rate for 2020 was 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births. Do you know 25 women? Which one of them deserves to live through childbirth?
@@lindac6919 my point was that death in childbirth was far from a guaranteed outcome. Each birth carried a 2.5% risk of death and many women birthed 6, 8 or 10 children and survived fine. I did not say the mortality rate wasn’t high, I said it was not as high as your comment claimed. And the mortality rate in my county means that of 7,462 women, one will die in childbirth. I don’t know that many people but obviously any woman dying in childbirth is a tragedy. But the rate is 0.000134%. That’s not high. It just isn’t
Oh! But they were so much more religious then (ok maybe not krischun but religious)! Wimmin knew their place So did slaves (was there a real difference?) Men were men
I'm glad to live in a time where science can cure what killed many in Rome or Greece , I still feel child birth is still iffy even today . Even though deem safe .
Child birth is still just as dangerous. We just have better hygiene, medical practices and much better understanding of how to handle the risks. But it's still a toss up.
Childbirth is still dangerous, but made less so with proper monitoring and antibiotics. I ended up needing a c section because my cervix was "Fort Knox" and after two days I hasn't dilated even halfway and mine and baby's blood pressures were becoming very unstable. I'm sure we would have died eventually had it been in times past.
The life expectancy you stated was due to the high mortality rates in children. If you survived to adulthood you could live a good long life. Even in America in the 19th century, it was common to loose two or three children out of five or eight to measles dysentery, small pox, pneumonia, accidents on the farm. malnutrition etc..
Looking at the Emperors that died for natural causes in the firts two centuries, Augustus lived 77, Tiberius 79 (maybe his death had been "accelerated" by Caligula, but he was in his deathbed), Claudius 64, Vespasian 70, Nerva 67, Trajan 63, Hadrian 62, Antoninus 74, for an average age of 69.5.
When giving life expectancy before the modern era, you have to deduct the ages 0-5, where mortality was VERY high. Women had birth 4 to 6 children to have 2 reach adulthood. THEREFORE, to give a realistic idea of how long people lived, and how long they would expect to live, you have to show how long they would live as adults. For instance, a Roman legionnaire was committed to 20 years, after which, they were expected to be farmers. That took vitality. So, it seems to me that once a person survives childhood, as an adult they would expect to live to their 50's. The 30 to 35 year life expectancy comes from applying all the childhood deaths to the statistics.
The question is about is life expectancy though if I’m not mistaken so why would you deduct peoples lives to make it seem like people lived longer than they did. Are babies not people or something? Because it was actually common for you to die as a baby so you’re giving a less realistic idea of life expectancy taking them out the eqaution. The average age of people alive is different question in the same topic.
You pronounce the greek words perfectly!!! Very difficult task 😳😳 Im impressed! Im speaking as a Greek guy 😋 I wish i could subscribe twice 😘😘 I love your channel 💟💟
Not that I doubt much about weird history, but I would really love some sources in the description. Just so I can dig too. I love a good history black hole brought on by reliable sources Edit: I studied Latin and Roman history in school snd some small details seem to conflict like the toilets. Some of the toilets did have a type of running water. The sponge was placed in a trough behind the hole where constantly flowing water carried away the debris. Still not ideal, but not a stagnant bucket. Of course all societies are different 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah, they definitely get some stuff wrong! I like this channel, it's very entertaining, but I take what they say mostly with a grain of salt because they've been wrong many times before.
The fact that the "average" life span was so short is misleading. This was due largely to infant mortality. Visit an old graveyard - they're all children.
@@johnLennon255 the correlation between what? Widespread infant death and it dragging the average lifespan down? If half people die before 1 year old, and everyome else lives to 60, then average lifespan is 29. See how this is misleading?
“Sounds like a mid-season episode of Babylon 5….”. And Weird History proves yet again why it’s the absolutely correct channel for me to be subscribed to.
So glad they finally cleared up that misconception surrounding syphilis. I was glad to know it was in Rome well before the America's were Colonized by the Europeans....
There's no misconception. The evidence suggests that Europeans brought it back from the Americas in exchange for Smallpox and other diseases from the old world. There has been a politically motivated effort to "discover" contrary evidence that contradicts this but that evidence is weak. Science should be based on the best evidence and not on how you or anyone else wishes it to be.
When I was a child in school, and they teaching that syphilis came from Native Americans given to Columbus' men and then spread to Europe that way, I knew it was a lie.
Fyi, it did start in the Americas.. Ok, soo.. There was a theory back in the early early 2000s, popularized by the history documentary the "syphilis enigma" due to some English monks and Roman kids in Pompeii with syphilis like evidence.. This theory has long been debunked. The smoking gun is that the genome of venerable syphilis has been mapped and shown to have originated all along in the Americas, not Europe.. In the enigma theory- The skeletons from Pompeii were of children (lesions in bones don't occur till later stages) and proven to be a different bacterial disease.. The monks in England thought to be pre-Columbian did have syphillis, but were in fact dated wrong due to the effects high shellfish diets have on carbon dating on the past. Modern tests show them to be post 1500s. No virology scientists believe the possibility it brought over/started in europe anymore, and it's a disservice that history programs keep showcasing the same "syphilis enigma" program and dumbing down the public.. makes for good TV and views tho so that's all that matters to them
I cannot thank you enough for such a wonderful channel. I love just how much you can make me laugh. I have discovered however that it is unwise to watch an upload while drinking coffee as my keyboard and desk tend to wear it. Thank you for all that you do.
The low life expectancy is mostly based on high infant mortality. Those making it into adulthood had better chances of surviving to old age. Some even to 80's. More women than men did so. And not all women died giving birth. Some had huge families
Makes you wonder how many death could be attributed to common ailments like allergies i.e. lactose intolerance, gluten sensitivity etc. Things that are simple today.
"Major Causes of Death in Ancient Rome "could be, "Major Causes of Death up Until the 19th and 20th Centuries, Period". We didn't have X-rays until the 1900's, didn't know about vitamins until the 1920's and didn't have antibiotics until the 1940's.
sorry but my Church of Pentecosts has already debunked that movie and many other church organizations and Leaders and Pastors, Ministers have already exposed those lies of Satan in that movie
Serious question that i've been thinking about for a while. If the average life expectancy way back in the day was 20-30s like in ancient egypt, would people age similarly to how they do now a days, but in a very short period? Like for instance, would there be 30 year olds who had grey hair, and looked old?
Something this video and a LOT of people choose to just gloss over is that it includes infant and child mortality rates. If you survived past your first 5-10years or so, depending on the area; then unless there was a serious plague or famine, you stoodna pretty good chance of making it well into adult hood. Wars also contributed to the early deaths a lot more too, and if you survived THAT, or managed to avoid being conscripted then you'd be pretty good up to your 60s or beyond, again depending on the individuals health.
I mean it's been known for romans and people well before them to live well into their 50's and 60's. Some generals would even fight in their 50-60's too.
"Lack of carcinogens in the air"....uhh no. The metalworks and pottery fabrication in Imperial cities would have been belching 24/7. Coal and wood fires burning everywhere every day. And the Roman's used Lead and Tin in everything because of their low melting point. Pollution outside of cities wouldn't be bad but cities would be horrific.
With all of the diseases and conflicts and filth and ignorance and insanity that have plagued humans over all the centuries, it does surprise me that humans weren't wiped out a very long time ago. It seems that, oddly enough, we can survive just about anything. I've often wondered why.
When speaking about wine consumption in ancient times, you have to remember that the way wine was consumed then was very different than how it is now. Wine was consumed heavily watered down and had other additives such as spices and olive oil. In fact there are writers of ancient Greece and Rome who shame those who do not water down their wine enough. Also remember that wine (and other alcohols in general) were generally used to make drinking water safe. So yes, people did drink a lot of wine, but not necessarily in a way that supported drunken debauchery as the everyday norm.
yes, correct. Also, the alcohol content was extremely lower than it is today. most people don't realize this. The methods we make wine today has creates a higher ABV then it used to be. We have machines and tools to perfect the concentration of the alcohol in the wine.
not sure how healthy the lead additives to sweeten the wine were
@@nem447 keeps the rona' away and keeps you angry enough
@@nem447 I don't think anyone mentioned anything about it being healthy. Simply making the point that the amount of wine reported that people drank doesn't necessarily equate to widespread drunkeness and alcoholism in ancient times.
True
People who made it to their 80s-90s were absolute legends.
40's ya mean, most people were considered ancient of they got passed 25
@@WildZeratul idk man they have statues of old people approximately >50
and very rich!
The 20-33 year expectancy includes infant mortality, if you only count those lived past ONE year, the life expectancy was 34-41. And of those, the rich ruling classes had better food etc, so tended to survive longer. You originally had to be over 31 to be elected as Senator and Roman soldiers where pretty healthy (when not killed in battle!) and only retired after 25 years service, so around 40's or 50's... not too different from many Govt jobs today!
The greeks idolized youth, thus thier statues were of the perfection human body. The Romans on the hand, were more realistic about life. Thus many of thier statutes portrayed people as they really were. Old people included.
That one episode in simpsons when Mr.burns was in perfect balance with all diseases known to man. I assume that type of situation
Drinking was deadly for the Romans, not so much because of the alcohol as the fact that they used lead vessels for mixing wine and storing it. They also used lead as a wine additive, to make it sweeter and redder.
The richest Romans had lead pipes in their homes. This may have contributed to lead poisoning, as well.
Talk about adding more iron to your blood😁
@@msatxgault560 🤣
Wasn't lead what killed Queen Elizabeth I, from using it in her makeup?
@@ChassityNOubre_88 yeah, she got scarred from smallpox, used lead to cover it up. Then got even more scars from the lead, which made her use more lead to cover those scars, and it became a never ending circle until she died
@@ChassityNOubre_88 yup they used lead for white makeup.
Man, that's something. Many of the common causes of death are still around today. This was a excellent topic.
Unfortunately, many of the treatments for cancer they had back then have progressed little, Poison called chemotherapy, burn, called radiation therapy and surgery which they didn't perform often for lack of suitable anesthesia. There are still many non infectious diseases that are incurable today.
If you wanna live and die like they did in ancient times, just move to any liberal shthole city.
@@Pumkin932 Lol I love idiots like you that bring politics into things that have nothing to do with anything.
Lmao, that's not good!
Getting pregnant is deadly.
There’s a misconception in this video that Romans ignored sanitary precautions. Quite the opposite, that’s the reason why they built huge aqueducts to bring clean water from mountains, had public baths where they could bathe frequently, invented the sewage system etc. The sponge used for wiping, as the video showed, was cleaned in a solution of salt in vinager, which is an effective antiseptic. Of course they didn’t know about microorganisms, but their measures were a huge step forward in disease prevention, and the huge resources employed show the importance they gave to them. It’s completely anachronistic to judge them by today’s standards.
Well said.
Thank you! And infant mortality is what brings down the AVERAGE lifespan back then. A fact videos never address.
@@gregboyington4896 You are so right. Average life span by those calculations is meaningless
lol You can have that salty, vinegar sponge with someone else's poop on it...I would have made my own.
Welp. They tried, I guess...
@@gregboyington4896 Correct and also continuous wars.
The more of these videos I watch the more I wonder how we survived as a species.
we just keep f******
Overpopulation > Mass death > plenty of resources for survivors > repeat
God exists.
@@diseaseconspiracy Santa exists.
@@spicytrash4981 You misspelled Satan. And, yes.
People always quote that 20-30 year life expectancy without realizing that most people really actually lived to between 45-65 but that the infant mortality rate was so high that it offset the average massively
To be fair, that’s just the result of the general scientific illiteracy of most average people (not necessarily their fault, science ed is shocking in most countries), the same reason people call evolution ‘just a theory’ as if that means it isn’t real
Yeah and people keep complaining about it but that's the average. Definitely a skewed statistic, but still an accurate one. Like if you get given 100$ and then 1$, you got given an average of 50.5$ twice.
@@DaeiebBshssb here's another one: Bill Gates walks into a bar, which makes everyone in the bar a billionaire on average.
The two things that caused the mortality rate to be like it was were infant mortality and the fact that, in actuality one in 20 women actually died in childbirth- not 2.5%. A woman might have no issues giving birth to her first couple of children but would develop complications in a subsequent birth and die- either during labor or after from infection. Before the advent of modern medicine the number one cause of death for women was in fact- childbirth.
I appreciate science and technology in this 21st century.
I appreciate how beautiful you are xx
We actually had quite a bit of advanced medical knowledge and tech by the 1980s (though further improvements have DEFINITELY occurred in several areas), but that's still within the last 50 years. We take so much of it for granted today. If you had cancer or certain injuries in the early 1800s, you were hosed.
I especially love my luxury bidet
Same here. I sometimes wish I could've experienced America when it was still brand new and experience things like the wild west. Wouldn't it be badass to visit saloons and go on adventures? Then again, I love air conditioning and wifi. I also have a disease that would've killed me at 28, but modern medicine saved my life. I seriously would've had a slow and miserable death.
@@EatDrinkBeMerry yes! Do you have one with hot water? It's a game changer.
I still hate how high infant mortality rates make people think that being 30 was being old
You have a point, Connor. Still, while the patricians often lived to be a lot older (obvious, looking at the sculptures of those who could afford portraits) the bones of the lower classes really do show that most of them barely reached middle-age even if you don't count child and infant deaths. Poorer nutrition gave them weaker immune systems, they lived in more crowded and unsanitary conditions, and had more people ranking above them who could legally kill them. (murder was only a crime if you did it to someone of your own station or higher, or to someone who was someone else's property.)
@Davis Carl's - Someone is getting reported for Spam.
Yeah, it bothers me as well. Yet we have accounts of Centurions that were deemed fit to fight and respected in their sixties, and then "fight" did not mean pressing a button.
It was old, especially for a woman. Most died bearing children at a much earlier age.
Whenever I see a notice for a new Weird History video, I watch it almost immediately. I'm a huge history nerd and I always learn something new. Thanks for all the great videos!
I agree I love his stuff
As a huge history nerd myself, facts 💯
History rules. I've changed a lot from kid to adult, but I've always found history fascinating.
This channel has literally been what I had been wishing exist. So happy I found it.
As someone who had a really dangerous birth and had to have a blood transfusion due to blood loss, I most certainly would have died had I given birth in the past. That is really scary to think about.
@@noxscotchxtape She’s talking about her experience giving birth, not being birthed
@@noxscotchxtape 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️Learn to read.
@@o.g.millennials oh my mistake. No need for rudeness. I'm sure you and many others have made mistakes in reading.
@@noxscotchxtape Whatever.
I'm glad you are here with us, my dear. Hugs, sister.
back then living enough to breed was an acomplishment
Today finding someone who admits they breed is an accomplishment....😉
@@IrishMike22 Ah...time changes, life changes
@@Mythical.History to an extent
@Davis Carl's Go away.
Think the age of consent was relative to the expected lifespan?
Old age of 30 years was attributable to the starting gun going off much sooner than todays life expectancy.
I sometimes wonder what someone from back then would think if they traveled to the future and saw a supermarket and hospital.
They would be overwhelmed probably. I knew someone who had lived in China for many years when he was young and then his family moved to LA. He said that even going to the store to pick out bread was overwhelming, simply because of how many choices there were compared to China. I would think it would be something like that but far more intense.🤷
7:41 "In a New Hope to gain the island of Sicily"
7:43 "The EMpire Struck back in 218" lol I heard this and did a double take
the references are strong in this one
Good catch 😆
I did too. I waited the rest of the video for the Return of the Jedi reference but... nothing. #Heartbroken.
i missed the "Hope" reference, but caught the "Empire" one.
I'd say death by cause of a simple infection was quite common since no penicillin or antibiotics where available.
No shit
Hunh... Who'd a thought death by 60 Senatorial stab wounds was one of the better ways to go.
You bastard. I'm on mobile and your profile pic made me stop for second.
@@nightshadehelis9821 you troll 😂
This came as a blessing during a very dull afternoon in work that's dragging on.😭😭😭
Snap!!!! LOL
@@Beniffa nearly made it, 10 mins to go 😭😭
@Davis Carl's ew
Afternoon ? 4 hours ago? Where do you live? I'm in California it's barely 11:37
@@sylvestersalad I live in the UK so 4 hours ago for me was just after 3pm :)
My Latin teacher, Ms. Morgan who probably remembered the era, was oftentimes asked if she would have wanted to live in Roman times. She said "absolutely not, it would have been horrible for ordinary people." I agree, I'll keep twenty-first century west even without flying cars.
Check out this pleb with no flying car
@@mjverostek1278 Take your peasant flying car away, electric cars are the true way!
@@mjverostek1278 *challenges you to a race in my flying car*
Thank you for all that you do, always looking forward to your uploads. More power to your channel!
Never forget history. Love the channel. Respects from 🇨🇦✌️
Hello from Calgary Alberta!🇨🇦👍🍁
@@cynthiablandford6213 Cheers from Niagara Ontario. ✌️
@@benisaten 👋👍
The low average life expectancy was due to child mortality screwing the figures. People didn't just drop dead at 35.
It's a weird thing that people seem to believe average life expectency = max. Even today, people far outlive the average.
Thank you!! I'm still sick of people getting that wrong.
The "average" age was in the twenties. Remember an average is including all the early deaths, including infant mortality, with those of advanced age . There were a lot more dead babies than there were old people. That would skew the the numbers in a negative direction. If you lived to be 20 chances were you would live into your sixties.
Socrates in his 80s drinking hemlock seems less like a sacrifice
Wow. My style I studied English with this
I restarted English after 10 years
I am a beginner studying English with asmr.
Please come and take a look and support. Thank uou
I named my yellow lab Socrates except his name came from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure because that dog was fricken awesome.
@Gwyn and Gold dude I'm in your debt for providing the name of my next dog. That's awesome.
Man we are SO lucky to be living in a time where we have cures and preventatives to so many things!
This is why we should vaccinate our kids! We don’t want to ever have to live like that again!!
@@lourdeswhitener9713 Depends how you define the term vaccine. MMR maybe MRNA gene therapy nah.
@@MrRorySteel the shots
And yet so many prefer to live in the dark ages, as long as they themselves aren’t affected
@@lourdeswhitener9713 No.
I had appendicitis when I was 10 - so until very recently, that would have been it for me.
This was interesting and perfectly timed. One of those odd conversation about history sparked it. Great video.I would not face wanted to live during those tines.
I am calling BS on anyone today who says they were born in the wrong time.
We’ve come to the world for such a time as this!
I don’t enjoy a drink. Except for water and milk.
Rome suffered from one of the worst cases of unintended consequences ever. As it’s empire expanded it built better and better roads. But those roads made it possible for diseases to travel very quickly up and down them and straight into the heart of Rome.
Several things.
Pericles, the leader of Ancient Athens, realized that the Spartan Army was superior to his Army, and so recalled his soldiers and civilians to remain in fortified Athens when the Spartans invaded. The concentration of people there combined with poor sanitation created a plague that wiped out more of the population including Pericles, inflicting even more loss of life than even the Spartans could inflict.
Great strategy there.
As for cancer, the Romans created their own demise by drinking water from lead pipes as their plumbing consisted of this metal. Further, ax white sugar from the New World had not been discovered, the Romans used lead stirrers to mix their wine before drinking. The lead actually sweetened their usually dry wine.
As for bacteria and drinking, even in 18th Century London, the English would drink the water from The Thames River, the same River, they would dump their sewage. The English invented Gin at that time to mix with their drinking water to destroy the disease-inducing ingredients that caused their constant diseases often with failed results.
It was the French at that time that discovered the connection between such bacteria and disease.
The Cult of Bacchus sounds like Woodstock and the Hippy movement.
Their Greek counterpart was no joke. Read (or more terrifyingly, see) Euripides' The Bacchae.
Make sense because the hippy movement was driven by new age
I had a bad case of food poisoning a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I was gonna die or something. I can only imagine how awful cholera or all those other horrible diseases made people suffer.
I’ve been here with you since the beginning, bud. Keep on keeping on
Can you do one on how prisons were back in the day and how prisoners were treated or what food they were given also what they wore
It was basically a death sentence. It must've royally sucked not having rights either.
Took them ages to separate men and women too (I heard), a lot of women got pregnant in prison 😕
It depend who you were. But a prison was normally a whole in the ground. They did feed you and give water. But they were damp, and cold. You had no bed but straw to aly on. And you got no baths.
Food? Prison guards sausage surprise most likely
Age expectancy in the late 20s or 30s is way exaggerated by infant and child mortality. Once you made it to adulthood, you were expected to live more than double that with ease
I'm 49 as I write this and as much as I'd love to go back in a time machine to check out ancient Rome, if I lived there, I probably wouldn't be around. Gall bladder removal and herniated discs suggest I wouldn't be too happy.
Ur too funny hope you are ok
"Would you have liked to live in Ancient Greek or Roman times?"
BRUH! I rather be here with modern medicine and PRIVATE toilets.
It's really time that "life expectancy" accounted for infant mortality. It makes laymen think that people were dropping dead in their twenties.
Right? It used to make it make sense to me why people got married so young. If you think people are dropping dead by the time they're 30 then it makes sense to want to get married and have families ASAP
So what's the actual age
@@Artliker1234 chances are if you survived childhood/infancy then you'd live a generally long life, think like 70's and stuff, I'm not sure on the exact number cause I'm messed up on meds after having my wisdom teeth ripped out but I know you had a good chance of making it atleast until your 60's if you could survive through infancy and childhood
@@Artliker1234 people could live until 60-100 like today it was just more likely that they died in infancy or something especially if you were poor you were lucky if you lived to your later forties…
For those of you wondering, 100 gallons of wine per year is about 1,040 mL of wine per day on average. For comparison, a typical bottle of wine is about 750 mL.
It was mixed with water, spices and olive oil. They weren't drunk, they couldn't drink pure water. Have you heard about cholera?
@@AamuAurora or maybe they were simply accustomed to the alcohol and it no longer made them drunk?
@@Elena-er7zp They couldn't drink pure water so drunk wine with water, so it wasn't 750 pure. It was with water and olive.
Life may not be perfect now but we sure have it easier now more than any point in human history
I got really sad at the cancer one. I can't help but think that's what I'll die of and knowing it history and meaning. I've had 4 family members die from it and a current family member fighting it. Cancer sucks.
Agreed. You just have to enjoy everyday. But also don't let thoughts of death take over your life. We will all die and none of us know when. Once that's accepted you will find peace c
May God bless you with a very healthy and long life filled with immense happiness!
The 1st one they talk about is the reason why the AVERAGE lifespan was 30. If you made it to adulthood you had just as much chance of living into your 60's as you do today.
Would love to hear about ancient Mesoamerican life and their use of psychoactive substances.
Basically Hispanics on drugs?🥴
I remember in my first semester of college biology class, classmates and I had to do a project (workbook included ) about life expectancies of the past.
I was surprised to learn that the average life expectancy in Rome was 22! I and my classmates was like wow that’s so young!
Just to let you know the statistic doesn’t get much higher then 40 until the start of the 20th century with revolutions in medicine around child mortality. If you take away childhood deaths from the stats the average would be 50 years for basically all of history until the last 130 years ago
Collage........
@@braxtonphifer7986 how much evidence is available from ancient times though?
I love how short the stories are but always bring up the most important parts of the video and not hours hours long and love the sense of humor❤❤❤ keep it
Crazy to think that mass death was normal for a long time…
Lol. Don’t check the news.
@@davidcliff2141 Covid? Thats No where near the death tolls of These Times, non the less it is scary
The death of one men is a tragedy, but the death of thousands is a statistic
And here we are
Guess what it's going to make a come back 💉☠
Me, after the first five seconds of the video: ‘Can’t say I ever considered living in ancient Greece and Rome as being ‘glamorous’.
Hello friend im english man
Help me have a nice day
I thought that when I took an ancient history class in college. They had really poor sanitation.
The low life expectancy was partly due to a large percentage of childhood deaths. I'm sure once you passed those ages you could live closer to the ages we had in the 1950s.
Sadly, I don't agree. As soon women got to childbearing age, then it became a matter of which child's birth, would take you out. And where would your husband get a wet nurse?
@@lindac6919 childbirth was not that dangerous. There were approximately 25 maternal deaths for every 1000 births. That’s a 2.5% chance of death giving birth. That’s a shockingly high number compared to the 0.013% chance in modern countries like the U.K., and obviously financial situation could increase or decrease this percent, but the average was around 1/40 deaths per birth, so most women survived just fine. If they hadn’t, the population would not have been able to grow
I know 1,000 women. 25 of them dying is a grievous loss to me and our communities.
Now tell me that childbirth isn't "that dangerous" today. The maternal mortality rate for 2020 was 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births. Do you know 25 women? Which one of them deserves to live through childbirth?
@@lindac6919 my point was that death in childbirth was far from a guaranteed outcome. Each birth carried a 2.5% risk of death and many women birthed 6, 8 or 10 children and survived fine. I did not say the mortality rate wasn’t high, I said it was not as high as your comment claimed.
And the mortality rate in my county means that of 7,462 women, one will die in childbirth. I don’t know that many people but obviously any woman dying in childbirth is a tragedy. But the rate is 0.000134%. That’s not high. It just isn’t
@@lindac6919 I would tie up my tubes if we were still living in this time. How awful. And they still couldn’t even vote.
Even with everything negative that is happening in this modern world we have it so much better than these ancient people. I am very grateful for that.
Oh!
But they were so much more religious then (ok maybe not krischun but religious)!
Wimmin knew their place
So did slaves (was there a real difference?)
Men were men
I'm glad to live in a time where science can cure what killed many in Rome or Greece , I still feel child birth is still iffy even today . Even though deem safe .
Malaria is still as deadly as ever though. DDT was thought to be a miracle...until we learned what ELSE it did.
Covid, ebola & HIV: HOLD MY BEER 🍺
@@archingelus Awsome point .
Child birth is still just as dangerous. We just have better hygiene, medical practices and much better understanding of how to handle the risks. But it's still a toss up.
Childbirth is still dangerous, but made less so with proper monitoring and antibiotics. I ended up needing a c section because my cervix was "Fort Knox" and after two days I hasn't dilated even halfway and mine and baby's blood pressures were becoming very unstable. I'm sure we would have died eventually had it been in times past.
The life expectancy you stated was due to the high mortality rates in children. If you survived to adulthood you could live a good long life. Even in America in the 19th century, it was common to loose two or three children out of five or eight to measles dysentery, small pox, pneumonia, accidents on the farm. malnutrition etc..
True
Looking at the Emperors that died for natural causes in the firts two centuries, Augustus lived 77, Tiberius 79 (maybe his death had been "accelerated" by Caligula, but he was in his deathbed), Claudius 64, Vespasian 70, Nerva 67, Trajan 63, Hadrian 62, Antoninus 74, for an average age of 69.5.
Ancient times and 19th century aren't even close in comparison
It was common to lose the mother.
It was common to lose the mother bearing the child, too.
It’s amazing the human population continued to grow throughout that period
Please do a video on L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wizard of Oz. His personal story is interesting but rarely discussed. Thanks.
When giving life expectancy before the modern era, you have to deduct the ages 0-5, where mortality was VERY high.
Women had birth 4 to 6 children to have 2 reach adulthood.
THEREFORE, to give a realistic idea of how long people lived, and how long they would expect to live, you have to show how long they would live as adults.
For instance, a Roman legionnaire was committed to 20 years, after which, they were expected to be farmers.
That took vitality.
So, it seems to me that once a person survives childhood, as an adult they would expect to live to their 50's.
The 30 to 35 year life expectancy comes from applying all the childhood deaths to the statistics.
I do wish they would specify this. Life was definitely shorter but not by as much as they claim.
The question is about is life expectancy though if I’m not mistaken so why would you deduct peoples lives to make it seem like people lived longer than they did. Are babies not people or something? Because it was actually common for you to die as a baby so you’re giving a less realistic idea of life expectancy taking them out the eqaution. The average age of people alive is different question in the same topic.
@@mrs.w5539 the life expectancy was probably in the late 50s and 60s, and I highly doubt Rome was as unsanitary as it was
The good old days! Half of the world still lives much like this!
"Poor people got poor ways", Gramps always said.
You pronounce the greek words perfectly!!!
Very difficult task 😳😳
Im impressed!
Im speaking as a Greek guy 😋
I wish i could subscribe twice 😘😘
I love your channel 💟💟
Not that I doubt much about weird history, but I would really love some sources in the description. Just so I can dig too. I love a good history black hole brought on by reliable sources
Edit: I studied Latin and Roman history in school snd some small details seem to conflict like the toilets. Some of the toilets did have a type of running water. The sponge was placed in a trough behind the hole where constantly flowing water carried away the debris. Still not ideal, but not a stagnant bucket. Of course all societies are different 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah, they definitely get some stuff wrong! I like this channel, it's very entertaining, but I take what they say mostly with a grain of salt because they've been wrong many times before.
The fact that the "average" life span was so short is misleading. This was due largely to infant mortality. Visit an old graveyard - they're all children.
I expected more from this channel than repeating that tired misleading claim
I don’t see the correlation
They should use median instead of average life span.
@@timothyo718 if only commoners knew the glory of the median...
@@johnLennon255 the correlation between what? Widespread infant death and it dragging the average lifespan down?
If half people die before 1 year old, and everyome else lives to 60, then average lifespan is 29. See how this is misleading?
“Sounds like a mid-season episode of Babylon 5….”. And Weird History proves yet again why it’s the absolutely correct channel for me to be subscribed to.
So glad they finally cleared up that misconception surrounding syphilis. I was glad to know it was in Rome well before the America's were Colonized by the Europeans....
Im english man help me
@@Imaworldstar-jw3yj Are you ok there bud? I’ve seen you leaving a lot of these comments everywhere here.
There's no misconception. The evidence suggests that Europeans brought it back from the Americas in exchange for Smallpox and other diseases from the old world. There has been a politically motivated effort to "discover" contrary evidence that contradicts this but that evidence is weak. Science should be based on the best evidence and not on how you or anyone else wishes it to be.
When I was a child in school, and they teaching that syphilis came from Native Americans given to Columbus' men and then spread to Europe that way, I knew it was a lie.
Fyi, it did start in the Americas.. Ok, soo.. There was a theory back in the early early 2000s, popularized by the history documentary the "syphilis enigma" due to some English monks and Roman kids in Pompeii with syphilis like evidence.. This theory has long been debunked. The smoking gun is that the genome of venerable syphilis has been mapped and shown to have originated all along in the Americas, not Europe.. In the enigma theory- The skeletons from Pompeii were of children (lesions in bones don't occur till later stages) and proven to be a different bacterial disease.. The monks in England thought to be pre-Columbian did have syphillis, but were in fact dated wrong due to the effects high shellfish diets have on carbon dating on the past. Modern tests show them to be post 1500s. No virology scientists believe the possibility it brought over/started in europe anymore, and it's a disservice that history programs keep showcasing the same "syphilis enigma" program and dumbing down the public.. makes for good TV and views tho so that's all that matters to them
Excellent video, thank you for it.
my mom who grew up in the 1930's told my about a rich guy back then who got a blister on his heel playing tennis and the infection killed him.
Taking residence by active volcanos doesn't help life expectancy either.
It’s amazing anyone survived at all!🤨🤔
I cannot thank you enough for such a wonderful channel. I love just how much you can make me laugh. I have discovered however that it is unwise to watch an upload while drinking coffee as my keyboard and desk tend to wear it. Thank you for all that you do.
Bacteriologic infection, sanitation, viral infection, plague, cholera...life in the Golden Age was anything but.
Excellent channel!!!!
The low life expectancy is mostly based on high infant mortality. Those making it into adulthood had better chances of surviving to old age. Some even to 80's. More women than men did so. And not all women died giving birth. Some had huge families
How do you know? Photographs?
Just discovered this channel and I'm obsessed now lol
Great video sad they all died so young so many diseases.
Great commentary. Top notch!
Well, nothing killied my mother in-law as she was born in ancient Greece and is still going today. 😆
Lmaoo 😂
Can you please make about the most common death causes in ancient egypt
Makes you wonder how many death could be attributed to common ailments like allergies i.e. lactose intolerance, gluten sensitivity etc. Things that are simple today.
Thank you for this video ! 🌻
Compared to today it seems pretty bad, but I'd take the pre-christian Rome over anything before the Victorian age, any day...
Gee, I dont know. Even a cut could kill you back in those days.
@@captainamerica6525 it could kill you today. Do you put antibacterial antiseptics on every cut you get?
@@overratedprogrammer you get a tetanus shot, unless you’re relying on your natural immunity and lavenders oil
@@jandrews6254 You think tetanus is the only infection you can get from a cut? lol
That’s actually worth an experiment. What bacteria survives after a rest in salt and vinegar?
"hey man it rly hurts when i pee"
"aw shit man... u got a problem with ur seed flow?"
I couldn't live in ancient times. There was nothing on tv and everyone was still on dial-up.
Lol. Thats funny. 👍👍👍
i had no idea i wanted to know this but now i can’t live without finishing the video lmao
Im actually early this time! You guys are the best to listen too while at work.
"Major Causes of Death in Ancient Rome "could be, "Major Causes of Death up Until the 19th and 20th Centuries, Period". We didn't have X-rays until the 1900's, didn't know about vitamins until the 1920's and didn't have antibiotics until the 1940's.
Didn’t know (some still don’t) about fibre in the diet, fresh fruit and veg, probiotics, to keep the bowel healthy. So much colon cancer!
I could watch this channel all day.
I've said for a long time that I'd gladly time travel to ancient Greece or Rome as long as I had my own private supply of penicillin.
And toilet paper? Toothpaste? Condoms? Pain relievers? Shoes? Window screens? Insecticides? Rubbing alcohol or Peroxide?
“The Empire struck back”. Nice
Might be interesting to see an episode informing how the British broke the enigma code with help of Alen Turing.
firstly the babylon 5 reference was both absolutely old and out of its time to I want it back to binge again while eating hot wings.
"Life of Brian", the best movie from the Monty Pythons, is a deep source of knowledges about Rome and the Christ. :-)
sorry but my Church of Pentecosts has already debunked that movie and many other church organizations and Leaders and Pastors, Ministers have already exposed those lies of Satan in that movie
@@stevecosmolove1045 If you say so... but can you prove it?
@@stevecosmolove1045 did it really take your cult leaders to tell you a movie wasn’t real?
@@stevecosmolove1045 the holy grail is the best Monty python movie. And who actually thought the life of Brian was real?
@@simplyhuman3982 Thank you. Someone finally took the bait. So why do you think Holy Grail is better than Life of Brian? You are wrong but why? Faith?
Great recap!
Serious question that i've been thinking about for a while. If the average life expectancy way back in the day was 20-30s like in ancient egypt, would people age similarly to how they do now a days, but in a very short period? Like for instance, would there be 30 year olds who had grey hair, and looked old?
Something this video and a LOT of people choose to just gloss over is that it includes infant and child mortality rates.
If you survived past your first 5-10years or so, depending on the area; then unless there was a serious plague or famine, you stoodna pretty good chance of making it well into adult hood.
Wars also contributed to the early deaths a lot more too, and if you survived THAT, or managed to avoid being conscripted then you'd be pretty good up to your 60s or beyond, again depending on the individuals health.
I mean it's been known for romans and people well before them to live well into their 50's and 60's. Some generals would even fight in their 50-60's too.
No, general population were slaves and worked to death. Grey hair is genetics.
Lol, immense props for the babylon 5 reference! 4:04
B5 references are few and far between, always nice to find one! :)
So, same things as today in some countries 😞
Man I love your videos
WH Team, Please Make topics about "Most Common Causes of Death in Muromachi Shogunate & Sengoku Jidai"
Good stuff... congratulations...
Imagine having a toothache back then.
My greatest fear. I see my dentist every 6 months. We have known each other for thirty years. If I could go back.....I wouldn't.
Having just had dental surgery in the expectation of more at vast expense, yeah NO!
"Lack of carcinogens in the air"....uhh no. The metalworks and pottery fabrication in Imperial cities would have been belching 24/7. Coal and wood fires burning everywhere every day. And the Roman's used Lead and Tin in everything because of their low melting point. Pollution outside of cities wouldn't be bad but cities would be horrific.
Great episode!
With all of the diseases and conflicts and filth and ignorance and insanity that have plagued humans over all the centuries, it does surprise me that humans weren't wiped out a very long time ago. It seems that, oddly enough, we can survive just about anything. I've often wondered why.
Our immune system......only the people who had a strong natural defence system could live and reproduce.
Not just survive - we have multiplied en masse
Evolution of the immune system
We’re ornery
Super bro
I would not want to live then, but I do find it interesting how they developed cities with infrastructor.