Comment by tumsfestival
Comment by tumsfestival 6 months ago
Kind of depressing how some people two millennia ago had bigger homes than most people alive today. Then again, if they were alive today their homes would be 10x the size.
Comment by tumsfestival 6 months ago
Kind of depressing how some people two millennia ago had bigger homes than most people alive today. Then again, if they were alive today their homes would be 10x the size.
From what I understand it, affluent Romans typically moved back and forth between countryside villas in the summer, and a smaller residence in the city during the winter.
Also Roman economics were not really very local. The Romans had a large road network and were very mobile and traded even farther. You have for example Pelagius, a figure in church history, who was born in Britain and died in Egypt.
And in turn if you take random/average/low-income citizen and compare their situation (like their home) with what equivalent has now, their situation would be much better nowadays.
Even if you compare homes of ultrawealthy then and now I expect that most would take homes of XXI century.
Estimates for the world population 2000 years ago seem to be some 150M-300M
There are plenty of smaller houses in Pompeii. Another thing to consider is that the ash covered basically the first floor of buildings, while the upper floors were either blown away by blast or pillaged by later generations. So there could have been one or two upper floors of accommodation for poorer people no longer visible. Also possible there were lower quality buildings on the town outskirts that haven't survived. Archeology understandably focuses on the larger villas.
The home in question is thought to have belonged to the wealthiest family around - which, for a society where economics are generational and local, practically means super-rich.
In modern societies such super rich people flock to major cities, but in pre-industrial societies relocating would leave familial assets under-attended. Accordingly a well adjusted wealthy person would arrange for an excellent standard of living adjacently to their possessions