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HEALTH

Why the average ancient Roman worker was dead by 30

A groundbreaking study of 2,000 ancient Roman skeletons has shown how many of the ancient city's inhabitants were riddled with arthritis, suffered broken bones and were generally dead before 30.

Why the average ancient Roman worker was dead by 30
The research paints a grim picture of the dangers faced by ancient Roman workers . Photo: Carla Caladarini

The harsh realities of life in imperial Rome were revealed by a multi-disciplinary study carried out by an Italian team of osteopaths, historians and anthropologists which used modern scanning techniques to analyze a huge sample of skeletons recently unearthed in the suburbs of the Eternal City.

The skeletons were exhumed over the last 15 years in the course of construction work on a new high speed rail line between Rome and Naples and show the brutal reality of life for the majority of ancient Romans.

“The bones are the earthly remains of poor, working-class Romans, taken from commoners' graves, and display high incidences of broken and fractured bones, chronic arthritis and high incidences of bone cancer,” medical historian Valentina Gazzaniga told The Local.

“What's interesting is that the average age of death across the sample group was just 30, yet the skeletons still display severe damage wrought by the extremely difficult working conditions of the day.”

The research paints a grim picture of the dangers faced by ancient Roman workers between the first and third century AD, with broken noses, hand bones and collar bones all being commonplace injuries.

However, the scans also revealed that the city's ancient inhabitants were adept at treating such injuries.

“With fractures and breaks so frequent, the Romans developed effective solutions to treat them. The scans show that these rudimentary medical techniques allowed people to keep working for years after sustaining severe breakages,” explained Gazzaniga.

The treatments might have been effective, but they were not pretty.

Today, severely broken bones can be surgically reset and bound in plaster, but the Romans simply placed a wooden cage over the limb to immobilize it until the shattered bones eventually fused themselves back together.

Aside from bearing the scars of lax workplace safety, the scans also revealed the back-breaking labour citizens had to endure for hours on end.

“Chronic arthritis around certain areas such as the shoulders, the knees and the back is present in the skeletons of those who died as young as 20,” Gazzaniga explained.

“We can speculate that some of these people would have spent their lives working in nearby salt mines due to the patterns of arthritis they display.”

The life of the average Roman worker bears a stark contrast to the good health enjoyed by the city's noblemen and Patricians.

A similar study carried out on the petrified Roman skeletons of Pompeii last year revealed the good health enjoyed by its citizens – until they were buried by the erupting Vesuvius.

The rich inhabitants in Pompeii – a city of expensive villas and plush domuses – generally avoided hard labour and ate a varied diet.

But what about the working class Romans?

“It's difficult to reach any specific conclusions about their diet based on the results – but given the incomplete way their bones healed and really high incidences of bone cancer we encountered, it doesn't suggest it was good,” Gazzaniga said.

Indeed, historical evidence and tooth enamel analysis suggest that the lower echelons of Roman society subsisted on an extremely limited diet of poor quality, often rotting grains and stale bread.  

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TODAY IN FRANCE

France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

France has paved the way towards paying reparations to more relatives of Algerians who sided with France in their country's independence war but were then interned in French camps.

France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

More than 200,000 Algerians fought with the French army in the war that pitted Algerian independence fighters against their French colonial masters from 1954 to 1962.

At the end of the war, the French government left the loyalist fighters known as Harkis to fend for themselves, despite earlier promises it would look after them.

Trapped in Algeria, many were massacred as the new authorities took revenge.

Thousands of others who fled to France were held in camps, often with their families, in deplorable conditions that an AFP investigation recently found led to the deaths of dozens of children, most of them babies.

READ ALSO Who are the Harkis and why are they still a sore subject in France?

French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021 asked for “forgiveness” on behalf of his country for abandoning the Harkis and their families after independence.

The following year, a law was passed to recognise the state’s responsibility for the “indignity of the hosting and living conditions on its territory”, which caused “exclusion, suffering and lasting trauma”, and recognised the right to reparations for those who had lived in 89 of the internment camps.

But following a new report, 45 new sites – including military camps, slums and shacks – were added on Monday to that list of places the Harkis and their relatives were forced to live, the government said.

Now “up to 14,000 (more) people could receive compensation after transiting through one of these structures,” it said, signalling possible reparations for both the Harkis and their descendants.

Secretary of state Patricia Miralles said the decision hoped to “make amends for a new injustice, including in regions where until now the prejudices suffered by the Harkis living there were not recognised”.

Macron has spoken out on a number of France’s unresolved colonial legacies, including nuclear testing in Polynesia, its role in the Rwandan genocide and war crimes in Algeria.

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