Thanks! I definitely don’t want to imply that the average Roman lived in an awesome villa built out of bricks. But in regards to for example bathhouses:
Small bathhouses, called balneum (plural balnea), might be privately owned, while they were public in the sense that they were open to the populace for a fee. Larger baths called thermae were owned by the state and often covered several city blocks. The largest of these, the Baths of Diocletian, could hold up to 3,000 bathers. Fees for both types of baths were quite reasonable, within the budget of most free Roman males.
While the baths were enjoyed by almost every Roman, there were those who criticized them.
And the army, with its advanced equipment, was open to the average citizen as well. They would not have profited equally from all Roman luxuries, but it seems clear that the Roman civilization as a whole was more prosperous than the Early Medieval one, at least in a lot of material aspects.
Thanks! I definitely don’t want to imply that the average Roman lived in an awesome villa built out of bricks. But in regards to for example bathhouses:
And the army, with its advanced equipment, was open to the average citizen as well. They would not have profited equally from all Roman luxuries, but it seems clear that the Roman civilization as a whole was more prosperous than the Early Medieval one, at least in a lot of material aspects.