Here are the very basic: Pork 1 Italian pound 12

Assuming a person eats 1/2 of meat a day, plus bread and other stuff, you could deduct that it would take about 8-10 Denarii per day for a person to feed themseleves.

The lowes wage, is for unskilled famer: Farm laborer, with maintenance (daily) 25

So about 33% of the income is spend on food, nevermind basic necessities. But when you compare to today's countries in development, it fares pretty well. http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displaystory.cfm...

Now if you are a wall painter, things get better: Wall painter, as above (daily) 75

You are spending only a small fraction of your income in basic food.

from that limited data, it seems that life wasn't bad at all during those times.

I think the 'with maintenance' means 'room & board'.

The best you can do is probably go by wages, which are also included.

Isn't it a bit hard to do that without a detailed, possibly subjective study of what the scarcities were in Rome? The dollar isn't anchored to the value of ten asses anymore, and salt is basically free.

An As was a bronze coin.

http://www.coin.com/cgi-local/find1Coins.cgi?47261

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