The more time you spend not starving, the less you have to invent butt sponges and snail dye.

The Incas are an exception for some reason.

Explanation: Despite the tendency of powerful polities to denigrate everyone outside of the polity as living in some fundamentally deficient way, there is some truth in the Roman claim that the northern edges of Europe were somewhat… lacking in material comforts compared to the Mediterranean in Classical Antiquity, even for the common people.