Evolving humans were designed to last for about as long as they could be top athletes today. After that a predator would get them, or they couldn't hunt and starved.

Even in Roman times it would be a lucky person who lived to see their grandchildren. Few could reach the Bible's threescore years and ten.

Nestor would probably have been around 70 - 80. An astonishing age for those times. But didn't Ramses II live to be 90?

And in the old days, the "wisdom of age" would simply have been the maturity of a thirty year old in a world of mainly teenagers.

Philosophical musings for a wet day!