There was this Roman poet, Trilussa, which created a good description of why averages are bad, which is known in Italy as "Trilussa's Chicken"
Roughly translated, it goes as follows:
"Following the current statistics, it turns out you're expected to be able to eat one chicken per year, and, if you can't afford it, it goes into the average anyway, because there's someone else out there eating two".
Rome had a conception of statistics? That's very interesting. I'd always been told that it was a relatively new science coming from french aristocracy gambling or something.
Sorry, it's modern Roman, not ancient. Trilussa wrote in Romanesco, which is a Central Italian dialect (Tuscan and central Italian form a somewhat of a linguistical continuum, while southern Italian and northern languages are not mutually intelligible).
I too read "Roman" to refer to empire. Maybe because of the Latin-sounding single name, or maybe because I'm used to identifying people by their nationality rather than their city.
Roughly translated, it goes as follows:
"Following the current statistics, it turns out you're expected to be able to eat one chicken per year, and, if you can't afford it, it goes into the average anyway, because there's someone else out there eating two".