That's the thing about an average age: it's an average. Considering that half of all children died before the age of four before the advent of modern medicine, that really brings the average down; if you managed to survive to adulthood and avoided a violent death, you'd likely live into your sixties or seventies, if you were a man. For women, the leading cause of death once they hit puberty was childbirth. If a woman managed to outlive her husband and reach menopause, she'd likely live into her seventies or eighties. As for the age of generals, they'd probably be older unless nepotism is involved. During the Republic, you couldn't lead troops until you had held the rank of praetor, which had a minimum age of thirty-nine. There are examples of some individuals leading troops at a younger age, such as Scipio Africanus or Pompey the Great, but these were exceptions. During the empire, the minimum age of the praetorship was lowered to thirty, but by that point, the command of legions had passed to legates. You might find members of the Imperial family being entrusted with commands at young ages, but generally, most generals would be older.
