“I had fifty sons when the Achaeans came here; nineteen of them were from a single womb, and the others were borne to me by the women of my household. The greater part of them has fierce Mars laid low..”
~ The Iliad - Book XXIV (Samuel Butler Translation. p176 / v504)
Jove asks Thetis to tell Achilles to return Hector’s corpse when Priam comes asking and sends Iris to Priam to tell him to go to Achilles with a ransom and ask for the body. Priam sets out with Ideaus, his charioteer. They are helped by Mercury (Hermes) to reach Achilles’ camp without anyone seeing them. Priam tearfully begs Achilles for the body. Achilles weeps with him, thinking of his father, and gives the body back and says there will be no fight while they are mourning. Priam is woken up in the night by Mercury and asked to return. He goes back. They mourn for nine days, feast on the tenth, and build a mound on the ninth. The story ends here.
In Book 24 of The Iliad, Priam says to Achilles, “I had fifty sons when the Achaeans came here; nineteen of them were from a single womb..”. That makes one think if a woman can really have 19 children. Are there instances from the history of women having that many kids? Was it the norm to have around 10 children in the past? Even if people of the past were able to have more children, the number of healthy humans who lived beyond the age of fifty was much smaller. The average lifespan has increased dramatically if one compares it to the times of the Iliad. So, even if there are lesser number of kids per woman, there are more people on earth.