Classical demography
Encyclopedia
Classical demography refers to the study of human demography
in the Classical period
. It often focuses on the absolute number of people who were alive in civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea
between the Bronze Age
and the Fall of the Roman Empire, but in recent decades historians have been more interested in trying to analyse demographic processes such as the birth and death rates or the sex ratio of ancient populations. The period was characterized by an explosion in population with the rise of the Greek
and Roman
civilizations followed by a steep decline caused by economic and social disruption, migrations, and a return to primarily subsistence agriculture
. Demographic questions play an important role in determining the size and structure of the economy of Ancient Greece
and the Roman economy
.
coasts. Whether this sudden phenomenon was due to overpopulation
, severe drought
s, or an escape for vanquished people (or a combination) is still in question.
is sometimes considered part of the Greek world, in the Classical Period it was a separate kingdom using a Doric Greek
dialect (before adopting Attic Greek
). Similarly, almost all modern residents of historical Ionia
, now part of Turkey
, speak the Turkish language
, although from the 1st millennium BC
Ionia was densely populated by Greek-speaking people and an important part of Greek culture.
Estimates of the population of Greek speakers in the coast and islands of the Aegean Sea
during the 5th century BC vary from 800,000 to over 3,000,000. The city of Athens
in the 4th century BC had a population of 60,000 non-foreign free males. Including slaves, women, and foreign-born people, the number of people residing in the city state was probably in the range of 350,000 to 500,000 people, of which 160,000 normally resided inside the city and port.
The population of the entire Greek civilization (Greece, the Greek-speaking populations of Sicily, the coast of western Asia Minor, and the Black Sea) in the 4th century BC was recently estimated to be 8,000,000 to 10,000,000. This is over ten times the population of Greece during the 8th century BC, about 700,000 people.
is estimated to range from about 600,000 to 1 million in the 5th century BC. The island was urbanized, and its largest city alone, the city of Syracuse, having 125,000 inhabitants or about 12% to 20% of the total population living on the island. With the other 5 cities probably having populations of over 20,000, the total urban population could have reached 50% of the total population.
in the eastern region of present-day Libya
was home to many hundreds of thousands of Greek, Latin, and Jewish communities. Originally settled by Greek colonists, five important settlements (Cyrene
, Barca
, Euesperides, Apollonia
, and Tauchira) formed a pentapolis. The fertility of the land, the exportation of silphium
, and its location between Carthage
and Alexandria
made it a magnet for settlement.
estimated that 7,000,000 inhabitants resided in Egypt
during his lifetime before its annexation by the Roman Empire. Of this, he states that 300,000 citizens lived within the city of Alexandria.
has estimates that range from 25 million to 35 million.
, that range from 45 million to 120 million with 55-65 million as the classical figure. More modern estimates place this number at the higher end (80-120 million).
The estimated population of the empire during the reign of Augustus
:
(south of the Po Valley) was estimated to be around 4 million before the Second Punic War
. The figure is approximate: the Romans carried out a regular census of citizens eligible for military service (Polybius 2.23), but for the population of the rest of Italy at this time we have to rely on a single report of the military strength of Rome's allies in 227 BC - and guess the numbers of those who were opposed to Rome at this time.
For the 1st and 2nd centuries BC, historians have developed two radically different accounts, resting on different interpretations of the figure recorded for the census carried out by Augustus in 28 BC: 4,036,000. If this represents adult male citizens (as the census traditionally did), then the population of Italy must have been around 10 million, not including slaves; a striking, sustained increase despite the Romans' losses in the almost constant wars over the previous two centuries. Others find this entirely incredible, and argue that the census must now be counting all citizens - in which case the population had declined slightly, something which can readily be attributed to war casualties and to the crisis of the Italian peasantry. The majority of historians favour the latter interpretation as being more demographically plausible, but the issue remains contentious.
Evidence for the population of Rome itself or of the other cities of Roman Italy is equally scarce. For the capital, estimates have been based on the number of houses listed in 4th-century AD guidebooks, on the size of the built-up area and on the volume of the water supply, all of which are problematic; the best guess is based on the number of recipients of the grain dole under Augustus, implying a population of around 800,000-1,200,000. Italy had numerous urban centres - over 400 are listed by the Elder Pliny - but the majority were small, with populations of just a few thousand. As many as 40% of the population may have lived in towns (25% if the city of Rome is excluded), on the face of it an astonishingly high level of urbanisation for a pre-industrial society. However, studies of later periods would not count the smallest centres as 'urban'; if only cities of 10,000+ are counted, Italy's level of urbanisation was a more realistic (but still impressive) 25% (11% excluding Rome).
Rome's population seems to have contracted by the mid-3rd century AD, as Aurelian's wall enclosed an area smaller than the fourteen Regions established by Augustus. Also, the declining volume of shipping in the Mediterranean sea supports this hypothesis.
The population in 2010 of areas ruled by the Roman Empire at its greatest extent (in 117 A.D.) amounted to some 690 million people across 37 modern states.
Roman Republic and Empire
Demography
Demography is the statistical study of human population. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space...
in the Classical period
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
. It often focuses on the absolute number of people who were alive in civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
between the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
and the Fall of the Roman Empire, but in recent decades historians have been more interested in trying to analyse demographic processes such as the birth and death rates or the sex ratio of ancient populations. The period was characterized by an explosion in population with the rise of the Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
and Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
civilizations followed by a steep decline caused by economic and social disruption, migrations, and a return to primarily subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture is self-sufficiency farming in which the farmers focus on growing enough food to feed their families. The typical subsistence farm has a range of crops and animals needed by the family to eat and clothe themselves during the year. Planting decisions are made with an eye...
. Demographic questions play an important role in determining the size and structure of the economy of Ancient Greece
Economy of Ancient Greece
The economy of ancient Greece was characterized by the extreme importance of importing goods, all the more so because of the relative poverty of Greece's soil...
and the Roman economy
Roman economy
The history of the Roman economy covers the period of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire.Recent research has led to a positive reevaluation of the size and sophistication of the Roman economy within the constraints generally imposed on agricultural societies in the preindustrial age.- Gross...
.
Ancient Greece and Greek colonies
Beginning in the 8th century BC, Greek city-states began colonizing the Mediterranean and Black SeaBlack Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
coasts. Whether this sudden phenomenon was due to overpopulation
Overpopulation
Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...
, severe drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
s, or an escape for vanquished people (or a combination) is still in question.
Greece proper
The geographical definition of Greece has fluctuated over time. While today MacedoniaMacedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
is sometimes considered part of the Greek world, in the Classical Period it was a separate kingdom using a Doric Greek
Doric Greek
Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...
dialect (before adopting Attic Greek
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
). Similarly, almost all modern residents of historical Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
, now part of Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, speak the Turkish language
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, although from the 1st millennium BC
1st millennium BC
The 1st millennium BC encompasses the Iron Age and sees the rise of many successive empires, and spanned from 1000 BC to 1 BC.The Neo-Assyrian Empire, followed by the Achaemenids. In Greece, Classical Antiquity begins with the colonization of Magna Graecia and peaks with the rise of Hellenism. The...
Ionia was densely populated by Greek-speaking people and an important part of Greek culture.
Estimates of the population of Greek speakers in the coast and islands of the Aegean Sea
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
during the 5th century BC vary from 800,000 to over 3,000,000. The city of Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
in the 4th century BC had a population of 60,000 non-foreign free males. Including slaves, women, and foreign-born people, the number of people residing in the city state was probably in the range of 350,000 to 500,000 people, of which 160,000 normally resided inside the city and port.
The population of the entire Greek civilization (Greece, the Greek-speaking populations of Sicily, the coast of western Asia Minor, and the Black Sea) in the 4th century BC was recently estimated to be 8,000,000 to 10,000,000. This is over ten times the population of Greece during the 8th century BC, about 700,000 people.
Magna Graecia
The population of SicilySicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
is estimated to range from about 600,000 to 1 million in the 5th century BC. The island was urbanized, and its largest city alone, the city of Syracuse, having 125,000 inhabitants or about 12% to 20% of the total population living on the island. With the other 5 cities probably having populations of over 20,000, the total urban population could have reached 50% of the total population.
Other colonization
The ancient Roman province of CyrenaicaCyrenaica
Cyrenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya.Also known as Pentapolis in antiquity, it was part of the Creta et Cyrenaica province during the Roman period, later divided in Libia Pentapolis and Libia Sicca...
in the eastern region of present-day Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
was home to many hundreds of thousands of Greek, Latin, and Jewish communities. Originally settled by Greek colonists, five important settlements (Cyrene
Cyrene, Libya
Cyrene was an ancient Greek colony and then a Roman city in present-day Shahhat, Libya, the oldest and most important of the five Greek cities in the region. It gave eastern Libya the classical name Cyrenaica that it has retained to modern times.Cyrene lies in a lush valley in the Jebel Akhdar...
, Barca
Barca
Barce was an ancient Greek colony and later Roman, Byzantine, city in North Africa. It occupied the coastal area of what is modern day Libya...
, Euesperides, Apollonia
Apollonia, Cyrenaica
Apollonia in Cyrenaica was founded by Greek colonists and became a significant commercial centre in the southern Mediterranean. It served as the harbour of Cyrene, to the southwest...
, and Tauchira) formed a pentapolis. The fertility of the land, the exportation of silphium
Silphium
Silphium was a plant that was used in classical antiquity as a rich seasoning and as a medicine. It was the essential item of trade from the ancient North African city of Cyrene, and was so critical to the Cyrenian economy that most of their coins bore a picture of the plant...
, and its location between Carthage
Carthage
Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...
and Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
made it a magnet for settlement.
Ptolemaic Egypt
Greek historian Diodorus SiculusDiodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...
estimated that 7,000,000 inhabitants resided in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
during his lifetime before its annexation by the Roman Empire. Of this, he states that 300,000 citizens lived within the city of Alexandria.
Seleucid Empire
The population of the vast Seleucid EmpireSeleucid Empire
The Seleucid Empire was a Greek-Macedonian state that was created out of the eastern conquests of Alexander the Great. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan.The Seleucid Empire was a major centre...
has estimates that range from 25 million to 35 million.
Demography of the Roman Empire
There are many estimates of the population for the Roman EmpireRoman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, that range from 45 million to 120 million with 55-65 million as the classical figure. More modern estimates place this number at the higher end (80-120 million).
The estimated population of the empire during the reign of Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
:
| Region | Population (in millions) |
| Total Empire | 56.8 |
| European part | 31.6 |
| Asian part | 14.0 |
| North African part | 11.2 |
Roman Italy
The total population of Roman ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
(south of the Po Valley) was estimated to be around 4 million before the Second Punic War
Second Punic War
The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and The War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the participation of the Berbers on...
. The figure is approximate: the Romans carried out a regular census of citizens eligible for military service (Polybius 2.23), but for the population of the rest of Italy at this time we have to rely on a single report of the military strength of Rome's allies in 227 BC - and guess the numbers of those who were opposed to Rome at this time.
For the 1st and 2nd centuries BC, historians have developed two radically different accounts, resting on different interpretations of the figure recorded for the census carried out by Augustus in 28 BC: 4,036,000. If this represents adult male citizens (as the census traditionally did), then the population of Italy must have been around 10 million, not including slaves; a striking, sustained increase despite the Romans' losses in the almost constant wars over the previous two centuries. Others find this entirely incredible, and argue that the census must now be counting all citizens - in which case the population had declined slightly, something which can readily be attributed to war casualties and to the crisis of the Italian peasantry. The majority of historians favour the latter interpretation as being more demographically plausible, but the issue remains contentious.
Evidence for the population of Rome itself or of the other cities of Roman Italy is equally scarce. For the capital, estimates have been based on the number of houses listed in 4th-century AD guidebooks, on the size of the built-up area and on the volume of the water supply, all of which are problematic; the best guess is based on the number of recipients of the grain dole under Augustus, implying a population of around 800,000-1,200,000. Italy had numerous urban centres - over 400 are listed by the Elder Pliny - but the majority were small, with populations of just a few thousand. As many as 40% of the population may have lived in towns (25% if the city of Rome is excluded), on the face of it an astonishingly high level of urbanisation for a pre-industrial society. However, studies of later periods would not count the smallest centres as 'urban'; if only cities of 10,000+ are counted, Italy's level of urbanisation was a more realistic (but still impressive) 25% (11% excluding Rome).
Rome's population seems to have contracted by the mid-3rd century AD, as Aurelian's wall enclosed an area smaller than the fourteen Regions established by Augustus. Also, the declining volume of shipping in the Mediterranean sea supports this hypothesis.
The population in 2010 of areas ruled by the Roman Empire at its greatest extent (in 117 A.D.) amounted to some 690 million people across 37 modern states.
Further reading
Ancient Greece- Hansen, Mogens HermanMogens Herman HansenMogens Herman Hansen FBA is a Danish classical philologist who is one of the leading scholars in Athenian Democracy and the Polis....
: The Shotgun Method: The Demography of the Ancient Greek City-State Culture, Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8262-1667-0 (Review)
Roman Republic and Empire
- Brunt, Peter A.: Italian Manpower, 225 B.C.- A.D. 14, Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1971
- Kron, Geoffrey, "The Augustan Census Figures and the Population of Italy," Estratto da Athenaeum: Studi di Letteratura e Storia dell'Antichita, Vol. 93, Fasc. 2 (2005) pp. 441–495
- Fenoaltea, Stefano: "Slavery and Supervision in Comparative Perspective: A Model," Journal of Economic History, Vol. 44 No. 3, (1984) pp. 635–668
- Frank, Tenney (ed.): An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, Vol. 1, Octagon Books: New York, 1975
- Frier, Bruce W.: "More is Worse: Some Observations on the Population of the Roman Empire," Scheidel, WalterWalter ScheidelWalter Scheidel is an Austrian historian who teaches ancient history at Stanford University, California. Scheidel's main research interests are ancient social and economic history, pre-modern historical demography, and comparative and transdisciplinary approaches to world history.- Life :From 1984...
(ed.): Debating Roman Demography, Brill: Leiden, 2001 - Lo Cascio, ElioElio Lo CascioElio Lo Cascio is an Italian historian, who teaches Roman History at the Sapienza University of Rome. Lo Cascio's main research interests are the institutional, administrative, social and economic history of Ancient Rome from the Republic to the Late Empire, and Roman population history.- Life :Lo...
: "Recruitment and the Size of the Roman Population From the Third to the First Century BCE," Scheidel, Walter (ed.): Debating Roman Demography, Brill: Leiden, 2001 - Moreley, Neville: "The Transformation of Italy, 225-28 BCE," Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 91 (2001), pp. 50–62
- Rosenstein, Nathan: "Rome at War: Farms, Families, and Deaths in the Middle Republic", University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, NC, 2004
- Scheidel, WalterWalter ScheidelWalter Scheidel is an Austrian historian who teaches ancient history at Stanford University, California. Scheidel's main research interests are ancient social and economic history, pre-modern historical demography, and comparative and transdisciplinary approaches to world history.- Life :From 1984...
: "Progress and Problems in Ancient Demography," Scheidel, Walter (ed.): Debating Roman Demography, Brill: Leiden, 2001 - Scheidel, Walter; Morris, Ian; Saller, Richard (eds.): The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2007
- Scheidel, Walter: Roman Population Size: The Logic of the Debate, July 2007, Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics
External links
- Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics: Walter Scheidel on Roman demography and population history
- UNRV History: Roman Empire Population