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Classical Demography
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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 Western 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.
Ancient Greece and Greek colonies
Beginning in the 8th century BC, Greek city-states began colonizing the Mediterranean and
Black Sea coasts. Whether this sudden phenomenon was due to overpopulation, severe
droughts, or an escape for vanquished people (or a combination) is still in question.
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 5,000,000 to 6,000,000. This is over ten times the population of
Greece during the 8th century BC, about 700,000 people.
Greece proper
The geographical definition of Greece has fluctuated over time. While today the ancient
kingdom of Macedonia is always considered part of the Greek world, in the Classical Period
it was a distinct entity and even though Macedonians spoke Greek, they were not considered
as a part of Greece by lot of the classical writers. 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.
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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.
Magna Graecia
The population of Sicily 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 Greek colonization
The ancient Roman province of Cyrenaica in the eastern region of present-day Libya was
home to many hundreds of thousands of Greek, Latin and native 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.
Demography of the Hellenistic kingdoms
When urbanization began to take place, it was Pella which became the largest city. Kingdom
of Macedonia had 4 million people after the Wars of the Diadochi.
Ptolemaic Egypt
Greek historian Diodorus Siculus 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.
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Seleucid Empire
The population of the vast Seleucid Empire has been estimated to have been higher than 30
million.
Demography of the Roman Empire
There are many estimates of the population for the Roman Empire, 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).
Roman Italy
The total population of Roman Italy (south of the Po Valley) was estimated(by whom?) 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. The citizen count in the second centgury B.C. hovered between 250325,000 presumably males over the age of 13.
The census of 70/69 B.C. records 910,000 presumably due to the extension of citizenship to
the allies after the Social War of 91-88. Still, even if only males this seems like an
undercount. For the 1st and 2nd centuries BC, historians have developed two radically
different accounts, resting on different interpretations of the figures of 4,036,000 recorded for
the census carried out by Augustus in 28 BC, 4,233,000 in 8 BC, and 4,937,000 in 14 AD.
and almost 6 million during the reign of Claudius, not all of whom lived in Italy. Many lived
in Spain, Gaul and other parts of the Empire. If this only represents adult male citizens (or
some subset of adult male citizens those over age 13 as the census traditionally did), then the
population of Italy must have been around 10 million, not including slaves and foreigners,
which was 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
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census must now be counting all citizens, male and female over the age of 13 - 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.
Estimates for the population of mainland Italia, including Gallia Cisalpina, at the beginning
of the 1st Century AD range from 6,000,000 according to Beloch in 1886, 6,830,000
according to Russell in 1958, less than 10,000,000 according to Hin in 2007, and 14,000,000
according to Lo Cascio in 2009.
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 4thcentury 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 Pliny the Elder - but the majority were small,
with populations of just a few thousand. As much as 40% of the population might 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).
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