Classical demography 4379785 219989711 2008-06-17T19:52:52Z SmackBot 433328 Date the maintenance tags or general fixes {{expert-portal|History}} '''Classical demography''' refers to the study of human [[demography]] in the [[Classical antiquity|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 [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] and [[Roman Empire|Roman]] civilizations followed by a steep decline caused by economic and social disruption, [[Migrations Period|migrations]], and a return to primarily [[subsistence agriculture]]. ==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 [[drought]]s, or an escape for vanquished people (or a combination) is still in question. ===Greece proper=== The population of Greece itself is hard to estimate as the definition of what Greece was has fluctuated over time. While today [[Macedonia (Greece)|Macedonia]] is considered a part of the Greek-world, in the Classical Period it was a kingdom with a strange dialect (before adopting the [[Attic dialect]]). Similarly, [[Ionia]] in modern day [[Turkey]] is no longer considered to be a part of the Hellenistic sphere of influence,{{Fact|date=June 2008}} although beginning in the [[1st millennium BC]] it was densely populated by Greek-speaking peoples and an important influence on [[Greek culture]]. Estimates as to what the population of the Greeks was in the coast and islands of the [[Aegean Sea]] during the [[5th century BC]] vary from 800,000 <ref>[http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~bjoseph/articles/gancient.htm http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~bjoseph/articles/gancient.htm] Brian D Joseph - Ohio State University Department of Linguistics</ref> to over 3,000,000. <ref>[[Demographics of Greece]]</ref> The city of [[Athens]] in the [[4th century BC]] had a population of 60,000 non-foreign free males. If one were to factor in [[slaves]], women, and foreign-born peoples the number of people residing in the city was probably in the range of 350,000 to 500,000 people, of which 160,000 lived inside the city proper. Recently, the classical scholar Mogens Hansen calculated the population of the entire ancient civilization in the 4th century BC. He arrived at estimates that range from 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 people, these estimates are over ten times the size of the population of Greece 450 years before during the 8th century BC, estimated at 700,000 people. This was the total population of Greece proper plus the populations of Sicily, the coast of western Asia Minor and the Black Sea. ===[[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, Sicily|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 [[Cyrenaica]] in the region of present-day Eastern [[Libya]] was home to many hundreds of thousands of Greek, Latin, and Jewish communities. Originally settled by Greek colonists, five important settlements ([[Cyrene, Libya|Cyrene]], [[Barca]], Euesperides, [[Apollonia, Cyrenaica|Apollonia]], and Tauchira) formed the pentapolis.<ref>[http://www.livius.org/ct-cz/cyrenaica/cyrenaica.html http://www.livius.org/ct-cz/cyrenaica/cyrenaica.html]</ref> 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== ===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. <ref>Delia, Diana. "The Population of Roman Alexandria." [[Transactions of the American Philological Association]] 118 (1988): 275-92. </ref> Of this, he states that 300,000 citizens lived within the city of Alexandria. The total population of Alexandria ranged from 500,000 to 1,000,000. ===Seleucid Empire=== The population of the vast Seleucid Empire 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 Empire]], that range from 45 million to 120 million. Most modern estimates range from 55 to 65 million. ''The estimated population of the empire during the reign of [[Augustus]]:'' <ref>John D. Durand, ''Historical Estimates of World Population: An Evaluation'', 1977, pp. 253-296.</ref> <table width="400" border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"> <tr align="center"> <td>'''Region'''</td> <td>'''Population (in millions)'''</td> </tr> <tr align="center"> <td>Total Empire</td> <td>56.8</td> </tr> <tr align="center"> <td>European part</td> <td>31.6</td> </tr> <tr align="center"> <td>Asian part</td> <td>14.0</td> </tr> <tr align="center"> <td>North African part</td> <td>11.2</td> </tr> </table> ===[[Italia (Roman Empire)|Roman Italy]]=== The total population of Roman [[Italy]] (south of the 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.<ref>P.A.Brunt, ''Italian Manpower'', Oxford 1971: 44-60</ref> For the first and second 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.<ref>Brunt, op. cit., 121-30</ref>. The majority of historians favour the latter interpretation as being more demographically plausible, but the issue remains contentious.<ref>cf. N.Morley, 'The transformation of Italy', ''Journal of Roman Studies'' 91 (2001); W.Scheidel, ed., ''Debating Roman Demography'' (Leiden, 2001)</ref> 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 fourth-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.<ref>N.Morley, ''Metropolis and Hinterland'' (Cambridge, 1996) 33-9</ref> 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).<ref>ibid., 174-83</ref> Rome's population seems to have contracted by the mid-third century AD, as Aurelian's wall enclosed an area smaller than the 14 Regions established by Augustus. Also, the declining volume of shipping in the Mediterranean sea supports this hypothesis. ==See also== *[[Medieval demography]] *[[Colonies in antiquity]] ==References== <!--This article uses the Cite.php citation mechanism. If you would like more information on how to add references to this article, please see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php --> {{reflist}} [[Category:Demography]] [[Category:Population]] [[Category:Classical studies]]