Roman Census In The Late Republican Period.

[WotWotius]

'After the spectacles, a census of the people was taken, and instead of the 320 000 of the preceding lists there were enrolled only 150 000. So great was the calamity which the civil wars had wrought, and so large a portion of the people of Rome had they consumed away, to say nothing of the misfortunes that possessed the rest of Italy and the provinces.' -Plutarch's life of Caesar.

 

I am curious to know whether or not these figures are accurate. Could civil war have decimated Rome's populace so greatly? I find hard to believe that any civil war could half the population of one of the greatest cities of the age. Even if it did, surely the great loss of life would have documented in less of a 'matter of factly' way that Plutarch gives. Furthermore, later census' taken by Augustus give figures of around half a million:

 

'...the number of Roman citizens was 4,063,000. Again in the consulship of Gaius Censorinus and Gaius Asinus [8 B.C.] I [took the census, when] the number of Roman citizens was 4,230,000. A third time...in the consulship of Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius [14 A.D.], with Tiberius Caesar as colleague, I [took the census when] the number of Roman citizens was 4,937,000.' Res Gestae

 

Clearly Rome population quadrupling from the time of Caesar to Principate of Augustus, is a very unbelievable concept to grasp.

 

Or was it a mistake of Caesar's? Perhaps the previous figure given by Plutarch was the population of the Italian peninsula, and Caesar's later Census only counted the populace of Rome. Maybe Caesar's census did not include females.

 

What are your views?

 

Additionally, I was wondering if there are any other sources regarding Rome's population during the late Republic.

[sullafelix]

I am curious to know whether or not these figures are accurate. Could civil war have decimated Rome's populace so greatly? I find hard to believe that any civil war could half the population of one of the greatest cities of the age. Even if it did, surely the great loss of life would have documented in less of a 'matter of factly' way that Plutarch gives. Furthermore, later census' taken by Augustus give figures of around half a million:

 

 

 

Additionally, I was wondering if there are any other sources regarding Rome's population during the late Republic.

 

Civil war is particularly decimating for a population for many reasons. Perhaps the first thing to say about it is that it is not really casualties that we need to think about in terms of the effect on populations. The real effect is the reduction in fertility. men of reproductive age die removing their reproductive potential and and those that are not killed are often not able to reproduce. Similarly women have no access to men and well without that as we all know.... the Roman Census was taken at infrequent enough intervals to show up this sort of discrepancy.

 

Secondly civil war decimates the land of both sides further causing malnutrition and death. Malnutrition is also a major factor in fertility.

 

Thirdly the effects of civil war are also punitive for the losing side, even if the losing side make up part of the overall population. Caesar was very forgiving but there were many exiles and suicides in the time following the war.

 

Appian is the other main primary source on the Civil Wars. However, if you want information on the population the place to go is, unfortunately because it is famously unreadable!!, P>A> Brunt's Italian Manpower. The other ones you should have a look at are E. Lo Cascio Journal of Roman Studies (JRS) "The Size of the Roman Population: Beloch and the Meaning of the Augustan Census Figures" (1994) Vol 84 , Keith Hopkins "Conquerors and Slaves" and also anything written by Walter Scheidel ( of which there are a series of articles also contained in the Journal of Roman Studies in 2004/5 for a modern approach to demographic modelling in the classical world (also mainly journal articles). I have to say that I fundamentally disagree with Scheidel myself for various reasons but he is certainly an important scholar in this area.

 

Hope this helps

 

SF

Edited October 22, 2006 by sullafelix

[Kosmo]

Reading the quotes it seems to me that in the first case it's about the number of roman citizens in the city of Rome and the second about the number of citizens in the empire.

The loss of half of citizens, does not mean the lose of half of the population of the city. We can believe that female population, slaves, the others without roman citizeship and foreigners suffered much less.

It was the citizen class that suffered the most because they were still the manpower of the legions (toghether with italians) and the target of repressions.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Isn't there a simple reconciliation of the two figures? The smaller figure of 300,000 refers to the inhabitants of Rome who were eligible for the corn dole, whereas the larger number (1.5 million) counts the total number of Roman citizens. That's how Brunt describes the situation.

Edited December 4, 2006 by M. Porcius Cato