Harry Tuttle Posted January 23, 2008 Report Share Posted January 23, 2008 Hi, first time poster, long time admirer... I'm looking for information on population numbers for Mediterranean cities around the 2nd Punic War ~ 200BC. Specifically population regarding the Italian peninsula and North Africa. I don't suppose anyone has a nice list of estimated populations? If someone can give me some a link or information regarding the topic I would appreciate it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primus Pilus Posted January 24, 2008 Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 Hi, first time poster, long time admirer... I'm looking for information on population numbers for Mediterranean cities around the 2nd Punic War ~ 200BC. Specifically population regarding the Italian peninsula and North Africa. I don't suppose anyone has a nice list of estimated populations? If someone can give me some a link or information regarding the topic I would appreciate it. Hello Harry... I'm afraid I don't have much information for you, but I didn't want to leave your post seemingly ignored. I've seen many estimates on Rome itself, but next to nothing on other individual cities. In any case, many books suggest estimates for the Italian population as a whole... roughly 5 million seems to be a usual suspect. I've seen similar numbers for Carthage as a whole, but breaking this down between individual cities vs. North Africa, Sicily, Hispania, etc. is a different story altogether. In any case, you can rest assured that only the cities of Rome and Carthage in Italy and North Africa were approaching anything above 100,000. (Rome, Carthage and Syracuse in Sicily would've been the only cities with what we could call massive populations at this point... Rome somewhere right around 100,000, Carthage likely double that and Syracuse somewhere in between.) Of course there were other large cities... Alexandria, Athens, Antioch, etc. but these weren't direct factors in the Punic Wars. In any case, P.A. Brunt's "Italian Manpower 225 BC - AD 14" would be an excellent start, but it's a $300 book. Perhaps your local library has a copy though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Tuttle Posted January 25, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 25, 2008 Hello Harry... I'm afraid I don't have much information for you, but I didn't want to leave your post seemingly ignored. I've seen many estimates on Rome itself, but next to nothing on other individual cities. In any case, many books suggest estimates for the Italian population as a whole... roughly 5 million seems to be a usual suspect. I've seen similar numbers for Carthage as a whole, but breaking this down between individual cities vs. North Africa, Sicily, Hispania, etc. is a different story altogether. In any case, you can rest assured that only the cities of Rome and Carthage in Italy and North Africa were approaching anything above 100,000. (Rome, Carthage and Syracuse in Sicily would've been the only cities with what we could call massive populations at this point... Rome somewhere right around 100,000, Carthage likely double that and Syracuse somewhere in between.) Of course there were other large cities... Alexandria, Athens, Antioch, etc. but these weren't direct factors in the Punic Wars. In any case, P.A. Brunt's "Italian Manpower 225 BC - AD 14" would be an excellent start, but it's a $300 book. Perhaps your local library has a copy though. Thanks for the comments and the book. I will definitely check out our library system to see if they have a copy. A lack of population information for minor cities seems to be the norm as I search. Though as you commented there are rough estimates for the major cities. I'll keep searching the net for some figures, but as you said I probably won't find too much. Thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sullafelix Posted February 15, 2008 Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 There is a a lot of work being done in this area at the moment. Brunt's Italian Manpower, by the way, is unreadable (famous for it too!) do NOT attempt to pick it up and settle down with it for a good read. However, the information in it is pretty good. There has been other work done by an Italian called Lo Cascio - most people, including me, think that his hypothesis is fundamentally flawed but it is interesting. The only real way of estimating population we have had until recently has been by using census figures and military levy figures. The problem is that this really only gves a rough figure for men over the age of 17 (in the Roman world). Population can be roughly extrapolated from these figures though. That said there is so much guesswork that goes into this process that we don't really know if the figures are anything other than half-informed wishful thinking. More recently people have started using demographic life tables from the post-medieval and modern era to look at the way ancient populations would have behaved, what their age distribution was life expectancy and things like that. You might want to look at the work of a guy called Walter Scheidel, he writes extensively on ancient demography in the Journal of Roman Studies and has recently brought out a book which I am sure you could find by googling his name. A word of caution here too though, this is all the rage at the moment but ther are many people who remain unconvnced abou the validity of imposing the behaviours of modern societies on those in the ancient world (and yes you guessed it I am that sceptic!). I could go on, but to be honest most people find ancient population studies just about as tedious as you can get so I don't want to bore you, but if you need any more help or pointing in the right direction let me know. I may even have some of Scheidel's articles as pdfs somwhere if you don't have Jstor access (that doesn't infringe any laws does it?!) Cheers SF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Tuttle Posted February 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2008 Wow, thank you very much! Please bore me. I'm a tax accountant who researches IRS tax regs. I can take it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sullafelix Posted February 23, 2008 Report Share Posted February 23, 2008 Wow, thank you very much! Please bore me. I'm a tax accountant who researches IRS tax regs. I can take it. Hi Sorry for the delay. Right, you work in exactly the right area to understand this! The fertility transition is something that is said to happen in a society when it reaches the point where parents no longer have children in large numbers due to high infant mortality and their own need to to be supported in later life. This means that the age distribution of a population will reflect the growing average age. Life expectancy increases and fertility drops. It is a function of the increase in the standard of living as societies mature. The issue as I see it is that the Life tables used by demographers (for ancient and modern societies) rely, by definition on data from peroids when data was reliable. We do not have reliable data for anything other than post-transition societies, therefore we are not comparing like for like when we use these tables to map population trends in the ancient world. Becaus all ancient socities were pre-transition societies. There are mays of working out population in a small geographic area and extrapolating. Using archaeology you can look at the population size of a given settlement and if you have more than one excavated settlement you can look a this as a norm or average. Its clumsy but is is based in reality. Let me know if there is anything else I can numb your mind with! Cheers SF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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