Population of Roman Empire

Attempting to assess the number of inhabitants of the Roman Empire throughout history is an extremely difficult task that has been faced and faced to this day by many scientists. The main reason for this is that there are not many reliable sources on this topic. One of the most credible analyzes is the position of the Polish historian Wiesław Suder entitled “Census populi. Demografia starożytnego Rzymu” or books by historian Kyle Harper.

It is a great difficulty for researchers to determine the approximate population inhabiting selected ancient urban centres – such as Rome, Alexandria or Athens. We do have censuses of the civilian population, of course, but the biggest problem is still understanding how large, for example, the slave population was in the areas.

Population of the Roman state

In the 5th century BCE Italia meant only its southern part, in the 3rd century BCE all areas under the control of Rome. In the time of Julius Caesar, the area stretched from the Strait of Messina to the Rubicon River. At that time, Pre-Alpine Gaul in the Po River valley and Liguria were not considered part of it. About 27 BCE during the reign of Augustus, Italy had already reached the foothills of the Alps. Italy throughout antiquity did not include Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica.

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The first credible records of the population of the Roman state appear in the 4th century BCE. The earlier period is marked by numerous indications that allow the assumption that there was a significant demographic expansion in areas of intense urban development, such as in Greater Greece and Etruria, unlike the situation. demographic in the Apennine Peninsula and the Po Plain.

A high rate of demographic growth certainly occurred in the Latin area in the 4th century BCE. This can be deduced from the number of Latin colonies founded by the Roman state during the conquest of Italy. The territorial conquests after the Latin Wars in 340-338 BCE increased the area of the Roman state to 7,000 square kilometres. At that time, they were inhabited by about 600 thousand people with Roman citizenship (this is a hypothetical number, resulting from multiplication by four of the number of approx. 150 thousand adult men subject to the census; thus we also include families), with an average of 85 people per sq. km.

In 265 BCE, the Roman Republic covered a territory of 24 thousand. sq km, with a population of 1,168,936 (multiplied by four 292,234 adult males in the previous year’s census) and an average of 49 people per sq km. the population continued to migrate to the Latin colonies, which were autonomous from Rome.

In 225 BCE the average number of people controlled by Rome dropped to as much as 27 people per square kilometre. To this number should be added the population of allied cities and peoples – then we get about 132 people per square kilometre with a total population of 3.6 million people.

Rome during the Second Punic War clearly lost from the demographic growth, which resulted from large personnel losses during military campaigns. This is confirmed by the census carried out in 209 BCE – Rome then had about 137,000 Roman citizens, while in 234 BCE there were about 270,000 citizens.

At the end of the 2nd century BCE, the number of adult males reached 400,000, and in the 90-88 BCE, when the entire Peninsula was absorbed by Rome, it reached 910,000 (data from the 69 BCE census). The total population can only be determined if we also include slaves and peregrini, that is, foreigners. We can estimate this number at that time at around 4 million people. The territories within the republic were around 165,000. km, where there were 22.5 people per 1 sq km.

Civil wars led to a significant reduction in the population. Only the victory of Octavian Augustus in 31 BCE at Actium and the end of the wars brought about a demographic improvement. This was achieved mainly through the settlement of veterans in rural areas and urban development, especially in the Po Plain. Moreover, other lands, including Egypt, were incorporated into the Empire’s borders.

The census of 14 CE recorded about 5 million citizens of Rome (including women with children aged 1-2), not including the approximately 500,000 legionaries, officials and traders who lived in the provinces. Assessing the number of peregrini at around 500,000 and slaves (about 1 million), this gives us a population of about 6 million peop