The Population of Ancient Rome and Italy

Ancient Housing

Halicarnassæus says that:

Halicarnassæus, Juvenal, and other ancient writers say that the Roman houses were high and families lived in separate storeys, one above another.

But these were probably only the poorer citizens in a few streets.

Younger Pliny says his own house, and from Bartoli’s plans of ancient buildings, that:

• the men of quality had very spacious palaces.
• their buildings were like the Chinese houses at this day, where each apartment is separated from the rest, and rises no higher than a single storey.

To which if we add, that the Roman nobility much affected extensive porticoes, and even woods in town.

The proportion of slaves to citizens

Athens cannot be the rule for Rome. Perhaps the Athenians had more slaves because they employed them in manufactures. But manufactures are not so proper for a capital city like Rome. Perhaps, the Romans had more slaves because of their superior riches.

Suetonius says that in one season, 30,000 names were carried to the temple of Libitina for burial during a plague.

Herodian tells us that Antioch and Alexandria were very little inferior to Rome.

Diodorus Siculus tells us that one straight street of Alexandria reaching from gate to gate, was five miles long. Alexandria was longer than wider and was nearly the size of Paris. Rome might be about the size of London. In Diodorus Siculus’s time, 300,000 free people, including women and children, lived in Alexandria.

How many were the slaves?

If they were equal in number to the citizens, it would favour the foregoing computation.

Cultivation

Herodian asserts that the Emperor’s palace (Nero’s golden house) was as large as the rest of the city. Suetonius and Pliny say that this palace had a enormous extent.

Herodian only mentions it in relating the quarrels between Geta and Caracalla. According to him, much land was then uncultivated. He praises Pertinax for allowing everyone to take such land either in Italy or elsewhere, and cultivate it as he pleased without paying any taxes.

Only some remote parts of Hungary had uncultivated lands in Christendom. This is inconsistent with the extreme populousness of antiquity. Vopiscus says that Etruria had fertile uncultivated land. Emperor Aurelian intended to convert them into vineyards to furnish Rome with wine.

Polybius mentions a very proper expedient for depopulating Rome and all the neighbouring territories:

We can infer from this that Greece and the north of Italy was then much less peopled and worse cultivated than at present. These vast herds could not be fed in a country so full of inclosures, so improved by agriculture, so divided by farms, so planted with vines and grain.

Polybius’s account is more consistent with the economy in our American colonies, than that of a European country.

Urban Population

Aristotle’s Ethics is unaccountable on any supposition and proves nothing. Aristotle says that friendship should neither be contracted to a very few nor extended to so many. He says:

Aristotle had never seen nor heard of a city with over 100,000 people. Seleucia, the seat of the Greek empire in the East, was reported to contain 600,000 people. Strabo says that Carthage had 700,000.

Beijing’s population is not so much larger. London, Paris, and Constantinople, might have the same population. At least, the two latter cities do not exceed it. Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, we have already spoken of.

From the experience of past and present ages, one might conjecture that there is a kind of impossibility, that any city could ever rise much beyond this proportion.

Whether the grandeur of a city be founded on commerce or on empire, there seem to be invincible obstacles, which prevent its farther progress. The seats of vast monarchies, by introducing extravagant luxury, irregular expence, idleness, dependence, and false ideas of rank and superiority, are improper for commerce.

Extensive commerce checks itself, by raising the price of all labour and commodities. When a great court entertains many wealthy noblemen, the middling gentry remain in their provincial towns, where they can make a figure on a moderate income.

If the dominions of a state become enormous, there necessarily arise many capitals. These reduce the population of the remoter provinces, leaving a few courtiers and teachers, businesses, and entertainment.

London unites extensive commerce and a middling empire. It has perhaps achieved such a greatness unrivaled by no other city. With Dover or Calais as the center, draw a circle of 200 miles radius. This encircles London, Paris, the Netherlands, the United Provinces, and some of the best cultivated parts of France and England.

No spot of ground can be found, in antiquity, of equal extent, which had so many populous cities stocked with riches.