Superphysics Superphysics
Essay 11d

The Population of Ancient Rome and Italy

by David Hume Icon
16 minutes  • 3273 words
Table of contents

Ancient Housing

Halicarnassæus says that:

The ancient walls of Rome were nearly of the same compass with those of Athens, but that the suburbs ran out to a great extent. It was difficult to tell, where the town ended or the country began.

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:

“There are great herds of swine throughout all Italy, particularly in former times, through Etruria and Cisalpine Gaul. A herd consists of over 1,000 swine. When one of these herds in feeding meets with another, they mix. The swine-herds separate them by going to different quarters where they sound their horn. These animals run to the horn of his own keeper. In Greece, if the herds of swine happen to mix in the forests, he who has the greater flock, cunningly drives all away. Thieves take the straggling hogs which wander away from their keeper in search of food."

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:

“A city cannot subsist, if it has so few inhabitants as 10 or so many as 100,000. So is there a mediocrity required in the number of friends. You destroy the essence of friendship by running into either extreme.”

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.

Global warming

L’Abbe du Bos observes that modern Italy is warmer than ancient Italy:

“In 480 AD, the winter was so severe that it destroyed the trees. The Tyber froze in Rome and the ground was covered with snow for 40 days. When Juvenal describes a superstitious woman, he represents her as breaking the ice of the Tyber to perform her ablutions. It speaks of that river’s freezing as a common event. Many passages of Horace suppose the streets of Rome full of snow and ice. But their writers give us information that the winters are now much more temperate at Rome than before. At present, the Tiber no more freezes at Rome than the Nile at Cairo. The Romans esteem the winters very rigorously – if the snow lies two days, and if one sees icicles hang from a fountain that has a north exposure for 48 hours.”

His observation may be extended to other European climates. Who could discover the mild climate of France in his description of the climate of Gaul?

Diodorus Siculus says:

As it is a northern climate, it is infested with extreme cold. In cloudy weather, instead of rain there are great snows. In clear weather, it freezes so hard that the rivers become bridges which large armies can pass over. There are many rivers in Gaul, the Rhone, the Rhine, etc. almost all of them are frozen over. To prevent falling, the ice is covered with chaff and straw at the places where the road passes.

Petronius uses the proverbial expression “Colder than a Gallic Winter”

Aristotle says that Gaul has so cold a climate that an ass could not live in it.

Strabo says that, of the Cevennes, Gaul:

  • produces no figs and olives
  • its vines do not bear grapes that will ripen.

? seriously affirms that the Euxine sea was frozen over every winter in his time. He appeals to Roman governours of the truth of his assertion. At present, this seldom or never happens. Ovid lived there and complains of a rigour of the seasons, which is scarcely experienced at present in Petersburgh or Stockholm.

A Provençal, who had travelled into the same country, observes, that there is not a finer climate in the world. He asserts, that nothing but Ovid’s melancholy could have given him such dismal ideas of it.

But the facts by Ovid are too circumstantial to bear any such interpretation. He says that the climate in Arcadia was very cold and the air moist.

Varro says:

Italy is the most temperate climate in Europe. The inland parts (Gaul, Germany, and Pannonia) have almost perpetual winter.

Strabo says that the northern parts of Spain are ill inhabited because of the great cold. This means that Europe is become warmer than before.

This warming is caused by the cultivation of land which causes woods to be cleared. The woods formerly shaded the earth and kept the rays of the sun from penetrating to it.

Our northern colonies in America become more temperate as the woods are felled. But generally, cold is still much more severely felt both in North and South America, than in places under the same latitude in Europe.

Columella affirmed that:

  • the disposition of the heavens was altered before his time, and
  • the air had become much milder and warmer
    • It caused many places to abound with vineyards and olive plantations

Such a change, if real, is an evident sign of the better cultivation and peopling of countries before the age of Saserna. If it continued to the present times, it is a proof, that these advantages have been continually encreasing throughout this part of the world.

The Ancient vs Modern

People say that modern times are more empty and desolate than the ancient times. But there is little evidence for it.

Syria, the Lesser Asia, the coast of Barbary

The above are now deserts compared to their ancient condition.

Egypt

Maillet has the best account of Egypt. He describes it as extremely populous, but its population has diminished.

Greece

The depopulation of Greece is also obvious.

Turkey

Turkey did not have more people during the flourishing period of Greece. The Thracians then lived like the present Tatars, by pasturage and plunder. The Getes were still more uncivilized and the Illyrians were no better. These occupy 90% of Turkey. The Turkish government is not very favourable to industry and propagation. Yet it preserves peace and order and is preferable to that barbarous, unsettled ancient condition.

Moscow

Moscow is now not populous, but was more populous than ancient Sarmatia and Scythia which had no husbandry or tillage and where pasturage was the sole art.

Denmark and Sweden

The same can be said of Denmark and Sweden. Immense swarms of people came from the North and overran all Europe. If half of a nation’s population goes overseas and invades, it would strike terror in the defenders. This terror would make those invaders appear to be more and braver.

Scotland

Scotland is neither large nor populous. But were the half of its people went overseas, they would form a colony as numerous as the Teutons and Cimbri. They would shake all Europe. It now surely has 20 times more inhabitants than in ancient times, when they cultivated no ground, and each tribe valued itself on the extensive desolation which it spread around, as we learn from Cæsar, Tacitus, and Strabo.

Britain

Herodian says that all Britain was marshy, even in Severus’s time, after the Romans had been fully settled in it over a century. It is a proof that the division into small republics will not alone render a nation populous, unless attended with peace, order, and industry. The barbarous condition of ancient Britain is well known. Its small population is due to their barbarity.

Gaul

The Gauls were anciently much more advanced in the arts of life than their northern neighbours; since they travelled to this island for their education in the mysteries of the religion and philosophy of the Druids.

Ancient Gaul was not as populous as France is at present. Appian and Diodorus Siculus, however, say of the incredible populousness in Gaul. Appian says that Gaul had 400 nations. Diodorus Siculus says that the largest of the Gallic nations had 200,000 men, besides women and children, and the smallest had 50,000. Therefore, Gaul would have nearly 200 million people when it has only 20 million today.

Wrong estimates

Such calculations are not credible because of their extravagance. The populousness of antiquity is ascribed to the equality of property. But property had no place among the Gauls. Their wars, before Cæsar’s time, were almost perpetual. Strabo observes that, though all Gaul was cultivated, it was not cultivated with skill or care.

The genius of the Gauls led more to arms that to arts, until their slavery under Rome produced peace among themselves. Caesar enumerates the great forces which were levied in Belgium to oppose his conquests to be 208,000. These were not the whole people able to bear arms.

Strabo tells us that the Bellovaci could have brought 100,000 men into the field, though they engaged only for 60,000. Taking the whole, therefore, in this proportion of ten to six, the sum of fighting men in all the states of Belgium was about 350,000. all the inhabitants 1.5 million.

Belgium was 1/4 of Gaul which had 6 million, which is not near 1/3 of its present population. Cæsar tells us that the Gauls had no fixed property in land. But that the chieftains, when any death happened in a family, made a new division of all the lands among the several members of the family.

This is the custom of Tanistry, which so long prevailed in Ireland, and which retained that country in a state of misery, barbarism, and desolation.ancient Helvetia was 250 miles in length, and 180 in breadth, according to the same author yet contained only 360,000 inhabitants.

The canton of Berne alone has, at present, as many people.this computation of Appian and Diodorus Siculus, I know not, whether I dare affirm, that the modern Dutch are more numerous than the ancient Batavi.is, perhaps, decayed from what it was 300 years ago.

But if we went back 2,000 years and consider the restless, turbulent, unsettled condition of its inhabitants, we might think it to be now much more populous.

Spain

Many Spaniards killed themselves, when deprived of their arms by the Romans. Plutarch says that robbery and plunder were honourable among the Spaniards. Hirtius also describes Spain in the same light during Cæsar’s time. He says that every man was obliged to live in castles and walled towns for security.

It was not till its final conquest under Augustus, that these disorders were repressed. The accounts of Strabo and Justin of Spain matches those above mentioned.

Tully compared [modern] Italy, Afric, Gaul, Greece, and Spain. He mentions the large Spanish population which made Spain formidable. This further reduces our idea of the populousness of antiquity. Spain now has decayed yet still has many great cities.

Venice, Genoa, Pavia, Turin, Milan, Naples, Florence, Leghorn were all very inconsiderable in ancient times.

Food Policy

We allow Vossius to read the famous passage of the elder Pliny his own way, without admitting the extravagant consequences which he draws from it.

The number of citizens who received grain by the public distribution in the time of Augustus was 200,000.

Such a computation means that the grain was only for the poorer citizens. But Cicero says that the rich could also take their portion.

The portion every month was five modii to each, around ⅚ of a bushel. This was too little for a family, but too much for a person.

To get this grain, a citizen merely had to present himself. Cæsar immediately removed 170,000 who had creeped but were ineligible.

Roman authors complain that Italy, which formerly exported grain, became dependent on all the provinces for its daily bread. They ascribe this to the neglect of tillage and agriculture and never to the population encrease. The neglect is a natural effect of that pernicious practice of importing grain, in order to distribute it for free among the Roman citizens. It is a very bad means of increasing a country’s population size.

The sportula were presents regularly made by the great lords to their smaller clients. These were so much talked of by Martial and Juvenal. These had a like tendency to produce idleness, debauchery, and a continual decay among the people. The current parish-rates have the same bad consequences in England.

The age of Trajan and the Antonines is the part of European history when the ancient population could have been bigger than the current one.

the great extent of the Roman empire being then civilized and cultivated, settled almost in a profound peace both foreign and domestic, and living under the same regular police and government.

But all large governments, especially absolute monarchies, are:

  • pernicious to population, and
  • have a hidden vice and poison, which destroy their good effects

Plutarch was wrong

Plutarch accounts for the silence of many oracles to the desolation from former wars and factions. Such a common calamity fell on Greece more than on any other country to the point that Greece could only furnish 3,000. It was the same number that city of Megara supplied during the Median war. The gods, therefore have suppressed many of their oracles.

Plutarch assigns the cause of Europe’s decay to former wars of several states, and not the extensive dominion of the Romans. He asserts that Greece had become more prosperous after the Roman yoke came. He lived before the Romans had degenerated into being the plunderers of mankind.

Yet Tacitus says that the severity of the emperors afterwards corrected the licence of the governors.

Strabo says that the Romans, from their regard to the Greeks, maintained to his time, most of the privileges and liberties of Greece and that Nero afterwards increased them.

How therefore can we imagine, that the Roman yoke was so burdensome over Greece? The votes of the people:

  • checked the oppression of the proconsuls
  • bestowed the magistracies in Greece

There was no need for the competitors to attend the emperor’s court. If great numbers went to seek their fortunes in Rome, and advance themselves by learning or eloquence, the commodities of their native country, many of them would return with the fortunes which they had acquired, and thereby enrich the Greek commonwealths.

Plutarch says that the general depopulation had been more sensibly felt in Greece than in any other country. But this is inconsistent with the superior privileges and advantages of the Greeks. His passage proves too much and so really proves nothing. Only 3,000 men were able to bear arms in all Greece!

Greece has 10 times more people at present than in the past. It is is still cultivated and furnishes grain to Spain, Italy, or southern France in case of scarcity.

Lucian implies that the ancient Greek frugality and equality of property still subsisted during the age of Plutarch.

Greece did not have a few masters and many slaves. Military discipline might have been extremely neglected in Greece after the establishment of the Roman empire. The Greek commonwealths could be maintained each by a small city-guard of 3,000 men throughout all Greece.

Diodorus Siculus’ account contradicts that of Plutarch. Diodorus Siculus says:

  • that Ninus’s army had 1,700,000 foot and 200,000 horse.
  • that we must not assume ancient populousness from the present depopulation.

He who lived at that very period of antiquity which is represented as most populous but

  • complains of the desolation which prevailed, and
  • gives preference to former times, and
  • has recourse to ancient fables as a foundation for his opinion.

The humour of blaming the present and admiring the past is strongly rooted in human nature. It has an influence even on learned persons.

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