Classical demography

The geographical definition of Greece has fluctuated over time. While today the ancient kingdom of Macedonia is always considered part of the Greek world, in the Classical Period it was a distinct entity and even though Macedonian language was part of the Greek dialect continuum, they were not considered as a part of Greece by some Athenian writers. Similarly, almost all modern residents of historical Ionia, now part of Turkey, speak the Turkish language, although from the 1st millennium BC Ionia was densely populated by Greek-speaking people and an important part of Greek culture.

Estimates of the population of Greek speakers in the coast and islands of the Aegean Sea during the 5th century BC vary from 800,000[1] to over 3,000,000. In Athens and Attica in the 5th century BC, there were at least 150,000 Athenians, around 50,000 aliens, and more than 100,000 slaves or perhaps higher in the range of 350,000 to 500,000 people, of which 160,000 normally resided inside the city and port. These are not accurate statistics.

The ancient Roman province of Cyrenaica in the eastern region of present-day Libya was home to many several hundred thousand Greek, Latin and native communities. Originally settled by Greek colonists, five important settlements (Cyrene, Barca, Euesperides, Apollonia, and Tauchira) formed a pentapolis.[2] The fertility of the land, the exportation of silphium, and its location between Carthage and Alexandria made it a magnet for settlement.

Greek historian Diodorus Siculus estimated that 7,000,000 inhabitants resided in Egypt during his lifetime before its annexation by the Roman Empire.[5] Of this, he states that 300,000 citizens lived within the city of Alexandria.

The population of the vast Seleucid Empire has been estimated to have been higher than 30 million.[4]

The Romans carried out a regular census of citizens eligible for military service (Polybius 2.23), but for the population of the rest of Italy at this time we have to rely on a single report of the military strength of Rome's allies in 227 BC – and guess the numbers of those who were opposed to Rome at this time.[9] The citizen count in the second century B.C. hovered between 250–325,000 presumably males over the age of 13.

The census of 70/69 B.C. records 910,000 presumably due to the extension of citizenship to the allies after the Social War of 91–88. Still, even if only males this seems like an undercount. For the 1st and 2nd centuries BC, historians have developed two radically different accounts, resting on different interpretations of the figures of 4,036,000 recorded for the census carried out by Augustus in 28 BC, 4,233,000 in 8 BC, and 4,937,000 in 14 AD. and almost 6 million during the reign of Claudius, not all of whom lived in Italy. Many lived in Spain, Gaul and other parts of the Empire. If this only represents adult male citizens (or some subset of adult male citizens those over age 13 as the census traditionally did not count children until they were formally enrolled as citizens early in puberty), then the population of Italy must have been around 10 million, not including slaves and foreigners, which was a striking, sustained increase despite the Romans' losses in the almost constant wars over the previous two centuries. Others find this entirely incredible, and argue that the census must now be counting all citizens, male and female over the age of 13 – in which case the population had declined slightly, something which can readily be attributed to war casualties and to the crisis of the Italian peasantry.[10] The majority of historians favour the latter interpretation as being more demographically plausible, but the issue remains contentious.[11]

Estimates for the population of mainland Italia, including Gallia Cisalpina, at the beginning of the 1st Century AD range from 6,000,000 according to Beloch in 1886, 6,830,000 according to Russell in 1958, less than 10,000,000 according to Hin in 2007,[12] and 14,000,000 according to Lo Cascio in 2009.[13]

Evidence for the population of Rome itself or of the other cities of Roman Italy is equally scarce. For the capital, estimates have been based on the number of houses listed in 4th-century AD guidebooks, on the size of the built-up area, and on the volume of the water supply, all of which are problematic; the best guess is based on the number of recipients of the grain dole under Augustus, 200,000, implying a population of around 800,000–1,200,000.[14] Italy had numerous urban centres – over 400 are listed by Pliny the Elder – but the majority were small, with populations of just a few thousand. As much as 40% of the population might have lived in towns (25% if the city of Rome is excluded), on the face of it an astonishingly high level of urbanisation for a pre-industrial society. However, studies of later periods would not count the smallest centres as 'urban'; if only cities of 10,000+ are counted, Italy's level of urbanisation was a more realistic (but still impressive) 25% (11% excluding Rome).[15]